advertising Archives - Forgotten Galicia

Ghost Signs of Lviv: A Look into the City’s Faded Past

Areta — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 11:52:00 +0000

I love ghost signs. These messages from the past are one of my favorite parts of the urban landscape. I get overly excited every time I discover a new one. Ghost signs (aka fading ads or brick ads) are old hand-painted signs that have been preserved on a building for […]

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Photographs of Prewar Lviv: Hand-Painted Signs

Areta — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 13:01:34 +0000

I’ve combed through hundreds of old photographs of Lviv (Lemberg / Lwów) in search of hand-painted signs that are visible today as “ghost signs.” While I’ve only been able to find one such example – a photograph of a milkhouse, the search was not in vain: I came out with […]

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Medieval Signage in Lviv

Areta — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 10:31:03 +0000

Medieval ads and signs have survived in and around Lviv’s Rynok Square. These are metal signs or stone carvings located above entrance ways. The emblems marked the locations of guilds, workshops, stores, taverns, etc. Signage during this era used symbols since the general populace was illiterate. Entrances to taverns were […]

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Prague’s House Signs

Areta — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:57:37 +0000

Before Empress Maria Theresa introduced identifying numbers to Prague in 1770, houses were known and located by allegorical symbols. Many of them originally had alchemical significance. The Two Suns The Golden Key Castle goldsmiths lived in this house in the 17th century They paid fees to the city and thus […]

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Chimney Sweep Sign in Lviv

Areta — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 08:22:14 +0000

Lviv, like most cities in the nineteenth century, needed chimney sweeps to keep chimneys clean from the soot that accumulated from burning coal. The bas-relief of a chimney sweep on Anhelovycha Street is one of the only reminders of the era of chimney sweeps. At the beginning of the twentieth […]

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