Despite apparent episodes of food shortage, disease, violence, and severe weather conditions, it seems that, at least for some people, life in Chile between 500-1500 years ago was not that stressful...
Archaeologists at the world-renowned Maya site of Palenque in Mexico have made a surprising discovery beneath the Temple of Inscriptions, the impressive funerary monument built for Maya ruler Pakal...
One of the great riddles in Mesopotamian sacred art concerns the image of anthropomorphic winged figures called Apkallu holding a mullilu (tree fruit) in one hand, and a banduddû — a container — in...
The monumental statue is a one of series of recent discoveries that proves that Hazor was one of the major cities in the region, heading a league of Canaanite city-states. A team of archaeologists...
When we talk of the history of computers, most of us will refer to the evolution of the modern digital desktop PC, charting the decades-long developments by the likes of Apple and Microsoft. What...
Horses have long been an important aspect in both western and eastern cultures. They are considered common in Indo-European traditions, with Chinese and Turkish traditions providing the most well-...
There is an urban legend fueled by the movie Beverly Hills Cop that people have around 5 pounds of undigested meat in their stomach by the time they are middle-aged. Not so. But bezoars, which are...
In Did West Africans live in the Four Corners Region of the United States from 12th Century ? , published in Ancient Origins, I discussed the Mande inscriptions found in the Four Corners region of...
A military commander killed in battle with the arrowhead still lodged in his thorax is one of the interesting finds by archaeologists at the largest prehistoric settlement discovered in the South...
The elongated skulls of Paracas in Peru caused a stir in 2014 when a geneticist that carried out preliminary DNA testing reported that they have mitochondrial DNA “with mutations unknown in any human...
Once travelled by famous historical figures such as Marco Polo and Genghis Khan, the Silk Road was a hugely important network of transport routes connecting eastern China with Central Asia, the...
Researchers think they have found architectural features in a church in Aberdeen, Scotland, where accused witches were held during the Great Witch Hunt of 1596-‘97 and later strangled as an act of ‘...
Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, in his book Proserpina , calls himself “the gentle and happy scholar of flowers”. A large part of his work is an attempt to connect nature, art and society. To...
Pharaoh Akhenaten is one of the most mysterious kings of Ancient Egypt. Researchers have discovered three tombs dedicated to him - all full of even more secrets. These tombs do, however, provide...
The nomad tribe known as the Yamnaya, who were among the founders of the European civilization, may have been the first pot dealers, archaeologists say. Moreover, they were responsible for the first...
About 5,000 years ago, not far from Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in England, some people built a stone circle smaller than its more famous counterpart. But for some reason, sometime after they built...
Is it possible that early Christians believed in reincarnation? Although some may find this idea unbelievable, several Christian sources (including the Bible) suggest that many centuries ago, it was...
Atlantis is many things to many people. To some, it is a fictional island and city that a philosopher with a vivid imagination invented to illustrate a moral point, and nothing more. To others, it is...
Recent fieldwork by a collaborative Anglo-Puerto Rican team has uncovered new evidence in the Caribbean of an early religious dialogue between Europeans and Native Americans. A large collection of...
Archaeologists in Texas have found a set of 16,700-year-old tools which are among the oldest discovered in the West. Until now, it was believed that the culture that represented the continent’s first...
In the 5 th century BC, Greek Historian Herodotus wrote about the customs and traditions he witnessed while in Babylon. One of the more controversial customs he reports on is the Babylonian marriage...
The Djed, by its very nature, is one of the highest mysteries in the Ancient Egypt history. It was built in the core of the so-called Cheops pyramid, just off the King Chamber, perfectly integrated...
When archaeologists unearthed a large chamber tomb in San José de Moro, a ceremonial center of pre-Columbian Moche civilization on the northern coast of Peru, they found the remains of a woman who...
The Fahrenheit temperature scale is especially popular in the USA but it is also found in the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Belize, and the Western Pacific. Thus, it may surprise some people to know...