Ramayana is an integral part of life for millions of Hindus across the globe. It is one of the two most popular epics written in Sanskrit from ancient India, the other one being Mahabharata...
The British Library has digitized one of the most remarkable medieval books ever made in England. The Sherborne Missal contains many paintings on a vast array of subjects. Many of the images are...
By Jennifer Bain / The Conversation Seventy-five years ago, in February 1945, during the Second World War, Allied forces bombed the magnificent baroque city of Dresden, Germany, destroying most of it...
A medieval document has revealed connections between how we celebrate Christmas today and an English monastery. The document is a list of relics given to Battle Abbey, which was bestowed on by two...
A famous 16th century work from the reigns of Tiberius through to Nero (14-68 AD) has been preserved at Lambeth Palace Library for over 400 years at the official London residence of the Archbishop of...
Over the centuries, from its earliest beginnings, Christianity was the inspiration for some truly stunning art. From early frescoes, to illuminated manuscripts , magnificent churches and abbeys,...
The Flower of Battle is an Italian martial arts manual from the Renaissance. This manual was written by Fiore Furlano, a knight , diplomat, and itinerant fencing master who lived between the 14th and...
Fragments from a popular sexually explicit medieval French book have been discovered describing what journalists are calling a “hot-encounter" and “ X-rated language ”, but is this text a much more...
The Vedas are the sacred scriptures of Hinduism and are regarded as the oldest religious texts in the world. Thought to have been composed at least 3,500 years ago, the Vedas are a collection of...
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is a medical treatise from ancient Egypt. This papyrus is named after Edwin Smith, the American collector of antiquities who purchased the papyrus. The Edwin Smith Papyrus is...
Codex Gigas, also known as ‘the Devil’s Bible,’ is the largest and probably one of the strangest medieval manuscripts in the world. Dark legends surround the tome and its origins and the full page...
The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious illustrated hand-written vellum codex in a currently unidentified written and visual code. However, according to a non-peer reviewed paper published in John's...
A rare 1200-year old bible has been seized from a group of antiquities smugglers in Turkey. In recent years there have been a sharp spike in the numbers of historic artifacts smuggled into the...
A lucky discovery in a rare book has the potential to transform our knowledge of perhaps the most famous story from the entire Middle Ages. Some damaged manuscript pages found inside the volume are...
Mexico's National Institute of History and Anthropology has announced that a controversial document, previously known as the “Grolier Codex”, is authentic. After years of scrutiny, they have finally...
The University of Copenhagen in Denmark has announced a very important discovery. During an international project to decipher ancient Egyptian texts, one expert has been able to translate a papyrus...
Some may remember the deadly book of Aristotle that plays a vital part in the plot of Umberto Eco’s 1980 novel The Name of the Rose . Poisoned by a mad Benedictine monk, the book wreaks havoc in a...
Four images of an Australasian white cockatoo discovered in a 13th century Sicilian manuscript have reset historical models of the European “discovery’ of Australia. What is more, they mark the...
An ancient Christian oracle book of mysterious origins has been recently translated and found to contain a collection of encouragements, warnings, and cryptic divinations. The 1,500-year-old tome,...
The thought of a lost library is a tantalizing one, as one can speculate and imagine the kind of knowledge it might provide to the person who finds it. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that there...
A rare manuscript has become a unique one thanks to the eagle eyes of a French scholar. Dr. Eléonore Cellard noticed that there was barely visible text beneath an 8th century copy of holy scripture...
During the Middle Ages, Sahara outposts often found themselves filled with travelers, traders, and pilgrims passing through with their differing tasks. The pilgrims in particular interest us here, as...
Arguably the world’s most famous medieval manuscript, the wonderfully illustrated Book of Kells , was “created in 2 parts over 50 years,” Dr Bernard Meehan of Trinity College, Dublin, told reporters...
Did you know that Bristolians are entitled to live in Dublin thanks to an 846-year-old charter written by King Henry II which has never been revoked? In other words, people from Bristol could remain...
