Chalk one up for the all-seeing eye of Google Earth. Using this global aerial imaging program as a tool of discovery, last year archaeologists from the University of Oxford identified the ruins of...
The Himyarite Kingdom was established in 110 BC and lasted until 570 AC. It is most often remembered these days as the “Jewish Kingdom”, thanks to the fact that for some time its predominant religion...
A power vacuum caused by an extreme drought 1,500 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula led to political unrest, war, and societal change. These were the preconditions that led to the development and...
In this top story overview, we highlight our most read articles this week, including a look at the little-known subject of Arabian Chivalry and exploring Lagash, a lost city from Mesopotamia. Among...
When you think of concepts like honor, courtly love, and noblesse oblige, you likely conjure up images of European knights in steel-plate armor, mounted on giant destriers. European dress, European...
In translation, the term jinn can be interpreted as ‘hidden from sight’ or ‘the hidden ones.’ In Arabic, the word jinn defines a collective number and it derives from the root jnn or gnn, which means...
While the megalithic stone monuments of northern Arabia remain largely unknown, the discovery of a vast ritual platform and Egyptian artifacts in northern Saudi Arabia has shed light on the evolution...
In Saudi Arabia a new international archaeology project has been announced, that could help us to understand some long-lost civilizations. Work has begun at the Al-Ula heritage site, which was once...
Located on the Horn of Africa, the ancient Ethiopian kingdom of Axum (also spelled Aksum) played a significant role in international relations around the time of the first millennium. At its height,...
The idea of a worldwide Dark Age or universal decline in man’s knowledge may be difficult to accept because the broad deterioration of ancient civilizations didn’t happen at an even pace in all...
Reports of archaeological finds from Oman, a middle-eastern country on the Arabian Peninsula, are rarely in the news. But this week, archaeologists in Oman have reported the unearthing of the largest...
The Ma’rib Dam is an engineering marvel of the ancient world that is located in central Yemen. This dam is easily one of the finest examples of masonry architecture in the Arabian Peninsula. Local...
Recent archaeological evidence indicates that between 130,000 to 100,000 years ago there was an exit of anatomically modern humans out of Africa into the Americas and Eastern Eurasia. This view is...
In ancient times, people would travel thousands of kilometers across land and sea, along a network of trading routes, to acquire the precious commodities of myrrh and frankincense. The ancient...
The Panchatantra (which means the ‘Five Principles’ in Sanskrit) is a collection of interwoven short stories from India. The tales in the Panchatantra are told in both prose and poetry, and consist...
A cache of small, ornamental daggers, battle axes, bows and arrows, possibly offerings to a war god, has been excavated in a 3,000-year-old building in what researchers think was a religious complex...