(Page 426) | Ancient Origins

28 May, 2018 - 14:00 ashley cowie

Out with the Ouija Board! How the Popular Divining Tool Influenced A Modern Murder Case

A convicted double murderer has won the right to a retrial on the basis that four of the jury had used a Ouija board the night before finding him guilty. Does this mean that the UK judicial system...

A Pazyryk horseman from the Asian steppe in a felt painting from a burial around 300 BC. (Public Domain). Krishna with cow. (CC BY 2.0) Hathor as a cow, Papyrus of Ani (Public Domain)

27 May, 2018 - 23:01 Steven Keith

Horses, Cows and Celestial Creatures at the Dawn of Civilizations

When I think of the Aryans of the ancient times, I think of Central Asia, the steppe, a horse culture that could enable their language, Sanskrit to spread, at a gallop, so to speak, westward and...

Some say maya is a magical creative power of the Brahman

27 May, 2018 - 19:00 Vanamali Mataji

Maya: Science Only Acknowledges Now What Ancient Sages Knew About Reality 5000 Years Ago

Maya is a word which is very familiar to the western world, but very few know what it actually means. It is a word which was used by the rishis (sages) of ancient India to describe the nature of this...

The baby had been partially mummified and had green bones due to copper from a coin placed in its hand.

27 May, 2018 - 13:56 ashley cowie

Green-Boned Baby Clasps A Copper Ticket to The Afterlife

500 graves dated to between the 12th and 16th centuries were found in a cemetery at Nyárlőrinc, a village in southern Hungary. They contained a unique set of bones. In 2005, Dr. János Balázs, a...

Left: Pictish warrior (public domain) Right: Scythian Warrior with Axe, Bow, and Spear.

26 May, 2018 - 23:04 Steven Keith

Piecing Together the Origins of Ancient Near East Names in Scotland

Thinking of Scotland, as I do from the somewhat similar mountains of northern India, which has been my home for nigh on twenty years, I do so from a rather Indian perspective; I think of families,...

The Roman Tantalus Bowl, a Pythagorean Cup. (Journal of Roman Archaeology) Background: ‘Aeneas and a Sibyl in the Underworld’ by Jan Brueghel the Elder.

26 May, 2018 - 18:55 dhwty

More than a Sip and You Feel a Drip: A Morbid Motif for the Crafty Pythagoras Cup

The Pythagoras Cup (Pythagorean Cup) is the name given to a drinking cup attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras of Samos. This cup is also known as the Greedy Cup and the Tantalus...

Skull from Roman Dead exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands

26 May, 2018 - 14:00 ancient-origins

The Dead Tell Us of a Diverse Londinium

Rebecca Redfern / The Conversation Our knowledge about the people who lived in Roman Britain has undergone a sea change over the past decade. New research has rubbished our perception of it as a...

A ceramic female polo player, from northern China, Tang Dynasty, first half of the 8th century, made with white slip and polychrome. From the Musée Guimet (Guimet Museum), Paris. (Public Domain) Background: ‘Xuanzong's Journey to Shu’, in the manner of the mid-8th century Tang artist Li Zhaodao, an 11th-century Song dynasty remake.

26 May, 2018 - 01:59 dhwty

The Tang Dynasty: The Arts Flourished, Family Ties Broke, and a Concubine Became Empress

While Europe was masked in the Dark Ages, China was flourishing in the Tang Dynasty. Woodblock printing gave them books, testing made government jobs available to common citizens, paper spread...

26 May, 2018 - 00:36 aprilholloway

Bones found in Magnificent Amphipolis Tomb belong to Five People, Ministry Announced

In 2015, the Greek Ministry of Culture announced the long-awaited results of the analysis on the bones found inside the 4th century BC tomb uncovered in Amphipolis in northern Greece. The news was...

25 May, 2018 - 23:51 dhwty

The Secret Tomb of the First Chinese Emperor Remains an Unopened Treasure

The tomb of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, despite being involved in one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all times, endures as a mystery to archaeologists and historians as...

Sunset looking across Port Warrender to the Mitchell Plateau on the Kimberley coast. It is in Wunambal Gaambera country

25 May, 2018 - 23:00 ancient-origins

How to get to Australia … more than 50,000 years ago

The Conversation Over just the past few years, new archaeological findings have revealed the lives of early Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory’s Kakadu potentially as early as 65,000...

A Pachacamac mummy/ Peter Eeckhout with burial face mask.

25 May, 2018 - 18:59 Ed Whelan

Exceptional Mummy Unearthed Giving Insights into the Incan Rule

A team of archaeologists from the Université libre de Bruxelles's has uncovered a 1000-year-old mummy at an excavation in Pachacamac, on Peru’s Pacific coast. After a dig of nine weeks the team at...

Sappho and Alcaeus by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881)

25 May, 2018 - 15:33 MartiniF

Gender Equality in the Ancient World?

In discussions about gender in the ancient world, women seldom seemed to be portrayed in a good light. In Ancient Greece, women were described as dogs, demons and degenerates. Semonides of Amorgos (...

Triumphant Diagoras held aloft by his sons by Auguste Vinchon.

25 May, 2018 - 14:05 Ed Whelan

Mistaken Belief has Turkish Locals Seeking Blessings at Olympic Boxer’s Tomb

According to reports from the Greek City Times and other news outlets, a 2,300-year-old tomb in Turkey once revered as a holy man’s shrine is no such thing. Instead, the ‘shrine’ is actually the...

25 May, 2018 - 02:34 ancient-origins

Mad, Bad, and Deadly: Power in the Hands of Infamous Roman Emperors

Friday, June 1, 2018 - 06:30

Hedonistic, debauched, corrupt, sadistic and cruel would describe the 1st-Century Roman Emperors Caligula and Nero. Both men became rulers of the largest empire in the world in their late teens and neither could manage to keep that power under control.