Showing posts with label Unicorns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unicorns. Show all posts
Sunday, December 9, 2012
North Korea Discovered A 'Unicorn Lair'
North Korea Says Its Archaeologists Discovered A 'Unicorn Lair'
EYDER PERALTA
November 30, 2012
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/11/30/166265699/north-korea-says-its-archaeologists-discovered-a-unicorn-lair
It's not the first time we've heard fantastical news from North Korea's state news agency. And if you thought the "peculiar natural wonders" would be buried along with the Dear Leader, my were you mistaken.
Today, the Korean Central News Agency said that archaeologists from the History Institute of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea "reconfirmed" the "lair of a unicorn" that was ridden by King Tongmyong.
Via the Japan-based Korean News Agency, which distributes KCNA news, here's a bit more of the breaking development:
The lair is located 200 meters from the Yongmyong Temple in Moran Hill in Pyongyang City. A rectangular rock carved with words "Unicorn Lair" stands in front of the lair. The carved words are believed to date back to the period of Koryo Kingdom (918-1392).
Jo Hui Sung, director of the Institute, told KCNA:
"Korea's history books deal with the unicorn, considered to be ridden by King Tongmyong, and its lair."
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Wild Okapi Caught on Film -- A First
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080911-unicorn-photo.htmlPHOTO IN THE NEWS: Wild Okapi Caught on Film -- A First
September 11, 2008—The okapi—a secretive rain forest animal so elusive it has been compared to the unicorn—has been photographed for the first time in the wild, scientists with the Zoological Society of London reported yesterday.
The giraffe-like mammal with a distinctive zebra-striped rump was caught last month by trip-wire cameras set up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park.
The new pictures prove that okapi still inhabit the central African wildlife reserve, despite more than a decade of armed conflict in the region that has been taking its toll on Virunga's wildlife, said the society's conservation program manager Noelle Kumpel.
The total okapi population in Virunga is estimated to be 200 individuals. But a new survey of local bush-meat markets shows that at least one okapi a week is being killed illegally, Kumpel said.
"If the current rate of hunting continues, they could be extinct in two to three years," she added. The global okapi population isn't known, but experts believe that the mammal survives in the wild only in Congo's remote tropical forests, the researcher said.
—James Owen
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Exhibit: dragons, other mythic creatures
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070525/ap_on_en_ot/art_mythic_creatures
Exhibit: dragons, other mythic creatures
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 25, 2007
Harry Potter would probably feel right at home here.
A new exhibit pairs an unusual subject — dragons and other fantastic creatures — with an unlikely location: a science museum. "Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids" opens Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History and runs through Jan. 6
What's going on? Has one of the pre-eminent science museums in the world made a discovery that would show these creatures are real? No, no, the exhibit looks at how people have come up with all kinds of myths and stories to account for things they didn't understand.
"Across cultures and throughout time these creatures are what people dreamed up as a way of interpreting and making sense of the strange and often mindboggling but real wonders of the natural world," said museum President Ellen Futter.
The show gets right to it — at the entrance is a model of a huge dragon.
Other displays include a huge bird known in mythology as a roc, and the enormous head of a kraken, a fearsome, many-tentacled creature of the deep.
The exhibit shows how cultures around the world came up with such strange, mysterious creatures. Dragons, for instance, can be found both in the East and West, although they're considerably more benevolent in Chinese culture than they are in Europe.
Another section shows how tall tales and exaggeration can lead to the creation of a mythic creature. The exhibit posits that the kraken may be based on sightings of the corpses of giant squids, which have been known to wash up on shores. Or that legends about giant men or giant birds might come from people finding fossils and trying to make sense of what kind of creature could have had such large bones.
"Just like analytical science is one way of interpreting the world, myth was a way people interpreted the world up until quite recently," said Mark Norell, the show's co-curator. "If you look at all the mythical creatures ... they do have real underpinnings in biology."
"We clothe our beliefs, we clothe our imaginations, we clothe our fears and sometimes we do this with incredible artfulness," said co-curator Laurel Kendall. "It's the celebration of that human capacity for artfulness and wonder that I think this show witnesses."
The show was put together with collaborators including the Field Museum in Chicago, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau; the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, and the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta. It will travel to those locations after closing in New York.
___
On the Net:
http://www.amnh.org
Exhibit: dragons, other mythic creatures
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 25, 2007
Harry Potter would probably feel right at home here.
A new exhibit pairs an unusual subject — dragons and other fantastic creatures — with an unlikely location: a science museum. "Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids" opens Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History and runs through Jan. 6
What's going on? Has one of the pre-eminent science museums in the world made a discovery that would show these creatures are real? No, no, the exhibit looks at how people have come up with all kinds of myths and stories to account for things they didn't understand.
"Across cultures and throughout time these creatures are what people dreamed up as a way of interpreting and making sense of the strange and often mindboggling but real wonders of the natural world," said museum President Ellen Futter.
The show gets right to it — at the entrance is a model of a huge dragon.
Other displays include a huge bird known in mythology as a roc, and the enormous head of a kraken, a fearsome, many-tentacled creature of the deep.
The exhibit shows how cultures around the world came up with such strange, mysterious creatures. Dragons, for instance, can be found both in the East and West, although they're considerably more benevolent in Chinese culture than they are in Europe.
Another section shows how tall tales and exaggeration can lead to the creation of a mythic creature. The exhibit posits that the kraken may be based on sightings of the corpses of giant squids, which have been known to wash up on shores. Or that legends about giant men or giant birds might come from people finding fossils and trying to make sense of what kind of creature could have had such large bones.
"Just like analytical science is one way of interpreting the world, myth was a way people interpreted the world up until quite recently," said Mark Norell, the show's co-curator. "If you look at all the mythical creatures ... they do have real underpinnings in biology."
"We clothe our beliefs, we clothe our imaginations, we clothe our fears and sometimes we do this with incredible artfulness," said co-curator Laurel Kendall. "It's the celebration of that human capacity for artfulness and wonder that I think this show witnesses."
The show was put together with collaborators including the Field Museum in Chicago, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau; the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, and the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta. It will travel to those locations after closing in New York.
___
On the Net:
http://www.amnh.org
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