The four visible side faces of the Great Pyramid of Giza reflect the four earthly elements Earth, Water, Air and Fire. The fifth invisible element Aether is represented by the invisible ground...
A skull rack, known also as Tzompantli in the Nahuatl language, is an object documented to have been used in several Mesoamerican civilizations, including the Aztecs, the Toltecs, and the Mayas...
Egypt, land of the Pharaohs. There is no single creation myth for Ancient Egypt as each region of the country owed allegiance to a different god, so for simplicity’s sake we shall just look at the...
Paradisiacal islands near the city of Vigo in the Pontevedra district of Galicia, Spain have been the witnesses to many visitors, stories, and mysteries. Although the area is difficult to live in,...
Cats have been on the human scene for 9,000 years. We came out of the caves, and they were there with us. Ever since, cats have been immortalized in art. They have been painted in fresco, sculpted in...
The Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, has a very distinctive image in classical arts. In 458 BCE, the playwright Aeschylus, in his play Agamemnon , used the name of Aphrodite to denote “beauty, charm...
Magic has always been a mysterious way to achieve goals and was often thought to make dreams come true. In the case of the ancient Egyptian civilization, it was seen as a way to communicate with the...
Once Cyaxares had finalized the conquest of Urartu, he handed it over to a certain tribe of Scythians who had inhabited the region of Armenia beforehand and thus extended their domain. It is said...
It is widely known these days that beer is one of the oldest beverages human beings have ever produced. Beer-related items and activities familiar to us today can be traced back to the ancient world...
A ‘Doom’ is a remarkable survival of a type of church decoration once common in the Middle Ages but largely destroyed during the iconoclastic excesses of the English Protestant Reformation during the...
Chapter XVII of the Egyptian Book of the Dead highlights an indisputable detail: ritual formulas hid proofs of prehistoric events. They were handed down orally, and after millennia they inspired the...
Archaeologists in Serbia have discovered the first known golden curse tablets in ancient Roman tombs in Serbia. The tablets contain inscriptions in long-forgotten languages with strange magical...
Ancient Origins asked experts to weigh in on the topic of ancient deities. Some ancient gods get all the attention - but which gods are largely forgotten… and why? The following is their views on...
The warrior god Thor is well known from Old Norse literature. He has become a popular cultural icon, but his wife seems to be largely forgotten these days. However, Sif was once recognized as an...
Significant evidence now exists that ancient cultures worldwide were all connected by a powerful religious symbol which I call the “GodSelf Icon,” that is especially conspicuous among the pyramid...
From ancient times and even to this day, people consider fire one of the basic elements of the universe. Interpretations of fire in ancient mythologies vary greatly, with fire viewed as a creative...