Nearly 5,000 years ago, long before Marco Polo traversed the vast east-west trade routes of the Great Silk Road, nomads were carving the foundations for these trans-Asian interaction networks. “Our...
Ryōanji, translated as Peaceful Dragon Temple, is a Zen Temple located in the northwestern part of Kyoto, Japan. This well-known temple was built during the 15th century, and is today best known for...
Raden Wijaya (known also as Nararya Sangramawijaya) was the founder of the Majapahit Empire. Apart from being remembered as the man who established the Majapahit Empire, Raden Wijaya is also known...
Madyes, the mysterious Scythian stepped onto the world stage. There is not a great deal of information about him, nor has his name turned up in any of the Assyrian tablets. Herodotus and Strabo are...
Would you have sex with a Homo sapiens neanderthalensis if they hadn’t gone extinct? Your ancestors may have. Scientists are testing cave dirt for the presence of Neanderthal DNA from disintegrated...
Yamashita’s Gold (known also as Yamashita’s Treasure) is the name given to the alleged war loot accumulated by the Japanese armed forces in Southeast Asia during the Second World War. This alleged...
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...
In his Republic, Plato mentions a cave in India with an inscription from the second century BCE. The inscription refers to a shadow play performance where puppets of humans and animals were...
Semar is probably one of the oldest characters in Indonesian mythology who was said to not have been derived from Hindu mythology. He was made famous by performances of Wayang (Shadow Puppets) in the...
Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, in his book Proserpina , calls himself “the gentle and happy scholar of flowers”. A large part of his work is an attempt to connect nature, art and society. To...
A eunuch is a castrated man who was usually forced to undergo such a procedure without consent. This was done so that the person might perform a specific social role such as harem servant, guardian...
A new study of two bronze objects discovered in northwest Alaska shows that they provide the first known evidence of the presence of metals from Eurasia in prehistoric North America. The artifacts...
Jayavarman II is traditionally regarded as the founder of the Khmer Empire, a powerful state which ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia from the 9th century AD until the 15th century AD. The Khmer...
The city of Kathmandu is today the capital of Nepal. This status, however, was only conferred on it during the 18th century. 1769 is traditionally regarded as the year that Nepal was unified by...
Using several different methods of DNA analysis, an international research team has found what they consider to be strong evidence of an interbreeding event between Neanderthals and modern humans...
Zheng He (also known as Cheng Ho) is one of the most famous admirals in Chinese history, and is best known for his treasure voyages. These voyages served to project the power and the wealth of the...
A new study reveals that the origin of man’s best friend may not have been where, or when, the scientific community previously believed. The analysis of a variety of ancient canine DNA has also...
The sphinx is a famous icon from ancient Egypt of 5,000 years ago, but a statue of one has been excavated in China dating back more than 1,000 years. The marble sphinx, which has western features, is...
The Denisovans are a mysterious hominid species that we only know about from two molar teeth and the bone of a pinky finger discovered in the remote Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia...
Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan was renowned for his domination of ancient Asia, and genetic studies have indicated that his powerful reach extends into modern times, as his DNA is thought to be...
Genghis Khan was not just an infamously ruthless warrior, and founder of the largest contiguous empire in history, but was also a prolific father as well, siring so many children that now 0.5 percent...
Scientists have discovered the oldest recorded stone tool ever to be found in Turkey, revealing that humans passed through the gateway from Asia to Europe much earlier than previously thought,...
Lantian Man is the name given to subspecies of Homo erectus of which ancient fossils were found in Lantian County, Shaanxi Province in China in 1963. Lantian Man were originally dated to 1.15 million...
The origin of human beings (anatomically modern Homo sapiens) and their movement across the globe have been fundamental questions in human evolutionary studies for over a century. While the accepted...
