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Burial from the Palace of Cortés is that of a Tlahuica woman. Source: INAH

Palace of Cortés Display Burial Is A Pre-Hispanic Woman, Not a Spanish Monk!

For 50 years, the public at the Palacio de Cortés, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, was able to glimpse a burial through an archaeological window, located at the entrance. The identity of this individual was...
Shaolin Master training. Source: Whitezgraphy / Adobe Stock.

The Extraordinary Final Test to Become a Shaolin Master (Video)

The Shaolin Temple , renowned worldwide as the home of Kung Fu, is a place of rigorous training and spiritual devotion for the 400 monks who reside there. Of these, 100 are warrior monks, students...
Cave Temple of Dambulla, UNESCO. Source: JoseMaria/Adobe Stock

From a King’s Refuge to Buddhist Grandeur: Dambulla Cave Temple

One of Sri Lanka’s most well-preserved gems is the Dambulla Cave Temple, a renowned Buddhist temple complex from the 1st century BC. Sometimes referred to as the Golden Temple of Dambulla, the...
Buddhist Sohei warrior monks played a critical role in Japanese politics for centuries. 	Source: Brunogm / Adobe Stock

Bloodthirsty Buddhists: The Sohei Warrior Monks of Feudal Japan

When we think of Buddhism today, we think of pacifism, being at one with the world, love for one’s neighbor and nature, and other aspects of peaceful living. Modern Buddhist monks are devoted to...
The remains of a Byzantine monk in chains being excavated in Khirbat el Masani, West Bank. Source: IAA

Remains of a Byzantine-era Monk in Chains Excavated in West Bank

Archaeologists have recently uncovered the remains of a man in iron chains from the Khirbat el-Masani archaeological site in northern Jerusalem. The remains are 1500-year-old and are those of a...
Eilmer of Malmesbury: Did This Flying Monk Beat Da Vinci by 500 Years?

Eilmer of Malmesbury: Did This Flying Monk Beat Da Vinci by 500 Years?

Eilmer of Malmesbury was a Benedictine monk who lived in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. Eilmer is remembered today for his flight from the top of a tower. Due to this feat, the monk is considered as...
The Immovable Ladder at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Immovable Ladder: Bizarre Feud Prevents Ordinary Ladder Being Moved for 3 Centuries

The Immovable Ladder is an ordinary wooden ladder with an extraordinary history. It was placed under a window on the exterior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem and, due...
St Guthlac of Crowland: The Medieval Warrior Who Became a Hermit Saint

St Guthlac of Crowland: The Medieval Warrior Who Became a Hermit Saint

When most people think about what it means to be a saint, the image that comes to mind is of a benevolent, gracious figure that exudes holiness in every cell of their being, and that every word and...
Carmelite Skeletons Unearthed in Polish Tunnel of Bones

Carmelite Skeletons Unearthed in Polish Tunnel of Bones

Jasło is a town in south-eastern Poland that is located in the heartland of the Doły (Pits). It was here that builders uncovered bones in 2013, and again during renovation work last year. A team of...
St John knights castle at night, Rhodes island, Greece

Rhodes Island, Home to Famed Warrior-Monks Who Fought for their Beliefs

The island of Rhodes which now forms part of Greece, has a long and dramatic history dating back 12,000 years to the Neolithic era. In the medieval period it was the headquarters of The Order of...
Medieval village with key players from the hierarchy including: the king, queen, priests, monks and soldiers.   Source: Matrioshka / Adobe stock

Feudalism and the Medieval Village Hierarchy

Life in a medieval village was surely no fairytale. Hard work, poverty, uncertainty of life and its comforts, the iron fist of the feudal lord - the disadvantages were numerous, and benefits few and...
Ajina-Tepa remain in Tajikistan                     Source: Aleksandar/ Adobe Stock

