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Ancient Traditions

Ancient Origins brings you articles related to Ancient Traditions from all over the world. Find related articles in the sections of history, archaeology, human origins, unexplained, artifacts, ancient places and myths and legends.

Celebrity on a red carpet. Source: Tom Merton/KOTO / Adobe Stock
24 May, 2022 - 19:50 Sahir

The Red Carpet Treatment Goes Back Over 2,000 Years

Today, the red carpet is associated with VIPs, dignitaries, the heads of state, celebrities, film festivals. It conjures up images of flashing of camera lights and paparazzi, glitzy gowns and make-up...
The Fajada Butte Sun Dagger in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico is a spiral petroglyph that is lit up with brilliant streaks of focused Sunlight at key moments in the year. Source: YouTube screenshot / Mystery History
24 May, 2022 - 15:00 Caleb Strom

Connecting Heaven and Earth: The Sun Dagger of Fajada Butte, New Mexico

Near the entrance to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA is an imposing butte that had sacred significance to the ancestral Pueblo culture, who inhabited Chaco Canyon up until about 1150 AD. On Fajada...
Painting ‘Combate de Mujeres’ by José de Ribera showing a female duel. Source: Public Domain
23 May, 2022 - 19:03 Sahir

Women Scrapping with Swords and Pistols: Famous Female Duels

The use of private duels as a way of settling questions of honor spread through Europe from Italy in the end of the 15th century, though the institutional practice was much older. These encounters...
Charcoal drawings from the Chauvet Cave in France, fabulous examples of artwork created by the Aurignacians. (Claude Valette / CC BY-SA 4.0)
22 May, 2022 - 18:58 Lex Leigh

Aurignacians: The First Artistic Culture?

Since the evolution of Homo sapiens approximately 1.8 million years ago, humans have advanced in many aspects of life, especially art. According to historians, the earliest record of humans engaging...
Grave with skeletal remains of a pre-Hispanic woman found at Palenque Archaeological Zone. Source: INAH Chiapas
21 May, 2022 - 14:57 Nathan Falde

Archaeologists in Chiapas, Mexico Unearth Remains of Maya Noblewoman

The Chiapas branch of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has just reported a notable find in the heavily excavated Palenque Archaeological Zone in the southern part of the...
Amphora dating to circa 540 BC made in Attica, Greece, depicting bees from ancient Greek mythology. Source: The British Museum / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
19 May, 2022 - 18:53 Lex Leigh

Getting Buzzed: The History of Hallucinogenic Mad Honey

Everyone loves honey. A delicious, sweet treat, it can be used in recipes, cosmetics, or as a sugar substitute. However, not all honey is made the same. This is incredibly clear in Nepal and Turkey,...
Corpse medicine sounds revolting today but for thousands of years “doctors” believed the human spirit and its powers could be ingested in the form of human fat, blood, or brains. "Saturn eating his son,” painted by Francisco de Goya.
13 May, 2022 - 19:03 Sahir

Corpse Medicine: Brains, Mellified Man’s Honey-flesh, or Blood Drinks!

In the 16th and 17th centuries while, with astonishing hypocrisy, Europeans were reacting with disgust and outrage to reports of cannibalism brought back by travelers from the New World. And yet in...
Wife auctions were popular with the lower classes in England from about 1700 to 1850 because divorce was expensive and complicated. This work of art is by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and is called Selling a Wife. Source: Thomas Rowlandson / Public domain
11 May, 2022 - 18:56 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Why Did Victorian Women Willingly Sell Themselves at Wife Auctions?

The year was 1832 when Joseph Thompson, a local Cardiff man, led his wife by halter to the local marketplace hoping for a good price in what was, after all, just a wife auction. Before the bidding,...
Representational image of Ermine de Reims. Source: inarik / Adobe Stock
2 May, 2022 - 22:58 Meagan Dickerson

The Visions of Ermine de Reims - Supernatural Forces in Everyday Medieval Life

Ermine de Reims was a relatively inconsequential peasant woman who moved to the town of Reims, in northeastern France, from rural Vermandois with her elderly husband in 1384. She was a pious woman,...
Researcher Li Nan, from Peking University, pictured with her team, holding the foot amputation evidence that was subjected to biomedical analysis. Source: South China Morning Post
2 May, 2022 - 18:22 Sahir

Punishment: 3000-year-old Chinese Foot Amputation May Be Oldest Ever!

Researchers in China believe a skeleton found in a tomb in the northwest of the country is the earliest known example of foot amputation as punishment for a crime, reports the South China Morning...
The continuous use of lavender throughout history reveals its popularity. Source: asife / Adobe Stock
1 May, 2022 - 14:59 Lex Leigh

History’s Love of Lavender: From Mummies to Bathhouses and Beyond!

