Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

The Heliodorus Pillar is one of those wrong place Euroasian antiques, which should make any self-respecting bizarrist choke up. It is a simple, still standing sandstone Hindu column, at Vidisha near Bhopal in India, known locally as the Khambh Baba. The column was placed there in about 110 BC so it is a good two thousand […]

The strangest things survive in the strangest places. Take the separated moustache of antique Persia, which is sometimes found in ancient visual representations. Heading this post is a Roman sculpture of a dying Persian and, here below, is a Parthian woolen piece that somehow survived from the first century B.C. and which is kept in […]

It has been a long day and Beach has not had time to look for this in all the normal works of reference. However, this story (or fiction?) rang no bells and as Beach has – disgrace upon disgrace – never had a Pakistani story before he thought he’d take a risk. A curious custom, […]