The horrors and mass slaughters that many monarchs around the world perpetrated in ancient and more modern times may be eclipsed by the Byzantines, including Byzantine Emperor Basil II, known as...
One of the most interesting and enjoyable historic sites in the Scandinavian country of Sweden is Glösa. This is an area with remarkable prehistoric petroglyphs, excavated hunting pits, and a center...
Movies, television shows, and cartoons are populated with dazzling martial artists ranging from the Kung-Fu antics of Hong Kong Phooey the crime fighting dog, to the mesmerizing Jeet Kune Do of Bruce...
The Maya were a polytheistic people who believed in a multitude of gods and goddesses. The deities of the Maya pantheon governed every aspect of nature and human life and were quite complex...
The Medieval period is often called (rightly or wrongly) one of the most brutal eras in European history. One of the most notorious features of the Middle Ages was the use of torture. Although...
The Manchu people are an ethnic minority in China sometimes called "red-tasseled Manchus", a reference to the ornamentation on traditional Manchu shaman’ hats. Shamanism was the dominant religion of...
For much of human history, pregnancy and childbirth was an extremely dangerous period in a woman’s life. It was often believed that the expectant mother and her baby were vulnerable to malevolent...
Researchers reporting in Current Biology on November 19 have found that a vast array of regularly spaced, still-inhabited ancient termite mounds in northeastern Brazil are up to about 4,000 years old...
A metal detectorist in Pembrokeshire in Wales has made a discovery that could change how we understand the history of the ancient Celts. The unearthing of a Celtic chariot burial in a Welsh field...
A team of researchers in Morocco have unearthed rocks carved with what appear to be petroglyphs of meteors crashing through space towards Earth, suggesting ancient Moroccan people might have...
History is threaded together with texts, scrolls and grimoires which were believed to contain the powerful supernatural rituals required to raise and control demons. A dark ancient text existed which...
The rich, beautiful art and opulent architecture of the Byzantine Empire glorified Jesus, the saints, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the emperors. Byzantine art motifs, the mosaics, paintings, and...
The ancient Egyptians enjoyed a variety of foods, not unlike what we enjoy today. Nevertheless, compared to many other ancient civilizations, the ancient Egyptians had access to better foods. The...
By the time of Byzantine Emperor Justinian’s reign in the 6th century AD, the Western Roman Empire was kaput, lost to waves of Germanic invaders from the North. Justinian was determined to recapture...
The Dharma Wheel is an Ashtamangala, or one of ‘Eight Auspicious Symbols’, a set of sacred symbols found in Indian religions. Although the Dharma Wheel is found also in Hinduism and Jainism, it is...
John Allen Chau, a 27 year old from Alabama, disembarked a small fishing boat on North Sentinel island, in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, allegedly to convert the tribal people to Christianity...
Prehistoric ‘pile dwellings’ were discovered only 150 years ago, and Europe’s past, before the advent of the written word, is well-preserved in numerous lakes and wetlands throughout the foothills of...
Analysis of archaeological sites north of the Dead Sea demonstrate that a meteor explosion in the skies 3,700 years ago instantly obliterated a civilization and destroyed once fertile farmland in...
Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a golden cross, thought to contain remnants of the Holy Cross of Jesus, in the medieval capital of the Bulgarian Empire. The cross is a striking piece...
Benzaiten is one of Japan's most complex and popular syncretic deities who has long ago been conflated and associated with other divinities from the Hindu, Buddhist, and Japanese pantheons. Her many...
The reign of Heraclius, the Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641, reads like a series of disasters that continued to be visited on his heirs. In between the disasters he had some successes, but he and...
The Indus civilization was the largest—but least known—of the first great urban cultures that also included Egypt and Mesopotamia. Named for one of their largest cities, the Harappans relied on river...
Archaeologists in Italy have discovered an “excellently" preserved and highly-colorful detailed fresco in an ancient Pompeii bedroom depicting an erotic scene in which a god disguised as a swan...
Courtship rituals have existed as long as the concept of romantic love. Such rituals exist to allow couples to get to know each other, and to allow an intimate relationship to develop. In modern,...