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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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Europe

Ancient places can be found all over Europe. Their fascinating histories and impressive artifacts open intriguing glimpses to times past, and open up a window on European history. Visiting such ancient places in Europe can be an unforgettable experience.

Science is constantly discovering new archaeological places and uncovering more evidence into what we once thought we knew about our history, therefore offering new pieces to the ever changing puzzle of humanity’s past and altering how we interpret it. This section will present the most interesting archaeological sites all over Europe, as well as new discoveries of ancient places that are worth paying a visit.

The saints Chrysanthus and Daria being pushed underground to their horrible death in a salt mine. Source: Public domain
24 May, 2022 - 22:57 Sahir

Legendary Christian Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria Proved To Be Real

Legend has it that the now Christian saints Chrysanthus and Daria, who lived in the third century AD, converted thousands of fellow Romans to the Christian faith. This resulted in their arrest and...
Klaus Störtebeker was part of the Victual Brothers pirate band that terrorized the Baltic Sea until . . . Source: waewkid / Adobe Stock
17 May, 2022 - 22:37 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Klaus Störtebeker: The Bizarre Tale of a North German Pirate

Looking to the past, the annals of history have its fair share of extraordinary and unusual deaths, some more famous than others. It’s well known that Attila the Hun, the marauding Mongolian warlord...
The collaboration of archaeologists and scientists in England led to the 2021 discovery of a large number of Stonehenge pits used for trapping big game about 10,000 years ago! The Stonehenge monument at sunset. Source: vencav / Adobe Stock
17 May, 2022 - 18:56 Sahir

Hundreds of Ancient Hunting Pits Discovered By Stonehenge

Widely believed to be the most intensively investigated prehistoric site in the world, Stonehenge has forever held a place of mystery and never-ending curiosity in the minds of human beings...
Wife auctions were popular with the lower classes in England from about 1700 to 1850 because divorce was expensive and complicated. This work of art is by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and is called Selling a Wife. Source: Thomas Rowlandson / Public domain
11 May, 2022 - 18:56 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Why Did Victorian Women Willingly Sell Themselves at Wife Auctions?

The year was 1832 when Joseph Thompson, a local Cardiff man, led his wife by halter to the local marketplace hoping for a good price in what was, after all, just a wife auction. Before the bidding,...
Though the crusades are numbered it would appear that the Pisans zero crusade was truly the first as it preceded the First Crusade by nearly 80 years. And from that time forward the fortunes of Pisa rose to incredible heights! Source: Lunstream / Adobe Stock
10 May, 2022 - 23:01 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Was Pisa’s 1016 Sardinia Expedition the First Crusade of Them All?

During the First Crusade, the city state of Pisa, like many other European powers, was moved by the pleas of Pope Urban II, who in 1095 ordered the Christian kingdoms of Europe to launch a holy...
A closeup of the Blackboy statue in Stroud, England that may or may not be removed because it relates to English colonialism and racism. Source: Brian Robert Marshall / Blackboy, Blackboy's School building, Stroud
3 May, 2022 - 18:40 Nathan Falde

Controversial Blackboy Statue Set for Removal

After more than a year-and-a-half of study and contemplation, the District Council that governs Stroud, Gloucestershire, England has voted to seek the removal of a controversial statue from its perch...
A painting of the Antonine plague, by painter Joseph Wannenmacher, which was the beginning of the end for the western Roman Empire. Source: ChrisSchweigi / CC BY-SA 3.0
22 April, 2022 - 01:59 Jake Leigh-Howarth

The Antonine Plague and the Downfall of the Roman Empire

The Antonine plague, which happened between 165 and 180 AD, was a disastrous pandemic deemed so catastrophic that many historians have argued that it was the first major event to usher in the decline...
This Hanseatic League ship, which may exceed the Bremen Cog for preservation quality, was miraculously discovered 5 feet (1.5 meters) beneath the streets of Tallinn, Estonia’s capital. Source: Patrik Tamm / ERR
21 April, 2022 - 14:59 Sahir

Massive Medieval Hanseatic League Ship Found Near Tallinn, Estonia

One of the largest ports in the Baltic Sea, Estonia’s Tallinn Port is also one of the oldest in northern Europe, famous as trade center between Rurik Novgorod and Viking Scandinavia. Yesterday, a 700...
The mysterious lead sarcophagus found at Notre Dame
17 April, 2022 - 23:00 Sahir

Mysterious Notre Dame Lead Sarcophagus Will be Opened!

In April 2019, a devastating fire engulfed the historical Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris, built at a time when France was moving towards its identity as a nation, all the way back in the...
Detail of illustration showing Roman soldiers killing the Anglesey Druids, as described by Tacitus. Source: Public domain
14 April, 2022 - 14:59 Jake Leigh-Howarth

The Conquest of Anglesey and the Destruction of Druidism’s Last Stronghold

With a reputation for their savagery, the destruction of the Anglesey Druids and conquest of the Welsh Isle of Anglesey by the Romans put an end to the last pagan corner of Wales in 77 AD. But was...
Ruins of the Borgaråsen hillfort in Magma Geoparks in Norway. Source: Magma Geopark
9 April, 2022 - 22:59 Sahir

Were the Hillforts of Norway More Than Just Defensive Structures?

