A mystery alabaster statue has been discovered during the renovation of a medieval English village church. The stone holy man was discovered during the restoration of England’s 10th century, Anglo...
“I tell you: one must still have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star” (Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra). By conservative estimates, the European Renaissance spans the historical...
The bubonic plague , otherwise known as the Black Death, originated in Asia during the late Middle Ages and spread north into Europe through the bacteria Yersinia pestis on infected fleas. To counter...
In a stunning find, hundreds of artifacts dating back to the golden age of China have been discovered in ancient Han period tombs located at the origin of the Silk Road . Xi ’ an (Sian) city is the...
The plague doctor mask is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Black Death. Though the image is iconic the relationship may be a little anachronistic. While plague doctors have been plying...
Every so often, a pandemic emerges that dramatically alters human society. The Black Death (1347 - 1351) was one; the Spanish flu of 1918 was another. Now there’s COVID-19 . Archaeologists have long...
Kriston R. Rennie / The Conversation The Black Death (1347-51) devastated European society. Writing four decades after the event, the English monk and chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, remarked that “so...
A team led by a geo-archaeologist and a speleologist have discovered a rare cave burial in Africa containing 30 skeletons, drilled cats’ teeth, and iron artifacts. The 14th-century underground burial...
The Black Death was one of the greatest disasters in recorded history. New discoveries in a medieval hospital burial ground are revealing new insights into its impact on rural England. It shows that...
The recent global spread of a deadly coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China, has led world leaders to invoke an ancient tradition to control the spread of illness: quarantine. The practice is first...
Medieval history is seldom kind. The decades and centuries slumbered onwards, each one bringing its own share of wars, crime , poverty...and disease. Happiness and prosperity were rare and almost...
An international team of researchers have analysed human remains from 21 archaeological sites to learn more about the impact and evolution of the plague-causing bacterium Yersinia pestis during the...
The remains of a Medieval priest who died 700 years ago has been uncovered at Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire. Research shows he could have been a victim of the Great Famine. Archaeologists from the...
History paints a bleak picture of the devastating effects that disease, contamination, or poison can have on humans. But with those hard lessons came experience and knowledge, and mankind has...
Archaeologists have unearthed the skeletal remains of 200 people underneath a supermarket in Paris on the site of an old hospital where victims of the Black Plague had been known to be buried. It was...
Researchers have uncovered the medieval tipping-point when local fishing could no longer support the demands of the burgeoning metropolis, and catches started to come in from as far away as Arctic...