All  

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ Mobile

Barbarians

Detail of the Triumph of Camillus (cropped) by Biagio d'Antonio c. 1470/1475. Source: Public domain By Marc Hyden

The Camillus Conundrum: Did Camillus Really Save Rome from the Gauls?

Few words evoked as much emotion in ancient Rome as vae victis or “woe to the vanquished.” They harkened back to a period when a Gallic tribe called the Senones had sacked the fledgling city of Rome...
Senior Researcher at the National Museum of Denmark Mads Dengso Jessen holds a Viking Age window glass fragment. Source: John Fhær Engedal Nissen / National Museum of Denmark

Study Finds Out Those Barbaric Vikings Had…Stained Glass Windows?!

It is no secret that the portrayal of Vikings in popular culture has done more than its fair share to distort our ideas of what and who the Vikings were. This distortion extends across various...
Büklükale Archaeological Settlement, Turkey. Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Turkey.

Excavations in Turkey Reveal the True Home of the Cimmerians

‘Conan the Barbarian’ popularized the name of the Cimmerians, an equestrian nomadic people from Anatolia for the uninitiated, and they’re back in the news for fantastic reasons. Ongoing excavations...
The rare 69-AD Batavian mask find. Source: City of Krefeld, Press, and Communications

Rare Batavian Calvary Mask Worn in Revolt Against The Romans Found

Archaeologists excavating an ancient Roman site near the German city of Krefeld, just a few miles west of the Rhine, uncovered a rare Batavian mask, face-fitted for the elite Batavian cavalrymen,...
The half-human, half-plant caryatids in the tomb of Sveshtari; these sculpted female figures served as architectural support like a column in the stunning Thracian tomb design.             Source: Nenko Lazarov /

The Staggeringly Well-Preserved Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari

In 1982, the now-famous Thracian tomb of Sveshtari was discovered by archaeologists just south of what is now Sveshtari, Razgrad Province in Bulgaria. The tomb of Sveshtari likely belonged to...
Misleading 19th century depicting the “barbarian” Visigoths sack of Rome in Late Antiquity Source: Public domain

Barbarians versus Romans: Violence and Urban Life in Late Antiquity

The image of the savage, violent barbarian is well-entrenched in Western culture and has been a part of our literary, popular culture and even our language for centuries. Most people would not...
The discovery of the Visigoth sarcophagus in an abandoned Roman villa in the Murcia region of Spain.

1,500-year-old Visigoth Sarcophagus Found at Roman Villa Site

The Visigoths, the so-called barbaric tribe that would ultimately defeat the Romans and bring down the Roman Empire, were an early Germanic warring people. The course of their wars would ultimately...
This photo shows one particular body where the head has been lopped off and placed at the feet of the victim found at the Roman burial site, Somersham, UK.

Extraordinarily High Number of Roman Decapitations at UK Burial Site

It wouldn’t be unfair to say that the Roman Empire was a vast intercontinental territory. By 117 AD, it included all of Italy, the entire Mediterranean, and much of Europe, including England, Wales...
Development of Advanced Pottery by “Barbarians” Found in Poland

Development of Advanced Pottery by “Barbarians” Found in Poland

A massive archaeological site in Wrzępia, a tiny village in southern Poland, has been discovered by a team of Polish archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology, Jagellonian University, Krakow...
King of One Hundred Battles: The Story of Drust I, Ruler of the Picts

King of One Hundred Battles: The Story of Drust I, Ruler of the Picts

From all the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, the Picts remain the most mysterious and continue to be a crucial focus for many researchers, archeologists, and historians. The history of...
The Feast of Attila by Ede Heinrich (1863) (Public Domain)

Attila The Great, Reviled as a ‘Barbarian’

Qin Shi Huang , first emperor of China and Genghis Khan have received what one might call a ‘bad rap’. They were of far greater honor and integrity than history has reported, and their achievements...
Modern Scots Share DNA With Dark Age Picts. Source: Peter Atkins / Adobe Stock.

Modern Scots Share DNA With Dark Age Picts

Scientists reveal modern Scots have strong genetic links with their Dark Age ancestors. “ We're a' Jock Tamson's bairns” (We are all Jock Tamson’s children) is an old Scottish phrase meaning all...
Kreka was Attila’s first wife. (matiasdelcarmine / Adobe Stock)

The Wives Who Made Attila the Hun

In 448 AD, Priscus , a Roman diplomat and a Greek historian , and Maximus , the head of the Byzantine embassy, were on a mission by Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II to meet with the infamous...
Goths cross a river by Évariste-Vital Luminais.

How Ancient Rome Dealt with the Barbarians at the Gate

Cavan W. Concannon / The Conversation A caravan of Goths – the Thervingi and the Greuthungi – were massing along the Danube river, at the border of the Roman Empire. This was not an invading army,...
The restored horse head is on view for the first time since its discovery in 2009

Bronze Horse Head of Waldgirmes Emphasizes that Germanic Tribes and Romans Sometimes Played Nice

Last week a rare Roman bronze horse’s head made international headlines because it gained a German farmer a pretty penny. Now the sculpture fragment is back in the limelight because archaeologists...
Gorsiumi freskok

Gorsium Archaeological Park: Once A Thriving Roman City Forgotten For Centuries

Gorsium-Herculia, once strategically important enough to host Roman Emperors, was rediscovered in 1866 by Floris Romer, ‘the father of Hungarian archaeology.’ One Roman mile (1,620 yards) from the...
Remains of 82 individuals have be recovered from the Alken Enge site.

Finds from Alken Enge Provide New Perspective on ‘Barbaric’ Germanic Tribes

Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark have made a remarkable discovery concerning the human remains of Alken Enge, Jutland. A study published by PNAS that the size of barbarian armies in Iron...