Lavender is one of the most well-known plants throughout the world. It is popular in gardening, baking, cleaning, and medicine. The soft purple flowers have been around for a few thousand years and...
Baron Samedi and his Voodoo powers over death continues to be a powerful force in the Caribbean region, especially in Haiti.
29 April, 2022 - 19:07 Khadija Tauseef

Baron Samedi And the Voodoo Loa of Haiti

Death is an inevitability that every person must face. It is the fate of all humans. However, to make death easier, each religion provides a guide that assists the transition from the human world to...
Vaccination poster image. The story of inoculation is far older than you might think. Source: bakhtiarzein / Adobe Stock
27 April, 2022 - 22:54 Lex Leigh

Just a Poke: The Origins of Inoculation

With the recent pandemic and the still-spreading Covid-19 virus, inoculation has become a hot topic throughout several areas of the world. Regardless of what side you’re on, the history of...
Archaeologists have deciphered what could be the origins of the Latin alphabet in graffiti found at the Temple of Hathor near the Serâbît el-Khâdim mines. Serâbît el-Khâdim in the background and the evolution of the letter “A” in the foreground. Source: Einsamer Schütze / CC BY-SA 3.0 & Till Nikolaus von Heiseler / CC BY 4.0
22 April, 2022 - 19:12 Laura Tabone

From an Ox to an “A”: The Ancient Egyptian Origins of the Latin Alphabet

As crazy as it sounds, it’s now well attested that the letter “A” started out its evolution as the Egyptian hieroglyph for an ox. But its truly mind-blowing transformation came when turquoise miners...
Left: An unknown Egyptian mummy. Right: Modern equivalent of Mummy Brown pigment. Source: michal812 / Adobe Stock
19 April, 2022 - 01:55 dhwty

Mummy Brown – 16th Century Paint Made from Ground Up Mummies

Most people today would probably associate Egyptian mummies with museums. This is unsurprising, as this is probably where most of us have seen them, especially in Europe. Yet, if I were to say that...
The bloodletting of a patient by a surgeon with three dismayed onlookers; represented by five faun-like demons. Source: Wellcome Images / CC BY 4.0
16 April, 2022 - 18:58 Jake Leigh-Howarth

Bleeding Your Way to Health: The Horrible History of Bloodletting

Bloodletting, or phlebotomy, is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the surgical removal of some of a patient’s blood for therapeutic purposes.” Throughout the majority of history, this gruesome,...
Selection of Greek Magical Papyri which are kept at the British Library. Source: British Library
8 April, 2022 - 18:54 Jessica Nadeau

Curious and Unusual Spells from the Greek Magical Papyri

The Greek magical papyri, as it is commonly known, is an extensive collection of ancient Greco-Roman Egypt magical spells, rituals, remedies, hymns, and myth. Scholars have placed its origin between...
Sacrifice and care on Chinese Tomb Sweeping Day. Source: tuayai / Adobe Stock
8 April, 2022 - 01:58 aprilholloway

The Myths, Legends and Traditions of Chinese Tomb Sweeping Day

Every year, the Chinese celebrate the historic Qingming Festival. Fondly known as Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day, it is a day that commemorates the onset spring and the occasion when families...
The ideas behind the Mormon creation theory are captured in the Replica of Christus (1838) by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), located in the Temple Square North Visitors Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Source: Public domain
7 April, 2022 - 01:58 Forest Bauer

The Mormon Creation Theory and What it is Built Upon

From the time of early humankind, staring up at the night sky or watching the sunrise, we have wondered at the vastness and beauty of the world around us. Christians have a creation story, American...
A Kushan empire (30–375 AD) frieze showing the Buddha flanked on the left by a Greek-inspired Vajrapani that clearly highlights the aesthetic nuances of Greek Buddhism. Source: Goldsmelter / CC BY-SA 4.0
30 March, 2022 - 23:00 Thanos Matanis

Greek Buddhism, The Forgotten Chapter In A Philosophy That Began in India

A bygone era forgotten in Western circles but preserved in the histories of Buddhist traditions tells the story of the Greek contribution to Buddhism. Enshrined in the daily prayers of the Theravāda...
Evidence of ancient gambling is shown on this 540BC ceramic illustrating Achilles and Ajax playing dice. Source: Nick Thompson / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
30 March, 2022 - 02:01 johnblack

Gods and Gambling in Ancient Greece

When you talk about gambling usually your mind goes to casinos, baccarat, roulette, lottery, dice etc. But have you ever thought about when or how gambling first originated? The fact is that some...
Mythology was put to the service of ancient Greek diplomacy. Image of the mighty god Zeus. Source: zwiebackesser / Adobe Stock
24 March, 2022 - 21:52 Thanos Matanis

Of Kin and Kind: The Role of Myths in Ancient Greek Diplomacy

Myths in the ancient world were not confined to the world of movies and children’s books like they are today. They played a vital part in political life and ancient Greek diplomacy. For example,...
Analysis of Roman house design in virtual reality, with eye-catching areas highlighted. Source: Campanaro & Landeschi / Antiquity Publications Ltd
24 March, 2022 - 00:00 Sahir

VR Explores Pompeii to Understand the Tricks of Roman House Design

Ancient Roman houses—at least those of the wealthy—were built not just for comfort but also to impress. Many design elements and “tricks” were employed to enhance or hide specific parts of the house...
The “Norse Power” deodorant was designed by Norse experts in York, England so that anyone can have the Viking smell and all its powers! Source: Visit York
19 March, 2022 - 21:59 Lex Leigh

Smell Like a Viking - The Viking Odor Was Strangely Superior!

Sailing, exploring, and raiding. Three activities well-loved by Vikings in their time. These Scandinavian seafarers spent their days as brutal warriors, pillaging and colonizing cities all over...

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