Cow Text

On Sundays, Browser readers receive a special edition with puzzles, poems, books, charts, music and more - plus selections from our decade-plus archive of the finest writing on the internet. Here's a taste of this week's edition - our archive picks.

From The Browser Six Years Ago

Cow Dung Capitalism
Lhendup Bhutia | Open | 16th September 2016 | U
The market for cow products is booming in India; not meat and milk, but dung and urine. A litre of cow urine can fetch three times the price of a litre of milk. Cow dung goes into face packs, shampoos, soap, incense; urine into cough syrups, body oils, energy drinks, floor disinfectants. “A unique marriage is unfolding here, between ancient belief systems and the market forces of capitalism” (3,100 words)

From The Browser Ten Years Ago

A New Text About Jesus — And His Wife
Ariel Sabar | Smithsonian | 18 September 2012 | U
At the time, this was bruited as the biggest event in biblical studies since the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Harvard professor announced the discovery of a scrap of papyrus, apparently from the third century AD, which referred to Jesus and to his "wife", perhaps Mary Magdalene. Four years later, the story was retracted, the papyrus was declared a forgery, and the presumed forger was uncontactable (6,300 words)

Browsings — What We Are Up To:

Uri has published an essay about Misquoting Winnie The Pooh on Dirt
Caroline talks to Lucy Worsley about Agatha Christie on Shedunnit
Robert is speaking this weekend at the Summit Of Minds in Chamonix