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History

From the powerful civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, to the fearsome yet sophisticated society of the Vikings, the ancient world was a surprising and challenging place. Here we feature some of the most seminal and influential events and people throughout history, that have helped shape the world we know today.

Stone Age clothing suggests our ancestors were more interested in comfort than style.
12 January, 2020 - 22:52 Aleksa Vučković

Stone Age Clothing: Function Over Fashion

One of the defining periods of early humans and their development is the Stone Age . This long era of our earliest history lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and gradually ended between 8500 BC to...
Medieval crusader
12 January, 2020 - 13:48 dhwty

The Crusades Beyond the Battlefield

The Crusades were a series of holy wars between the Christians of Western Europe and the Muslims of the Middle East. Traditionally, there were nine major Crusades, which took place between the 11th...
Indian woman wearing feather headdress with lion. (Jozefklopacka/ Adobe Stock)
10 January, 2020 - 11:43 Jason Jarrell

Adena-Hopewell Cosmology, Community, and Identity at the Robbins Mound

The first people to construct widespread burial mounds and earthworks in the Ohio Valley were participants in the Adena Culture, which began around 500 BC and continued until about 300 AD. Sometime...
Carved metallic plates from Father Crespi’s collection of the Tayos Caves strewn on the floor in a dilapidated old building. Credit: Ancient-Origins.net
9 January, 2020 - 02:48 Alex Chionetti

The Elusive Metal Library of the Tayos Caves

Legend has it that a metal library, containing valuable plates of inscriptions, recording an ancient history of some 250 000 years ago, written by an advanced previous civilization, is hidden in the...
Galata Bridge, ca. 1895 (CC BY-SA 2.0)
7 January, 2020 - 01:38 jim willis

Istanbul: Gateway to History, Memory and Magic

For a moment, if one could conjure up in one’s mind's eye Istanbul, a city of magic, mystery, strategic geographical importance, and historic consequence: Standing on the Galata Bridge, facing north...
Buddhist goddess. Credit: neenawat555 / Adobe Stock
5 January, 2020 - 00:53 dhwty

Tara – Goddess of Compassion and Savior of the Suffering

Tara is an important bodhisattva, i.e. someone on the path towards Buddhahood, in Buddhism , especially in Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism). Tara is considered to be a female figure and there are various...
Chevalier Tristan Bréville, owner and curator of the Photography Museum of Mauritius Source: Courtesy Micki Pistorius
4 January, 2020 - 14:10 micki pistorius

The First Newspaper in the Southern Hemisphere

In 1773 the first printed newspaper in the Southern Hemisphere was published in Mauritius. The tiny island of Mauritius may only seem like a verdant dot in the azure blue Indian Ocean, yet this...
Depiction of Nyi Blorong ( circa 1879) Tropenmuseum (Public Domain)
4 January, 2020 - 03:40 MartiniF

Nyi Blorong Commander of the Southern Seas and Bringer of Wealth

One afternoon in the 1960s, the people of Magelang in Java, Indonesia, gathered on the edge of the main road which connects Magelang and Yogyakarta and sounded anything they could find which could...
Depiction of the Captivity of Judah. Source: The Providence Lithograph Company / Public domain
2 January, 2020 - 23:03 John W Dickerson

The End of Ancient Judaism: The Captivity

The twelve tribes of ancient Judaism were united into a single kingdom under the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon. The destruction of this kingdom and the forced exile of its population is known as...
The Roman Empire’s Crisis of the Third Century. Source: Luis Louro / Adobe Stock.
2 January, 2020 - 19:01 Aleksa Vučković

The Roman Empire’s Crisis of the Third Century

The history of the Roman Republic , and subsequently, the Roman Empire, is vast and rich, full of intrigues, conflicts, and incredible conquests. But no empire is without weaknesses, and history is...
The petroglyph with swastikas, Gegham mountains, Armenia Կարեն Թոխաթյան /CC BY-SA 4.0)
2 January, 2020 - 15:33 Ken Jeremiah

Esoteric Nazi Spiritualism Backtracked to Odin and the Rune Ar

It would be difficult to find someone who did not know anything about the Nazis, whose reign ended with the outright slaughter of approximately six million Jews, whom they regarded as subhuman, and...
The Black Death was spread across Europe by rats. Source: rawinfoto / Adobe Stock.
2 January, 2020 - 14:00 Aleksa Vučković

Culling the World: The Catastrophic Conquests of the Black Death

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...
Representation of Nicolas Flamel. Source: Maya Kruchancova / Adobe Stock.
31 December, 2019 - 22:57 dhwty

Nicolas Flamel – Learned Scribe or Mysterious Alchemist?

