Meilan Solly

Meilan Solly

 

Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's senior associate digital editor, history.

Since 2002, a series of fragments with questionable provenance have flooded the antiquities market

Museum of the Bible Acknowledges Five of Its Dead Sea Scrolls Are Forgeries

Analysis suggests nearly one-third of the museum's 16 scrolls are fakes, and study of the remaining fragments may yield similar results

Nine out of 10 common types of microplastics were found in the participants' stool samples

Microplastics Found in Human Poop for the First Time

The pesky particles were present in all eight stool samples gathered for pilot study

L to R: Paul Stabler, "Charles Obach" (circa 1870–79) and Jacobus de Louw, "Vincent van Gogh" (1873)

Employer Who Pushed Van Gogh to New Career Path Revealed in Studio Photo

An 1870s photograph of Charles Obach, one-time manager of the London Goupil Gallery branch, was found in the National Portrait Gallery's collections

Montreal doctors will soon be able to prescribe free museum visits for patients and a limited number of loved ones or caregivers

Canadian Doctors Will Soon Be Able to Prescribe Museum Visits as Treatment

An afternoon of art may offer serotonin mood boost, welcome distraction from chronic pain

Walpole's neo-Gothic estate boasts a castle-like white exterior, labyrinthine network of closets, chambers and rooms

Curious Collection of Historic Oddities Reunited in Horace Walpole's Neo-Gothic Castle

See more than 150 artifacts originally on view in the estate during the 1700s

Spain nabbed the top spot with an average life expectancy of 85.8 years

United States Drops 21 Spots in Global Life Expectancy Rankings

By 2040, an average American's lifespan is projected to rise from 78.7 to 79.8 years, an increase of just 1.1 years

The southwestern city of Chengdu may bask in the glow of an artificial moon as soon as 2020

Chinese City Wants to Launch Fake Moon to Illuminate Its Streets

Proposed satellite would cover 6- to 50-mile wide stretch of Chengdu with light eight times brighter than that of the real moon

Venice, one of the cities most at risk, has already installed submerged floodgates aimed at combating flooding, but it’s one of the few to take such preventative action

Rising Seas Pose Imminent Threat to Dozens of Historical Sites Across the Mediterranean

Venetian canals, Phoenician port city of Tyre and Croatia’s Old City of Dubrovnik are amongst the sites at risk of flooding, erosion

Urban rats appeared to enjoy a steady diet of high-quality food, including protein-rich meat, while rural rats struggled to get by on limited, often meat-free meals

Urban Rats Enjoy Richer, More Reliable Diet Than Their Rural Counterparts

Researchers analyzed the remains of 86 brown rats that roamed Toronto between 1790 and 1890

During World war II, the original Monuments Men rescued more than five million works of art, including Jan and Hubert van Eyck's 1432 "Ghent Altarpiece"

British Army Revives Monuments Men to Salvage Art in War-Torn Countries

The 15-person squad, formed to combat loss of cultural heritage in the Middle East, will specialize in art crime, engineering and archaeology

The animatronic mask is situated directly across from the traditional 1588 Armada portrait, which depicts a far more polished version of Queen Elizabeth I

What Did Elizabeth I Actually Look Like? This Artist Has a Suggestion

Mat Collishaw’s ‘Mask of Youth’ presents realistic depiction of the Tudor queen, explores her savvy command of public persona

Asian elephants have less than a 33 percent chance of lasting beyond the 21st century

Earth Lost 2.5 Billion Years’ Worth of Evolutionary History in Just 130,000 Years

Even if humans curbed destructive actions within next 50 years, it would take between five to seven million years for mammal biodiversity to fully recover

Af Klint saw herself as a “holy transcriptionist, a technician of the unknown” whose work was simply a stepping stone in the pursuit of knowledge

From Obscurity, Hilma af Klint Is Finally Being Recognized as a Pioneer of Abstract Art

Before the modernists, the Swedish painter's monumental canvases featured free-wheeling swirls, mysterious symbols, pastel palette

Previous excavations at the site have revealed raven talons, toad bones and even bronze cauldrons filled with the remains of ritually sacrificed puppies

This Ancient 10-Year-Old Received a ‘Vampire Burial’ to Prevent Return From the Dead

The malaria-stricken Roman child was buried in the ominously named Cemetery of the Babies with a stone inserted into its mouth

The upcoming installation will feature a choral work inspired by Mary Borden's wartime love sonnets

Mary Borden's Forgotten World War I Ballad to Mark Centenary of Armistice Day

The heiress, poet and activist funded and oversaw military field hospitals during both world wars, penned series of sonnets inspired by wartime experiences

The sample included women from 31 out of 34 Chinese provinces and 36 out of 55 ethnic minority groups

Largest Ever Study of Chinese People’s Genetics Reveals Insights on Migration Patterns, Diet, Disease

Scientists analyzed DNA samples from 141,431 pregnant Chinese women, or roughly 1/10,000 of the country’s population

Hurricane Michael made landfall along the Florida Panhandle Wednesday, devastating the region with winds of up to 155 miles per hour and storm surges of up to 14 feet

Hurricane Michael Could Worsen—or Alleviate—Florida’s Toxic Red Tide Outbreak

Experts describe conflicting scenarios that alternately find the state’s poisonous algal bloom either weakening offshore or spreading inland

The contemporary Wolf Hall manor stands on the same property as the lost 16th-century estate

Archaeologists Unearth Foundations of Wolf Hall, Where Henry VIII Fell for Jane Seymour

The team’s finds include a network of Tudor-era brick sewers, the foundations of two towers and ornate tiles

The intricate network of crevices seen on the African elephant's skin helps it retain moisture and stay cool

How African Elephants Get Their Wrinkles

The animal's crevice-filled skin helps keep it cool and shares a surprising set of similarities with the human skin disease ichthyosis vulgaris

The institution begins the long road to restoration

Brazil’s National Museum Launches Rebuilding Efforts with Temporary Exhibition of Surviving Collection

Stabilization work must be completed before experts can assess extent of damage to museum’s collection of more than 20 million artifacts

Page 36 of 46