India, particularly when viewed from the Western lens, has always occupied a particular place in popular imagination. The Indian subcontinent was a land of mysticism, yoga, ayurveda, alternate...
Did Buddhism exist in Upper Egypt and the Lower Meroitic Empire? The answer appears to be yes. It was in Memphis that English Egyptologist and archaeologist W. M. Flinders Petrie found evidence of...
The Upanishads are a genre of texts that form the final and last section of the Vedas. The Upanishads were composed orally in Sanskrit, and the earliest surviving ones dating to the 1st millennium BC...
Throughout human history we seem to have done almost anything to entertain ourselves, and some forms of entertainment have been pretty weird. Some of these have even teetered on the edge of the...
Nanjanagudu is located in India’s ancient Mysuru (Mysore) district and is home to Srikanteshwara Temple, an ancient, important Hindu pilgrimage site. For this reason, the Nanjanagudu area is a holy...
Just 68 miles (110 km) from Patna, in India’s eastern Bihar province, the Kesaria stupa lies in the landscape partially hidden amongst vegetation. The original Kesaria stupa is believed to date back...
The term "tree hugger" is a phrase greatly associated with 1970's era Western liberal activists vigilantly trying to protect the environment from humanity's industrial destructive thirst for profit...
Archaeologists digging in the southern Indian village of Konthagai in the state of Tamil Nadu have found a rare and useful artifact. It is a rusted iron dagger, believed to be anywhere from 2,500 to...
Hidden deep in India’s northwestern state of Haryana, archaeologists have discovered cave paintings dating to the Upper Paleolithic age. The cave art was found at Faridabad's Mangar Bani hill forest...
The Barabar Caves are a group of rock-cut caves located in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. The Barabar Caves contain a total of seven caves, the oldest of which date to the Mauryan period. The...
In the village of Duddeda in the southern Indian province of Telangana, amateur historians stumbled upon an astounding collection of ancient statues dating from the Kakatiya Dynasty, the Deccan...
Why is the Ganges so significant and sacred in Hinduism? Many rivers have nourished humans in our boundless history, and some of the greatest ancient civilizations have been born on the banks of...
The Aghori are followers of a Hindu sect believed to be 1000 years old. These ascetics are often regarded as sadhus (Sanskrit for ‘good/holy man’), and have devoted their entire lives to the...
There is a pervasive legend in India of a secret organization that allegedly has a vast amount of advanced knowledge in their possession. Believed to have been formed over 2000 years ago, the Nine...
The Thar Desert, or the Great Indian Desert, is a part of India’s national heritage, located in the western state of Rajasthan, spread over a whopping 77,220 square miles (200,000 square kilometers...
During excavations along the shore of the Ob River near Novosibirsk in southwestern Siberia, a tiny, sculpted object was unearthed that has archaeologists and historians puzzled. The object was a...
Stepwells are magnificent architectural structures found in India that tapped into underground water tables, providing a year-round water supply. Thousands of the engineering masterpieces are dotted...
It is an intellectual pleasure to find friends and topics that intertwine over time and lead to greater understanding. It is like lifting a heavy velvet cloth and discovering ancient and precious...
India has a rich historical and archaeological record. Something that may be less known about the Indian subcontinent is its many megalithic sites. Many of these sites are found across India. The...
Harsha was an Indian ruler who lived during the 7th century AD. He was a member of the Vardhana Dynasty, one of the regional powers that emerged in northern India following the collapse of the Gupta...
The Shroud of Turin is believed by many to be the bloodstained burial cloth Jesus of Nazareth was wrapped in after his crucifixion. But skeptics say it is a forgery, or at best only a religious...
Archaeologists have discovered a unique hilltop monastery in eastern India. The 11th or 12th century religious center is special because of its location and because it was headed by a Buddhist nun,...
Since ancient times people have had to deal with runny and stuffy noses, coughs, body aches, chills, and all the other unpleasantness that accompanies being bitten by a winter bug. While there is no...
During nineteenth and first-half-of-the-twentieth century, a popular proverb on every Kashmiri’s tongue was Sountas na keneras, Te hardas na neeles , meaning “plough the soil in spring even if it is...
![The Shroud of Turin: modern, digitally processed image of the face on the cloth [left] and the full body image as seen on the shroud [right].](https://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_optimized/public/field/image/The-Shroud-of-Turin.jpg?itok=C6wvY5Gn)
