A visit to the Louvre can be a gastronomic adventure—if you know where to look
Move forward almost a thousand years in time to one of the most important works of the Louvre, the black stone stele carved in cuneiform script with the ancient legal text known as the Code of Hammurabi, in Room 227 of the Richelieu wing. Peering into the glass cases nearby, I discovered that Babylon's Hammurabi was more than a king who created the most complete code of laws in antiquity; he was also an epicure. (His favorite treat was a strongly spiced quail tart.)
In a glass vitrine in the same room I spotted a shallow round dish decorated with four concentric circles and made of biscuit-colored white clay. In the center were indentations in the shape of animals—four with large ears that could have been donkeys and six with raised tails that could have been dogs. 'Kitchen mold,' the label read. There was nothing unusual about this simple object, but its date jumped out at me. It was about 3,800 years old, found in what is now eastern Syria. Molds—with designs of animals and of pregnant women—were customarily used to make savory tarts and sweet cakes for the royals. And the ancient Mesopotamians, known for their wines, were the first known makers of beer and made the world's first ice creams, too.
Where kingdoms and dynasties have not survived, royal eating utensils often have. In one display, in Room 527 of the Richelieu wing, I came across a 16th-century spoon and fork set from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), carved from rock crystal and decorated with rubies set in gold. The spoon was the oldest eating utensil, the fork a more recent invention. At that time, Ceylonese craftsmen mainly worked in ivory to make such objects, but in this case, rock crystal was used, probably to emphasize rarity and royal prestige.
The Apollo Gallery, just around the corner from the "Winged Victory of Samothrace," contains France's crown jewels. The most beautiful jewel box in the world, the gilded gallery was built by King Louis XIV to show off his grandeur. But most of the crown jewels were sold off at auction in the 19th century, so the room has been filled with the king's exuberant collections of dishes, plates, and containers, some set in gold and carved from minerals or mineral aggregates like lapis lazuli, agate, amethyst and jade. They convey a sense of the grand couvert, a ridiculously artificial and formal ritual at Versailles: almost every evening King Louis XIV, usually with the queen and their progeny, dined in public. (His successor and great-grandson, Louis XV, preferred to dine alone.)
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One of Trump's Weirdest Obsessions Is Spiraling Out of Control
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. In my 30 years of studying the literature and culture of Louis XIV, I never thought I would see an American president actually model himself on the Sun King, to the point that a recent essay in the New York Times declared the current Oval Office décor a 'gilded rococo hellscape.' Along with the anti-royalist sentiment that used to characterize U.S. politics, I always assumed that most Americans had no real stomach for the hubris and sheer garishness that defined the style and surroundings of France's most famous king. When I've taken students to Versailles, I've noticed that as much as they admire the size and ambitiousness of the château that Louis XIV declared the center of French government, they nonetheless agree with the caustic assessment of the Duke de Saint-Simon, Louis XIV's greatest critic: It's 'a masterpiece of bad taste.' In fact, the White House is the third residence that Trump has tried to make resemble Versailles. Interior designer Angelo Donghia incorporated some gold elements into his initial vision for the penthouse apartment at Trump Tower, and Henry Conversano added much more in a later redesign, with the result being something New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger described in a 2017 talk as a 'pseudo-Versailles in the sky.' But it's less well known that the ghosts of Versailles also haunt Mar-a-Lago, where, when adding a ballroom, Trump ditched the Spanish theme of the original building and chose instead to mimic the Sun King's Hall of Mirrors. A 2007 appraisal of Mar-a-Lago made for the Trump Organization by the firm Callaway and Price described the ballroom as 'in the style of Versailles, in a Louis XIV gold and crystal finish, with huge crystal chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on one wall.' Apparently it's this ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, with its $7 million of gold leaf, that Trump wants now to re-create in the East Wing; the gold cherubs have already been brought up from Florida. No doubt, if it's ever completed, this third Versailles revamp will have a ceiling painting to rival the original by Charles Le Brun depicting Louis XIV's military victories. (Perhaps, instead, 'Donald Trump vanquishes DEI'?) More disturbing, of course, than the president's taste is the administration's view of executive authority. This evokes the absolutist rhetoric of Louis XIV's worst sycophants, which Saint-Simon despised. One can almost hear the echoes of the Versailles courtiers in the Trump Cabinet's paeans to the president's leadership, and Saint-Simon's description of the Sun King's appetite for adulation, found in the writer's secret Mémoires, published after his death, surely suggests our own leader's vulnerability to such praise: 'The self-effacement, the