Hillforts are typically European erections of the Bronze and Iron Ages. They were fortified or defended settlements usually located at a natural height which people took advantage of to protect...
Catacombs of St Paul, Malta. Source: Konstantin Aksenov / Adobe Stock
9 April, 2022 - 18:58 Laura Tabone

Malta Underground: Religious Legends, Cave Churches and Subterranean Shrines

Religious visions have frequently taken place in the dark damp setting of caves and subterranean chambers making them attractive locations for shrines, chapels, pilgrimages and healing. One of the...
The screen poster for the 1982 film The Return of Martin Guerre. Source: Erogers148 / CC BY-SA 4.0
7 April, 2022 - 15:08 Meagan Dickerson

Martin Guerre: A Much Celebrated Historic Tale of Stolen Identity

On the 16th of September 1560, in the small rural French town of Artigat, a man named Arnaud du Tilh was put to death by hanging for a most unusual crime: for over three years, he had assumed an...
A detail from the Urgell Beatus, depicting the Siege of (Christian) Jerusalem by Nebudchadnezzar, which was threat to Christianity as was the Moorish Islamic takeover of most of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century AD, when monk Beatus' work was so popular. Source: Public Domain
5 April, 2022 - 14:57 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Monk’s Beatus Apocalypses Warned of The End of the World

Based on interpretations of the Book of Revelations, the Commentary on the Apocalypses, written between 776 and 784 by visionary monk Beatus of Liébana, were a series of manuscripts that foretold...
A Kushan empire (30–375 AD) frieze showing the Buddha flanked on the left by a Greek-inspired Vajrapani that clearly highlights the aesthetic nuances of Greek Buddhism. Source: Goldsmelter / CC BY-SA 4.0
30 March, 2022 - 23:00 Thanos Matanis

Greek Buddhism, The Forgotten Chapter In A Philosophy That Began in India

A bygone era forgotten in Western circles but preserved in the histories of Buddhist traditions tells the story of the Greek contribution to Buddhism. Enshrined in the daily prayers of the Theravāda...
Spot the robotic guard dog, built by Boston Dynamics, is now working at the Pompeii Archaeological Park as a security guard dog and also as an engineering inspection dog. Source: Pompeii Archaeological Park
30 March, 2022 - 18:58 Sahir

Pompeii Ruins Now To Be Protected by Robotic Guard Dog

Meet Spot, the robotic guard dog now patrolling the ruins of Pompeii. In 2013, Pompeii was declared by UNESCO as being on the verge of being declared unsafe unless Italian authorities spent more...
Facial reconstruction of one of the ancient Scots who may have come from Loch Lomond but was buried at Cramond. Source: Hayley Fisheer / University of Aberdeen
30 March, 2022 - 14:58 ashley cowie

Ancient Scots Were Sometimes Born Apart But Buried Together

Nine ancient Scots were buried in a mass grave in eastern Scotland some 1,400 years ago. However, a new study in the Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences journal shows they were born in...
Darvill’s Stonehenge solar calendar theory is fascinating and the author of this article put it to the test! Source: Author provided
28 March, 2022 - 14:58 Dr. John Hill

Putting Darvill’s Stonehenge Solar Calendar Theory To the Test!

When an academic heavyweight with the credentials of a professor of archaeology proposes a new theory about Stonehenge, the media takes immediate notice. Such is the current excitement raised by...
Mycenae, near Nafplio in Greece, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Source: Irina Rogova / Adobe Stock
26 March, 2022 - 00:59 johnblack

Mycenae: The Ancient City Founded by Perseus

Strategically located between two Peloponnese hills in southern Greece , the fortified site of Mycenae has entered collective consciousness mainly due to its mention in Homer’s the Illiad and the...
Greenland’s Lake 578 site was one of the sites where core samples and other data were taken that showed evidence of a prolonged drought. “Nobody has actually studied this location before,” said study lead author Boyang Zhao, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Source: UMass
25 March, 2022 - 13:58 Sahir

A Prolonged Drought Drove Out the Greenland Vikings, Says New Study

European Nordic seafaring pirates and raiders, known as the Vikings, would come to Greenland to settle around 950 AD, but mysteriously the Greenland Vikings vanished with the onset of the Little Ice...
The National Trust has bought land near Stonehenge to protect it from continued agricultural exploitation. Source: Nicholas / Adobe Stock
22 March, 2022 - 17:51 Nathan Falde

England’s National Trust Buys Threatened Land Near Stonehenge

The United Kingdom’s National Trust has been assigned to protect and maintain England’s most famous monumental site at Stonehenge , and the challenges they face are never-ending. The National Trust...
An aerial view of what remains of Boleskine House, owned by occultist Aleister Crowley from 1899 to 1913, which is the subject of a new film by Scottish filmmaker Ashley Cowie. Source: Ashley Cowie / www.thebeastoflochness.com/
21 March, 2022 - 21:58 ashley cowie

New Film Shatters 'Fake News' of Occultist Aleister Crowley’s Scottish Boleskine House

A filmmaker from the north of Scotland has vowed to dissolve decades of “fake news” surrounding a famous Boleskine House Jacobite era hunting lodge, and center of Aleister Crowley’s “magical...
Protruding ledge M.4555 (see Figure 4), roughly at the mid-point of the northern side of the ‘Kothon’; viewed from the west. Source: © Sapienza University of Rome Expedition to Motya / Antiquity Publications Ltd View of the refurbished ‘Kothon’ with a replica of the statue of Ba’al at its center (© Sapienza University of Rome Expedition to Motya / Antiquity Publications Ltd).
17 March, 2022 - 13:42 Nathan Falde

‘Harbor’ of Ancient Island City Was Really a Sacred Phoenician Pool

Excavations at the Iron Age Phoenician settlement of Motya have been ongoing for many decades. Located on a Mediterranean island just off the western coast of Sicily , this long-deserted ancient city...
Handprints are the key element of the children’s art contribution in prehistoric times revealed in this study. Source: Nattapol_Sritongcom/Adobe Stock
15 March, 2022 - 17:59 Sahir

A Whopping 25% of Prehistoric Rock Art Could Be Children’s Art, Study

Child artists are not just a modern reality. They have left their artistic fingerprints on countless ancient surfaces. Now, a new study published in The Journal of Archaeological Sciences points to...

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