Ajina-Tepa, Tajikistan – Abandoned Buddhist Cloister on the Famous Silk Road

Although Central Asia is no longer inundated by tourists, in the past it was a dynamic and diverse area, largely thanks to the Silk Road . One of the many remarkable sites in this region is the...
Mount Hua, Huashan, trail

Mount Hua Trail: Where 100 People Plummet to Their Deaths Every Year

The Huashan Trail is considered by some to be one of the most dangerous hiking trails in the world. This trail is located on Huashan (or Mount Hua), a mountain situated near the city of Huayin in the...
Drukgyel Dzong, Bhutan       Source: Chuck Moravec / CC BY 2.0

Drukgyel Dzong and How a Lama Unified Bhutan

Bhutan is a Himalayan kingdom with a rich history and a distinctive Buddhist culture . It has barely been impacted by modernity and globalization, and has managed to largely preserve its ancient...
Puerto Rican figures

Skeptics Washed Away As Lost Civilization Is Finally Identified By Puerto Rican Figures

A collection of highly-controversial stone figures discovered in Puerto Rico are believed by some to have been created by members of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel and by others as hoaxes, but these...
Monk in the forest Credit: Demian / Adobe Stock

Silence is Golden: Ancient Monks Couldn’t Even Find Peace and Quiet

In our contemporary world, noise pollution has reached dangerous levels. But even in what many reminisce as “quieter times” in the “more peaceful” past people were still searching out silence and...
The Tremulous Hand of Worcester was a medieval scribe in the 13th Century.

The Tremulous Hand of Worcester: Unfurling the Medical Mystery of a Medieval Scribe

Handwriting is one of those things most people don’t really give a second thought to today – we live in a world where we are surrounded by text and the vast majority of the time it is printed rather...
Skeletal remains of a handless man found just off Guernsey.

Handless Man Adds Further Intrigue to the Island of the Medieval Porpoise Grave

Archaeologists in the Channel Islands (part of the United Kingdom) made a baffling discovery recently. They discovered the handless skeleton of a man on one of the rocky islets located in the English...
Mummified buddhist master Liuquan. Statue (L), CT scan (R). (Photos: Drents Museum)

The mummified monk inside a Buddha statue

A study on a Chinese Buddha statue carried out in the Netherlands revealed a startling discovery - the statue contains the mummified remains of a Buddhist monk. Irish Archaeology reports that the...
The body of Shinnyokai Shonin, found in Oaminaka, Japan

Mummified Remains of Monk, Still in Lotus Position, Found in Mongolia - Some Claim He Was Alive!

In January 2015 it was announced that the remains of a Buddhist monk in a meditative position, estimated to be around 200 years old, were discovered in Mongolia. The monk was found to be in a seated...
Detail of ‘Solitude’ (circa 1890) by Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton.

Alone Need Not Be Lonely: What Joyous Solitude of Early Hermits Can Teach Us

Kim Haines-Eitzen / The Conversation In today’s world, loneliness seems to have reached epidemic proportions. Countless studies have highlighted the serious and negative impact that loneliness has on...
 Book of Kells, Folio 32v, Christ Enthroned. Scanned from Treasures of Irish Art, 1500 BC to 1500 AD, From the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland.

Priceless Medieval Sacred Text Reveals Its True Origins

Arguably the world’s most famous medieval manuscript, the wonderfully illustrated Book of Kells , was “created in 2 parts over 50 years,” Dr Bernard Meehan of Trinity College, Dublin, told reporters...
Ninja warrior

Ancient Psycho Secrets of Ninja Assassins

Ninjas or shinobi ("to sneak”) have become kings of popular culture and their acrobatic trained-killer antics have been featured in hundreds of movies and television series. These deadly mercenary...
Saint Daniel’s rock hewn house, Putna

15th Century Monk Built This Stone House to Find Solitude

St. Daniel was completely devoted in his quest to contemplate spiritual and religious issues through a life of solitary contemplation. He really did not want to be disturbed in this endeavour and...

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