In the 13th century, Marco Polo claimed to have encountered the remarkable Khutulun , the great-great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan. Amidst the fragmented Mongol Empire, Khutulun emerged as a...
The Silk Road created a convergence of cultures like no other. The route is deemed influential by historians because of the contributions it made to trade and the economy, as well as society in...
Although taking a summer vacation is now a standard aspect of modern-day civilization for many, it wasn’t always that way. Tourism was far less common in ancient times than it is today, but that...
Marco Polo may be a household name, but few know that his famous literary masterpiece, The Travels of Marco Polo , was not only written while he was in prison, but was penned by somebody else. Marco...
A concerning trend has broken out in the world: that of rewriting history to one's liking by acclaiming or tarnishing historical figures of whom very little is actually known. For more than 30 years...
Qalhat, an ancient city located in a northeastern region of the country of Oman, has an interesting history behind it. Located just north of Sur, the capital of the Ash Sharqiyah South Governorate,...
The Venetian merchant, explorer, and traveler, Marco Polo, is one of history’s most revered names, and his travels through Asia along the Silk Road at the end of the 13th century are documented in...
In 2016, Ancient Origins published an article entitled Is Marco Polo a Fictional Characte r? and it led to hate-mail and overall outrage among some readers. It was blown so out-of-proportion that the...
An incredibly significant medieval book of manuscripts has been returned to Ireland . The Book of Lismore is a collection of hand-written texts that was donated by an aristocratic English family to...
Ancient history and some of its famous faces have inspired countless TV series over recent years, ranging from drama and action, to fantasy and sci-fi. We all know that “based on actual events” or “...
In a stunning find, hundreds of artifacts dating back to the golden age of China have been discovered in ancient Han period tombs located at the origin of the Silk Road . Xi ’ an (Sian) city is the...
Khutulun was a Mongolian noblewoman who lived during the time of the Mongol Empire. She is recorded to have been a great warrior and was especially noted for her prowess in the sport of wrestling...
A team of specialists working at the Australian auction house Mossgreen have discovered a rare Ming Dynasty banknote hidden within a Chinese wooden sculpture. The discovery happened unexpectedly as...
Based upon historical analyses, it is unlikely that a person named Marco Polo who visited China in the 1200’s existed. Before presenting this argument, here is an analogy: if people do not know that...
New research suggests that Western explorers reached China more than 1,500 years before Marco Polo’s historic trip to the East, making it the first documented contact between Western and Chinese...
Hsi-yu chi , or Journey to the West, is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century, during the Ming Dynasty. The novel adds elements from a bewildering array of Asian cultural lore, as well as...
Once travelled by famous historical figures such as Marco Polo and Genghis Khan, the Silk Road was a hugely important network of transport routes connecting eastern China with Central Asia, the...
A map of the world produced in 1491 by Henricus Martellus has been subjected to multispectral imaging, which has revealed hidden details on the map not previously visible, including numerous Latin...
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure-dome decree…" Thus begins one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s three great poems, the unfinished “ Kubla Khan” . According to the poet, this poem was...
