The mind-boggling artistry of China’s ivory puzzle balls

Gilboa fossils, skull steins, and a moon landing manual. Email not displaying correctly? View in your browser. May 07, 2019 In partnership with Ivory Puzzle Balls Once known as the “devil’s work ball” and now illegal to produce, these intricately designed Chinese puzzles contain beautiful, hand-carved ivory orbs nested inside each other. The puzzles are solved by carefully aligning the orbs’ holes, preferably with toothpicks. Read More → Pripyat Then and Now Archival images of Pripyat before the Chernobyl disaster offer a stunning contrast to the decaying and vegetation-covered ruins that visitors can find today, 33 years since the last human resident left. Read more → Atlas Obscura Trips Photographing Myanmar Join us on an immersive photo expedition this November as we explore grand palaces, vibrant festivals, and floating gardens. Each stop on this 11-day trip will encourage you to see the country’s sights, sounds, and stories through a whole new lens. Reserve now → Skull Steins Skull steins—a hollowed-out model skull that could hold up to half a liter of beer in place of a brain—were all the rage in late-19th and early-20th century Germany. Read more → Gilboa, New York Gilboa Fossils Some of the first land plants large enough to properly be called "trees" were native to the Catskills region of New York. Today their fossilized stumps can be found at the Gilboa Museum. Read more → Community Underwater Wonders From underwater museums to a graveyard for space junk, there’s an entire world of hidden curiosity beneath the surface of our planet’s bodies of water. Tell us about the most incredible underwater wonders you’ve discovered. Share now → Moon Landing Manual The manual that helped Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the moon is up for auction this summer. The rare cardstock-covered manual contains 44 three-hole-punched pages of detailed instructions for the launch and descent of Eagle, the lunar module that allowed for exploration of the moon’s surface. Read more → From our friends at History Operation Peter Pan A secret Cold War program helped bring 14,000 unaccompanied school-aged children to the United States to escape repression in Cuba. Read more → Visit AtlasObscura.com · View in Browser · Unsubscribe · See All Newsletters 61 Greenpoint Ave #622, Brooklyn, NY 11222