Smithsonian Magazine: December 2007
Features
Keepers of the Lost Ark?
Christians in Ethiopia have long claimed to have the ark of the covenant. Our reporter investigated
By Paul Raffaele
Christmas in Lalibela
50,000 pilgrims descend on Ethiopia's "new" Jerusalem
By Paul Raffaele
Ike at D-Day
The rain he worried about. The Camel cigarettes he chain-smoked. The letter he wrote in case of failure. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's defining moment comes to life in an excerpt from Michael Korda's best-selling new biography.
By Michael Korda
Miami Splash
Art Basel Miami Beach is a giant fair that's fueling the city's explosive arts scene
By Phoebe Hoban
The Strange Lives of Polar Dinosaurs
How did they endure months of perpetual cold and dark?
By Mitch Leslie
Taking a Dinosaur's Temperature
Polar species heat up one of paleontology's great debates
By Mitch Leslie
Revolutionary Real Estate
Statesmen, soldiers and spies who made America and the way they lived
By Hugh Howard
Marseille's Ethnic Bouillabaisse
Some view Europe's most diverse city as a laboratory of the continent's future
By Andrew Purvis
Departments
Indelible Images
Married, With Camera
Portraitist Emmet Gowin's most enduring subject is his wife
By David Zax
My Kind of Town
At Home. For Now
The acclaimed novelist probes our yearning for a fixed address
By Richard Ford
Presence of Mind
Blame the Rich
They made us who we are, some researchers now say
By Richard Conniff
From the Editor
Keeping Cool
Keeping Cool in Cretaceous Australia and melting-pot Marseille
By Carey Winfrey
Wild Things
Wild Things
Life as We Know It
By Jess Blumberg, T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Laura Helmuth and Sarah Zielinski
Around the Mall
Up in Smoke
Amazon research that has withstood thieves and arsonists now faces its greatest challenge
By Jess Blumberg
The Object at Hand
Growth Industry
For 26 years, marketing whiz Joe Pedott's green-pelted figures have been holiday-season hits
By Owen Edwards
Q&A
Jenny Holzer
The artist Jenny Holzer created For SAAM, a column of light and text, for the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)
By Jess Blumberg
