Skip to content
Atlas of Curiosity

Atlas of Curiosity — remarkable, little-known places, objects, phenomena and people

An international publication about remarkable, little-known places, objects, phenomena and people — every entry researched, sourced and attributed.

See Wikimedia Commons file pageWikimedia Commons (free licence — Commons requires CC BY-SA or public domain for all hosted media; exact terms on file page)
The leadPeople

Ötzi: What a 5,300-Year-Old Body Still Has to Say

A frozen corpse pulled from an Alpine glacier in 1991 has become the most thoroughly examined human being of the ancient world — and the cold case of his murder is still being solved.

Italy/Austria borderDied c. 3300 BCE; discovered 19918 min read

Editor's picks

2 selected

Phenomena

The Door to Hell

For more than fifty years, a hole in the Karakum Desert has burned without pause — and no one can produce the paperwork that explains how it started.

TurkmenistanBurning continuously since 19716 min read

See Wikimedia Commons file pageWikimedia Commons (free licence — Commons requires CC BY-SA or public domain for all hosted media; exact terms on file page)

Nine ways into the collection

The taxonomy

Recently catalogued

Newest first

Objects

The Book No One Can Read

A 600-year-old manuscript written in an unknown script has defeated codebreakers, computer scientists, and the NSA alike.

unknown origin, held in United StatesVellum radiocarbon-dated to 1404–14387 min read

See Wikimedia Commons file pageWikimedia Commons (free licence — Commons requires CC BY-SA or public domain for all hosted media; exact terms on file page)
History

The Sunken City of Baiae

Rome's most decadent resort town didn't fall to war or fire. The ground it was built on simply breathed it into the sea.

ItalyFlourished 2nd century BC - 1st century AD; gradually submerged 3rd-8th centuries CE7 min read

See Wikimedia Commons file pageWikimedia Commons (free licence — Commons requires CC BY-SA or public domain for all hosted media; exact terms on file page)
Culture

A Conversation Carried on the Wind

On a volcanic island where ravines make roads slow and voices carry nowhere, the people of La Gomera learned to speak in whistles instead.

SpainDocumented since before the 15th-century Spanish conquest; UNESCO-recognized 20096 min read

See Wikimedia Commons file pageWikimedia Commons (free licence — Commons requires CC BY-SA or public domain for all hosted media; exact terms on file page)
Architecture

Gunkanjima: Anatomy of an Abandoned Coal City

For 87 years a concrete islet off Nagasaki packed in one of the highest population densities ever recorded — then, in a matter of weeks in 1974, it emptied completely.

JapanMined 1887–1974; abandoned since 1974, reopened for tourism in 20097 min read

See Wikimedia Commons file pageWikimedia Commons (free licence — Commons requires CC BY-SA or public domain for all hosted media; exact terms on file page)
Nature

What the Blue Hole Remembers

A near-perfect circle of deep water off Belize's coast is really a drowned cave system — and its floor holds a layered record of the planet's last four ice ages.

BelizeCave system formed across multiple ice ages, flooded roughly 10,000–15,000 years ago7 min read

Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory, using EO-1 ALI data courtesy of the NASA EO-1 Team; caption by Michon ScottNASA image — NASA Earth Observatory content is produced under NASA's standard open, public-domain-style media usage policy for Earth science imagery
History

The Ghost Fleet of Truk Lagoon

In a single winter morning in 1944, American carrier aircraft sank an entire Japanese fleet at anchor — and left the Pacific's most haunting time capsule on the seafloor.

Federated States of MicronesiaNaval base 1942-1944; sunk in Operation Hailstone, February 17-18, 19447 min read

See Wikimedia Commons file pageWikimedia Commons (free licence — Commons requires CC BY-SA or public domain for all hosted media; exact terms on file page)
Read every entry