Snow country

"Snow Country" is a novel by Yasunari Kawabata (1899 – 1972,  Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968). "Snow country" is a literal translation of the Japanese title "Yukiguni". The name comes from the place where the story takes place, where Shimamura arrives in a train coming through a long tunnel under the border mountains between Gunma  and Niigata Prefectures. more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Country

Some Prefer Nettles

"Some prefer nettles" is a novel written by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1886 – 1965). Considered one of Tanizaki’s most successful novels, Tade kuu mushi has a theme pervading it, the struggle between East and West. 

The protagonist of the novel, Kaname, possesses aesthetic tastes leaning toward the so-called West.  more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Prefer_Nettles

Anche in italiano, Gli insetti preferiscono le ortiche.

Scientist googles crater find

Scientist googles crater find, Monday, 16 August 2010, by Stuart Gary
ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/08/16/2982419.htm
"Scientists using Google Maps have discovered a new crater like structure in the Bayuda Desert of Sudan. If confirmed, it will be the second such discovery using the popular online mapping tool and could spawn a new generation of home-based amateur crater hunters. Assistant Professor Amelia Sparavigna from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy has detailed her discovery on the pre-press website arXiv.org."


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Google Crater after (Google Earth)

Ryusai Shigeharu

Personaggio femminile con pugnale, xilografia su carta, tecnica nishiki-e, oban tate-e (37,3 x 25,4 cm) 

Autore: Ryusai Shigeharu, ca. 1830.
Museo Arte Orientale, Arte giapponese

Byōbu, the wind wall

Byōbu (wind wall) are the Japanese folding screens, made from several joined panels bearing decorative painting, used to separate and enclose private spaces. During the Edo Period (1600-1868), Byōbu  adorned samurai residences. The backgrounds of byōbu were made from gold leaf and highly colorful paintings depicting nature and scenes from daily life.

Museo Arte Orientale

Hokusai

"Under a Wave off Kanagawa", also known as The Great Wave, is a woodblock print by the Japanese artist Hokusai. This particular woodblock is one of the most recognized works of Japanese art in the world. It depicts an enormous wave threatening boats near the Japanese prefecture of Kanagawa.  It depicts the area around Mount Fuji and the mountain itself appears in the background. Copies of the print are in many Western collections.

Torino - Museo Arte Orientale

Gyokusen Shuga Cho

Mochizuki Gyokusen (1834-1913)

Torino - Museo Arte Orientale, Via San Domenico 11

Garamantes

Garamantes lived in fertile areas of Sahara, corresponding to the southwestern Libya, which had not always been a desert. In a period lasting from about 10,000 to 6,000 before current era, the country was like a savanna, with some perennial lakes. During the sixth millennium, several great droughts forced people to abandon the region. The lakes disappeared, leaving large fields of salt, one of the main articles of future Garamantian trade.
more http://www.livius.org/ga-gh/garamantes/garamantes.html

Leptis Magna

Leptis Magna was a punic and then roman settlement. Septimius Severus (145 – 211), Roman Emperor from 193 to 211, was born in this town. Leptis Magna: in the past was known as the "Town of  white shadows", a name due to the white statues appearing and disappering amid the dunes of sand. The city had  temples, a theatre and an amphitheatre, with a profusion of decorations and statues.
Leptis Magna’s market is a particularly well preserved example of such structures of a Roman city. In fact, many of the features of this market are unique. Along with typical porticoes of shops, the structure had two central circular stalls. The system used by stall holders for measuring the quantities of goods was still found in the market.
"The Roman food market of Leptis Magna was built in 8 BC by a wealthy citizen Hannibal Tapapius Rufus. The evidence for this comes from two inscriptions: one in Latin over the entrance of the market and another in neo Punic on the architrave of one of the market’s circular central stalls."
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-market-place-leptis-magna-a138237
For a web tour in this town, see for instance

http://www.temehu.com/Cities_sites/LeptisMagna.htm#

Three poleis - Tripoli

By the fifth century B.C., Carthage, the greatest of the overseas Phoenician colonies, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as Punic, came into being. Punic settlements on the Libyan coast included Oea (Tripoli), Labdah (later Leptis Magna), and Sabratah, in an area that came to be known collectively as Tripolis, or "Three Cities".

read more http://countrystudies.us/libya/5.htm Libya, by Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Libya: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.

Tripoli is the mondern town corresponding to the old Oea, one of the three old Phoenician towns along the coast of Tripolitania, in Libya. http://www.livius.org/oa-om/oea/oea.html