Question - 696

What English word is derived from this object? (question courtesy: Divya Shankar)

Question - 669

A famous depiction of which practice?

Hint: Few hits so far. There is a famous Greek myth related to the animal in the sculpture.

Answer: Bull leaping. The statue is called the Minoan bull. Matti and Iam (but of course) got it. Raghu answered a lot closer to home. Well done.

Question - 637

Connect.

Answer: Surtsey - a newly formed volcanic island off the coast of Iceland was named for Surtur, a fire giant of Norse mythology. Matti, giantamoeba, Siddarth Pai, Krithi and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 597

A map from the 1650's perpetuating what cartographic error (and its associated mythical nomenclature)?

Question - 594

An illustration of what biblical concept?

Question - 593

Connect.

Question - 592

Connect.

Question - 588

What are they doing?

Answe: NORAD tracking Santa. Rajesh K, Dinesh, Iam, Manix, Hari, and mekie got it. Well done.

Question - 582

What curious location for the starry symbology?

Question - 581

Fill in the blanks with a public phenomenon.

Answer: Percent of people in those country who paid a bribe . Dinesh, mekie, Jaggi, Krithi, and Vetti got it. Nicely done.

Question - 566

This astronomical phenomenon has been used to explain what event? (click on the picture to see the animation)

Answer: The Star of Bethlehem had been conjectured (by Kepler, among others) to be caused by the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. The gif image above shows the night sky as it appeared looking south from Jerusalem on Nov. 12, 7 BC, 6 PM to 9:30 PM (via Wikipedia). Dinesh, matti tapaninen, Piyush Singh, and Jaggi got it.

Question - 560

Whose journey?

Answer: The journey of Aeneas, a Trojan who became the ancestor of the Romans, as recounted in Virgil's Aeneid. matti tapaninen, Divya Shankar, and Hirak got it. Nice crack.

Question - 558

Connect.

Answer: The connect is Toutatis, a Celtic God (bottom right) worshiped in Gaul and Britain, popularized by the exclamation "By Toutatis" in Astrix comix (top). The asteroid, 4179 Toutatis (bottom left), is named after him. Iam, Dinesh, Firebringer, and Hirak got it.

Question - 556

Identify the location and its significance.

Answer: The site of the Battle of the Red Cliffs, which served as the precursor to the era of the Three Kingdoms in China - described in the Chinese epic, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". mekie and Dinesh got it (though I still don't get Dinky's "Stannus occulus" reference).

Question - 486

This is the procedure for doing what?

Answer: Harvesting the Mandrake root. According to legend, the screams of the Mandrake root could kill the person uprooting it. So an elaborate procedure was devised involving a sacrificial dog. Of course, J. K. Rowling used the more animal-friendly "earmuffs" approach in her books. Dinesh, Ameya, Anon, Adi, Jaggi, and Mekie answered correctly. Well done.

Question - 469

Shown is an illustration of a biblical story. What is the etymological significance?

Answer: This is Rembrandt's painting "Belshazzar's Feast". In the Biblical story, a hand mysteriously appears during the feast and pronounces doom on the king's reign by writing on the wall. The phrase "writing on the wall" originates from this incident. Rohan, AJ, Manix, Karthik, Nemani and anon got it. Well done.

Question - 461

This is another attempt at a tangential connect similar to Q444. Identify each of the images and the central theme connecting them. The connect isn't exhaustive (only a few items left out though) and some images connect to the theme more tangentially than others.

Hint 1: The connect isn't related to Greek mythology (at least not directly).

Hint 2: The connect is movie related.

Hints on how each visual connects to the theme (from top to bottom, left to right): Her lineage, his (not dubya's) nickname, the custom, the ferryman (slightly vague), the company, the story that inspired the movie, her Greek name and a generic term for the characters.

Answer: The visuals are Sophie Neveu from Da Vinci's code, Karl Rove with the Bushes, the practice of Sati, Charon the boatman from Greek myth, the BMW Oracle that won the America's cup in 2010, a scene from 2001: A space Odyssey, Persephone from Greek myth and Phoebe and Ursula from Friends. The connect I had in mind was that these are the names of some of the programs in the Matrix trilogy. The connects are as follows: Sophie Neveu is a descendant of Jesus through the Merovingians, Karl Rove was nicknamed the Architect, Sati is straightforward, Charon inspired the trainman character, BMW Oracle is owned by Larry Ellison of Oracle, 2001 (novel & the film both) was inspired by a short story called the Sentinel, Persephone is obvious and the Buffays are twins. Iam, Pavan, Rajesh, Jaggi, Karthik and Mohan Phadnis got it. buckingfastard identified most of the visuals before the hints. Well done all.

Question - 444

Today's question is slightly different. This being a Friday, this question will stay up for a couple of days and I have tried to make it a bit heavier than the usual questions. The five visuals have a connect but each visual is interesting enough to make a question by itself. So, identify each and connect.

Update 1: The five images form an exhaustive connect. More hints tomorrow night depending upon the response.

Update 2: Many identified the visuals but no correct connects so far. Almost all went with Gold as the connect but that isn't what I had in mind. More hints: The relevant portion of the images are as follows - the location(loosely speaking) of the event, the main object in the myth, what the woman is most famous for, the nickname of the man and the element featured prominently.

Answer: The visuals are 1) the US team that won the miracle at Lake Placid lighting the Olympic torch for the 2002 Salt Lake City winter Olympics, 2) a painting of the Sword of Damocles story, 3) Diablo Cody who won the Oscar for Juno, 4) Jill Masterson in an iconic scene from Goldfinger where she dies of skin asphyxiation from being completely covered in Gold and 5) Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha. The images point to Utah, Sword, Juno, Gold and Omaha - the code name for the beaches in the Normandy landings on D-day. Rajeev, Matti Tapaninen, Ajinkya, Raghu, Iam and Rajesh got the complete connect after the hints while Krithi and Pavan identified all the visuals correctly. Well done all.

Question - 410

What event is being shown? Identify all.

Answer: Prometheus is stealing fire from the Gods (in this case, Zeus and his er.... companion Ganymede) to give to mankind. As a reward, he was chained to a rock and had his liver eaten everyday by a giant eagle. Raghu, Iam, raklodramA, Kaushik, anon, Manix, Amresh, Rajesh and Kamal Rathi got it. Well done.

Question - 399

What does the sculpture symbolize? Where is this scene most commonly seen?

Answer: The sculpture shows an eagle eating a snake while perched atop a cactus. According to legend, the early Aztecs witnessed such a scene which they took to be a vision on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco and proceeded to found the city of Tencochtitlan in that spot. This symbol is now present in Mexico's flag and coat of arms. Ramki, Mekie, Prachi, Raghu, Hari, Iam, Karthik, Hirak and Jaggi got it. Well done.