self-abasement, the look of admiration, subjugation, supplication, most of all the look of negation except through him, were the sole means of pleasing him.' (That translation is my own.) Saint-Simon knew that when kings embrace their own flattery, they open themselves to manipulation, and the writer viewed Louis XIV as an illusory absolutist who was in fact controlled by fawning scoundrels. Sort of like if an American president were to be hoodwinked by a Russian dictator offering him a complimentary portrait. The irony is that Donald Trump is not governing like Louis XIV, and we would probably be better off if he did. The Sun King massively invested in science, technology, the arts, and intellectual activity; Trump disdains them all. Louis XIV created the Royal Academy for Sciences, the Royal Academy for Painting and Sculpture, the Royal Academy for Dance; Trump cuts the National Institutes of Health, bullies the Kennedy Center, threatens Big Bird. Louis XIV built roads, paved streets, carved canals, constructed ports; Trump freezes infrastructure spending and may decimate the National Park Service. You don't get Versailles by firing state workers. No, in terms of incompetence, ideology-driven decisionmaking, and a deliberate lack of imagination, the president resembles less Louis XIV and more his great-great-grandson—a man who became king by accident, married a woman from central Europe, and was unable to assume the grandeur of his Versailles forebear. He ruled as Louis XVI, and perhaps his finest decision was supporting the rebellious American colonists against France's oldest enemy, the British. Because of this mediocre king, who clung so desperately to the fantasies of absolutism that he was later overthrown and guillotined by his own people, the American experiment with republican government was able to commence. It's an irony of history that Trump's love affair with Louis XIV may mean that this experiment will ultimately be continued somewhere else—in some land we probably now consider backward and uncivilized, and where a gilded hall of mirrors has less attraction than a system of laws and values against authoritarianism.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
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These remote desert oases are Egypt's hidden gems
The world knows Egypt for the Pyramids of Giza and cosmopolitan Cairo, the tourist-trodden temples of Luxor, and Red Sea resort towns. These coastal and Nile River Valley destinations are a narrow view of a country that's 90 percent desert. Few travelers venture into that 90 percent. The vast Western Desert, which blends into Libya and beyond, is Egypt's great unknown. Adventurers since Alexander the Great have braved the harsh clime and been rewarded with the untouched nature and unique culture of Egypt's oases. Seclusion has kept these desert gems, if not secret, then still wild. Egypt's oases are time capsules of millions of years of human and natural history, from when whales had legs to the Roman Empire. There are golden mummies at the Bahariya Oasis and tombs vandalized with ancient graffiti at Kharga. There are natural masterpieces like geode-like salt lakes in Siwa Oasis, hundreds of bubbling hot springs at Dakhla, and unearthly landscapes of dead volcanoes and limestone hoodoos near Bahariya and Farafra. (How to plan the ultimate adventure in Egypt, from Cairo to the Red Sea) Fayoum has remained relatively untouched despite being only an hour from Cairo. Its name may ring a bell for the Fayum Portraits, the mummy masks found in museums like the Louvre and the British Museum. Just two remain in their hometown, at the Kom Aushim Museum, the oasis's first stop on the drive in from Cairo. But it's natural phenomena that Fayoum should be better known for. It's home to the prehistoric Lake Qarun, whose saline waters are a magnet for wintering birds, including flamingos. The unofficially named Magic Lake, so secret you won't find it on Google Maps, lures humans looking for a swim or photo op. Its waters reflect the sky, providing extraordinary views of the Milky Way. The lake is part of Fayoum's most popular attraction, the Wadi Al-Hitan UNESCO World Heritage Site—the world's largest whale graveyard, dating back 40 million years. (This desert oasis is a time capsule of Egypt's grand past) Before the late 1980s, Siwa Oasis was accessible only by camel. Today, it's a 12-hour drive from Cairo. Yet, remoteness does little to dissuade those captivated by this mysterious oasis, just 30 miles from Libya. In antiquity, Siwa Oasis was a site for pilgrims seeking the wisdom of the Oracle of Amun. The temple's hilltop ruins are a highlight among the oasis's historic sites. Also notable are the medieval mud-brick Shali Fortress, towering over the city, and Gebel al-Mawta, the Mountain of the Dead, featuring hundreds of tombs carved into its face. But diving into Siwa Oasis' salt lakes easily surpasses all of them as a must-do. They look like liquified geodes, their electric-blue waters ringed by sparkling, crystallized shores. You can swim and float in hundreds of salt lakes, some large and others hardly big enough for one person. Bahariya Oasis is the most well-known of the five Western Desert oases in part because it's the easiest to reach from Cairo, but also because it has fascinating relics, hundreds of hot springs, and off-roading among volcanoes. It's said that Alexander the Great commemorated his visit to Siwa's Oracle of Amun with a temple of his own, which he built in Bahariya. It lies in ruins that you can visit, but