Nicolas Flamel was a Frenchman who lived between the 14th and 15th centuries. According to contemporary sources, he was a scribe and manuscript seller. Later sources, i.e. those from the 17th century...
Illustration of Neanderthal Man Cut Deer with Stone Tool (Roni / Adobe Stock)
31 December, 2019 - 01:54 ashley cowie

Complex Neanderthal Technology Driven by Paleo Dietary Needs

Modern man’s closest human relatives were Neanderthals - that famed ancient species pronounced with a ’t’ rather than a ‘th’, - with their defining large faces, angled cheek bones and broad noses...
Viking holding Christian cross. Credit: Warpedgalerie / Adobe Stock
30 December, 2019 - 23:03 ancient-origins

Vikings Didn’t Just Murder Monks and Pillage Monasteries – They Helped Spread Christianity Too

Vikings are often seen as heathen marauders mercilessly targeting Christian churches and killing defenceless monks. But this is only part of their story. The Vikings played a key role in spreading...
Man performing at the land diving ceremony on the Pentecost Island, Vanuatu Source: simanlaci / Adobe stock
30 December, 2019 - 13:58 Aleksa Vučković

Land Diving in Vanuatu: Would You Take the Leap of Faith?

Throughout the history of the world, tribal and slightly primitive people of remote corners of the globe, have always had unique beliefs and traditions. From Papua New Guinea, to Australia to the...
The Tuccia Vestal by Louis Hector Leroux (1874) (Public Domain)
28 December, 2019 - 04:15 MartiniF

The Precarious Fates of Rome’s Vestal Virgins

The fate of Rome depended upon the chastity of the Vestal virgins and their transgressions could lead to live entombment. In the first century BC, Marcus Licinius Crassus , one of the richest and...
Leonardo da Vinci portrait and anatomical sketches. Source: klss777 / Adobe Stock
27 December, 2019 - 23:04 Pierluigi Tombetti

Secretum: Leonardo Da Vinci and the Anatomy of the Soul

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was born in the middle of the Humanism movement – a search for the lost wisdom of the classical age that broke with the rigid schemes of the Middle Ages. It provided an...
Bronze statue of Bodhisattva Guan Yin
27 December, 2019 - 01:56 Natalia Klimczak

Guan Yin: Goddess of Mercy, Buddha-in-Training

Buddhism is usually regarded as a religion which is led by one master – Buddha . However, there are many more ancient legendary masters in this belief system and both male and female characters are...
The Wild Hunt of Odin by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1872) (Public Domain)
26 December, 2019 - 01:31 Charles Christian

The Man Who Was Wednesday: The Norse Origin of Christmas

Christmastide traditions are a glorious amalgamation of customs and practices that have been appropriated wholesale from other belief systems, primarily those of Ancient Rome. But Rome is only part...
A woman in a forest holding holly. Credit: LoloStock / Adobe Stock
25 December, 2019 - 13:52 ancient-origins

Decking the Halls of History: The Pagan Origins of Christmas Decorations

The idea of hanging up decorations in the middle of winter is older than Christmas itself. Decorations are mentioned in ancient descriptions of the Roman feast of Saturnalia , which is thought to...
Mistletoe branch. Credit: Vera Kuttelvaserova / Adobe Stock.
25 December, 2019 - 02:08 ancient-origins

Mistletoe: From Toxin-Laced Darts to Fertility Symbol

Christmas and mistletoe: have you ever simply asked yourself … why? I have studied plant parasites like mistletoe for almost ten years, and I’m here to tell you that the answer is absolutely...
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Henryk Siemiradzki (1886) (Public Domain)
24 December, 2019 - 00:53 ancient-origins

Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ Tower of Wisdom

The ‘repentant prostitute’ or the ‘penitent whore’, this view of Mary Magdalene was cemented in Western ecclesiastical tradition by Gregory the Great in his sermons in the sixth Century, conflating...
The Renaissance: The ‘Rebirth’ That Changed the World
23 December, 2019 - 23:05 dhwty

The Renaissance: The ‘Rebirth’ That Changed the World

The Renaissance refers to the period in European history between the 14 th and 17 th centuries. As a historical era, the Renaissance was preceded by the Middle Ages, and succeeded by the early modern...

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