A bride and groom jump over a skipping rope as they pose during a wedding photo shoot at a park in Pyongyang on April 18, 2019. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

Face Off is an American reality television game show on the Syfy cable network in which a group of prosthetic makeup artists compete against each other to create prostheses such as those found in science fiction and horror films.

Dr. Anton Lim is interviewed by the media as he holds Kabang, a two-year-old injured mixed breed, upon arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay city, south of Manila, Philippines, early Saturday June 8, 2013 from San Francisco, Calif. Kabang lost her snout and upper jaw saving two girls' lives in the Philippines was headed back to its owner following treatment at the University of California, Davis veterinary hospital. (Photo by Bullit Marquez/AP Photo)

In this photo provided by Skydive Chicago, escape artist Anthony Martin falls while handcuffed and locked inside a box after being dropped from an airplane over Ottawa, Ill., Tuesday, August 6, 2013. (Photo by Joe Silva/AP Photo/Courtesy of Skydive Chicago)

Hardy Dutch swimmers brave the icy North Sea on January 1, 2012 in Scheveningen, Netherlands. A record number of 10,000 people took the plunge in this year's traditional New Year's dip. The high turnout was attributed to the mild weather with a sea temperature of 8 degrees compared to 4 degrees last year. (Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

On July 7, Chinese archaeologists from the Academy of Social Sciences announced that they have reconstituted a 5,300-year-old Mongolion pottery statue found at a relic site in North China, according to Xinhua news agency.