The dark markings visible on the near side of the Moon have been subject since ancient times to istances of pareidolia, the tendency to find familiar structures in natural features and artificial objects that have none. Throughout the ages, different cultures have seen various shapes while looking at the Moon, often linked with their mythology…
Zombies are one of the most popular and common creatures in the modern horror genre, being featured in countless movies, series, and novels. While now the characteristics of zombies are pretty well defined and uniform across different works of fiction, their features have changed and evolved since their first appearance in popular culture in the…
According to Korean tradition, Dangun was the mythical founder of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom that ruled over a territory stretching between the modern-day Liaoning Province in Northeast China and the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula in ancient times. The myth of Dangun first appeared in the 13th-century Samguk Yusa, a historical record that…
The seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar is celebrated across East Asia as one of the most important festivities of the year, known as Double Seventh Festival. This traditional festival originated in China, where it is known as Qixi, and was later adopted in Japan as Tanabata and in Korea…
The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the most important traditional Chinese holidays, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar, corresponding to late May or June in the Gregorian calendar. For this reason, it is also known as Double Fifth Festival. In 2023, the Dragon Boat Festival…
There is a wide range of different writing systems all around the world, but a large majority of them share one common ancestor: the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. From the Latin alphabet to the Arabic script, from Ethiopian characters to Mongolian writing, and probably even the South Asian systems, they all derive from the hieroglyphs used…