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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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An aerial view of Marree Man and an outline illustrated by Lisa Thurston.

The Mysterious Marree Man of Outback Australia: Largest Geoglyph in the World

By April Holloway | Epoch Times Etched into the dry sand of Australia’s barren outback is the world’s largest geoglyph, known as “Marree Man,” an enormous figure of an Aboriginal man hunting birds or...
 Image of the findings with a tracing of the engraved figures on the piece.

Archaeologists in Spain Unearth Rare Paleolithic Art Featuring Bird and Human Interaction

Science Daily It is not very common to find representations of scenes instead of individual figures in Paleolithic art, but it is even harder for these figures to be birds instead of mammals such as...
A Blombos Cave with ochre pencil on silcrete stone thought to be the earliest drawing.

Discovery of the Earliest Drawing – By at Least 30,000 years

What is a symbol? This is a tough question to answer when tasked with analyzing the earliest graphic productions. What we might today interpret as figurative representations might just be an ancient...
The August 7, 2018 Ibn Sina Google Doodle.

Who Was Ibn Sina and Why is He a Google Doodle?

A surprising Google Doodle has greeted users of the search engine in the UK. The image celebrates the 1038th birthday of Persian polymath Ibn Sina. For many in the West, this may be the first...
 Cerne Abbas giant

The Cerne Abbas Giant: Drawing of a ‘Rude Man’ Erects Folktales of Fertility Enhancement

The Cerne Abbas Giant is a huge hill figure depicting a naked man wielding a club, its most prominent feature being its erect phallus, which has led to the speculation that the Cerne Abbas Giant...
The charcoal drawings found at Chauvet show a high degree of detail. Copy of the Lions Panel of the Chauvet Cave.

How Our Ancestors with Autistic Traits Led a Revolution in Ice Age Art

The ability to focus on detail, a common trait among people with autism, allowed realism to flourish in Ice Age art, according to researchers at the University of York. Around 30,000 years ago...
Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, Lossiemouth

What Really Went on in the Sculptor’s Cave Where Hundreds of Bronze Age Child Remains Were Unearthed?

Pictish carvings grace its walls; crucibles, a swan’s neck pin, and bronze arm rings were scattered across its floor – Sculptor’s Cave has had an exciting and varied history stretching back to the...
Collection of Egyptian Art, design by Anand Balaji

Ostraca: Voices from the Place of Truth—An intimate glimpse into New Kingdom Egypt

Athenians meted out harsh punishments to those who fell afoul of prevalent laws or societal norms. If citizens had done something terrible, they ran the risk of being exiled from the city for up to...
Pietro Perugino's use of perspective in this fresco at the Sistine Chapel (1481–82) helped bring the Renaissance to Rome

Do Your Eyes Fool You? Ancient Vision and a New Reality — How to See and Draw Like the Ancients

From the beginning of time, those among us we now call artists have tried to capture in two dimensions what they saw of the real, three-dimensional world in which they lived. Almost from the very...
The archaeologists used a different method that incorporates facial data from around the world instead of data with a heavily European influence in creating the image of the woman from the Tham Lod rockshelter.

Researchers Reveal the Pretty Face of a Woman Who Lived 13600 Years Ago

Near the end of the last great ice age, the remains of a descendant of the first people to move into Southeast Asia were found in the Tham Lod rock shelter of Thailand’s northwestern highlands. Now...
Child doodles found in a Medieval manuscript. LJS 361, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries folio 26r.

Child Doodles Discovered in 14th Century Manuscript

Researchers have discovered a set of children's doodles in the margins of a medieval manuscript. The discovery sheds new light on the knowledge and education of children in the Middle Ages and their...
More Than 70 Engravings and Paintings from 14,000 Years Ago Discovered in a Spanish Cave

More Than 70 Engravings and Paintings from 14,000 Years Ago Discovered in a Spanish Cave

A scientific team of archaeologists from the Provincial Council of Bizkaia (Biscay), Basque Country (Spain), has discovered fourteen panels with at least 70 engravings of animals dated to the Upper...
Mona Lisa Meets War Machines: Details on the Driven Life and Lesser-Known Talents of Leonardo da Vinci

Mona Lisa Meets War Machines: Details on the Driven Life and Lesser-Known Talents of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, known more commonly as Leonardo da Vinci, is arguably one of the most well-known figures of the Italian Renaissance. Leonardo’s primary claim to fame is in the field...
Main: The twin pillars at Göbekli Tepe (g.frilli / flickr). Inset: The tiny bone plaque found at Göbekli Tepe and now on display at Sanliurfa’s new archaeological museum.

First Pictorial Representation of Gobekli Tepe Found

A tiny bone plaque in Sanliurfa museum holds the key to the orientation of the 11,500 year-old temple complex. It was found during routine excavations at the 11,500-year-old site of Göbekli Tepe in...