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...burning in honour of Hestia (the goddess of the hearth) and was used to light all the other sacrificial fires throughout the complex of temples. The Ancient Olympics also had the Hekatomb, a religious ceremony that involved sacrificing 100 oxen and burning their legs on a large pyre in honour of Zeus. However, the torches used to light these fires did not have any...

...burned in the fields. Under the hot sun, soil dries quickly and turns into dust which is mixed with ash from the charred fields. The dust mixed with ash is a perfect substance to use as powder paint. Before the synthetic colours came along, the mixture of dust and ash would have been mixed with turmeric, saffron or indigo to make the powder paints. So, the colours of Holi...

...burning coal inside a hollowed-out turnip for light (Eastwood, 2021). This symbol resembles a skull or severed head. Once seen, it’s hard to un-see it. As such, the image can be associated with Sigmund Freud’s idea of the uncanny – that which is at once familiar and strange: it looks human, but it’s hollow; the lights are on, but there’s nobody home! The uncanny...