more impressive is the Valley of the Golden Mummies burial site. Hundreds of gold-covered mummies have been uncovered there, and many more are thought to remain buried. Some are on display at the small on-site museum. Bahariya Oasis's best feature is the Black Desert, a Martian landscape of ancient dead volcanoes. Miles of sand mountains sprinkled with black volcanic rocks are captivatingly apocalyptic. A 4x4 adventure through them is a signature experience in Bahariya. The oasis's 400 natural hot-and-cold springs and Roman-era wells offer a refreshing rinse after a desert exploration. (Tour Egypt's Valley of the Whales for a window onto the history of evolution) Kharga is the 'Little Italy' of ancient Egypt. The Romans conquered the oasis as a strategic trading route, and Kharga today still exudes the glory of the Roman Empire. Most notable is the Fortress of El-Deir, an imposing structure rising out of the golden dunes, still nearly intact. It has been graffitied by the many travelers who have passed through since the third century, from Turkish traders to British soldiers during the World War I. Graffiti from prehistoric to medieval times can also be found at Gebel al-Teir, a mountain on the oasis' northern edge, where petroglyphs exist alongside the unique Coptic script of Egypt's Christians. The oasis's best site for Christian monuments is the expansive El Bagawat necropolis. Colorful biblical scenes—often covered in Greek graffiti—are painted on the hundreds of cave-like, mud-brick tombs at this Christian cemetery, one of the world's oldest and best-preserved. Dakhla, meaning 'inside' in Arabic, is perhaps even more of an insider destination than its neighboring Kharga. Like Kharga, Dakhla's prime was the Greco-Roman era. Ironically, the best remaining Roman monument in Dakhla is the ancient pagan Deir el-Hagar temple, similar to the Karnak Temple in Luxor. The other remarkable Roman feat in Dakhla now lies underground: A Roman settlement that formed the base of the village of Al Qasr. Today, it's an interesting maze of abandoned mud-brick buildings and narrow alleyways. Kharga has more ruins for the archaeological enthusiast, but Dakhla has endless hot springs to dip in. More than 600 springs bubble up from an aquifer thousands of feet below. You can soak in the pools of mineral-rich waters with a vista of pink limestone cliffs hugging the horizon. (A practical guide to travel in Egypt, from tipping culture to independent touring) Farafra is said to be Egypt's most isolated oasis. It's the entry point to the enigmatic White Desert, which looks like the surface of a moon in an alternate universe. In some areas, the glittering white sand is easily mistaken for a dusting of snow. In others, it resembles swaths of thick meringue on the world's biggest cake. Yet still other parts are fields of limestone hoodoos that tower precariously over your 4x4 like giant mushrooms. If you can handle the rough and tumble of the terrain, it's well worth venturing further into the desert to see the Neolithic remains that attract anthropologists from around the globe. About 30 miles out are remnants of a prehistoric village, the foundations of huts still standing. Nearby, rock art that's older than the pyramids decorates the walls of a cave, including handprints. Miranda Mullings is an American travel and culture writer based in Rome, Italy.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
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Pacific Palisades woman celebrates 97th birthday months after losing longtime home in Palisades Fire
LOS ANGELES - Louvenia Jenkins would have liked to celebrate her 97th birthday at the home she has lived in for a good 60 years — the home she bought in the Pacific Palisades as a single African American woman, at a time when segregation kept non-whites away from such neighborhoods and banks didn't grant home loans to women. But her home was one of the thousands destroyed in January's Palisades Fire. The backstory Getting her home wasn't easy. Owners wouldn't accept her offers. But she joined the Fair Housing Council, which fought discriminatory housing prices. It was a member of the council who sold her the home. Now, she's working to start over. It isn't easy, but Jenkins is embracing it with the grace and strength that has been guiding her all her life. The retired teacher has been breaking barriers her entire life. She said she just didn't see them. SUGGESTED: Palisades Fire victims hold first community event since deadly blaze Why you should care Jenkins was a teacher and administrator for LAUSD, funding a scholarship for Black college students in her brother's name. She traveled the world, teaching in Japan and Malaysia; visiting the Louvre in Paris; and making her way from Coastal Ghana to the Swiss Alps. She managed to win over people wherever she traveled. Labeled a pillar of the community by Pacific Palisades neighbors, she would often be seen volunteering at the library to work with children on their reading. No wonder the community gathered to create a GoFundMe campaign when she lost her home and everything in it. Overwhelmed by the support, Jenkins says she may have lost a home, but not her community, which now includes a whole new group of friends at the retirement home she is presently staying at. "At the end" she quotes a poem from one of her Getty Museum volunteer journal articles: "I am responsible for being what I want to be in spite" of whatever may come her way. The Source Information in this story is from interviews with Louvenia Jenkins.
