Word: virgin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...miles west of Athens, where once stood a temple to laurel-crowned Apollo, is the domed Monastery of Daphni, whose fine mosaics were neglected for 700 years and are now recognized as a peak of 12th century Byzantine art. The church, named for the Virgin of the Laurels (in Greek, Daphni), stands behind a screen of cypresses, and its walls conceal a violent history. Seized and partially rebuilt in 1204 by Prankish barons, it was in turn captured and burned by Moslem Turks in 1460. The building was used in the 19th century as a powder magazine, fort, police station...
...mosaic designers worked at a time when Byzantine artists, moving away from elongated and stylized forms, turned for suave beauty and expert molding to the long-ignored classic Greek models. The arrangement of the mosaic murals, more than 60 in all, followed the traditional pattern, with the Virgin supreme in the apse, and prophets and saints on arches, vaults and niches. The apostles and bishops attending the Virgin Mary have the mien and carefully draped robes of the Greek philosophers. On one shell beneath the central dome the Angel of the Annunciation with classic countenance floats against...
...large manned spaceship tries to land on the moon, said Dr. John Barnes of U.C.L.A., it might be a good idea to test the treacherous surface from a safe distance. A nuclear bomb exploded on the moon would tell a good deal, but its radioactivity would contaminate the virgin surface. Dr. Barnes suggests that a small amount of chemical explosive would be enough. Once planted on the moon, it could be exploded by a signal from a moon satellite. The same satellite could capture tossed-up debris, and tell by examining it whether that part of the moon...
...another channel, or contented themselves with remarking that the speaker had an interesting face." Yet Christ is currently much in evidence on British TV. Most startling example: a Passion play in which Christ is a young man with an Elvis Presley haircut, scuffed loafers and worn jeans. The Virgin Mary, plump and nondescript, was the British version of anybody's mum. Pontius Pilate was suave and courteously detached in a well-pressed lounge suit, nonchalantly lighted a cigarette after he signed Christ's death warrant. The Roman soldiers were simple types in British battle dress...
Subsequent information from the Mitra, a Dutch freighter cruising south of the Virgin Islands, indicated that a flaming ball had been seen plunging downward "trailing smoke and sparks...