The story of the fabled Tower of Babel from the Book of Genesis has come to inspire artists throughout history and to symbolize the idea of human ambition. Once a real-life ziggurat at the center of...
On a lonely peak of the Sierra de Tepoztelan in the state of Morelos in Mexico stands the Aztec temple of El Tepozteco. The temple is dedicated to an unusual deity, Ometochtli - Tepoztecatl, one of...
For as long as humans have prayed, water has been a focus of divine adoration. Even the sight of water can spark wonder, terror and joy depending on whether it's a bubbling spring, the destructive...
2022 is shaping up to be a big year for colonial era discoveries in Central and South America. Only in May Ancient Origins covered the story of archaeologists studying “42 syphilis-ridden colonial...
The ‘Cadaver Trial’ of the dead Pope Formosus would have to be one of the most absurd events in Rome’s history. Nine months after the Pope died, his body was exhumed and his rotting corpse was placed...
One of the most sacred relics of the Catholic Church, known as the ‘Precious Blood of Christ,’ contained in an elaborate golden shrine, was stolen from Fécamp Abbey Church in Normandy, France on June...
How would one describe Gōbekli Tepe, and all the other Tepe sites in the Şanlıurfa Province, south-eastern Anatolia? One might opine that these ancient sites contain a cluster of circular enclosures...
The early history of England was characterized by instability, disorder and uncertainty. The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex was the first formation of the modern idea of England, and in its early...
Cavers exploring underground spaces in Alderley Edge, Cheshire in northwestern England were stunned to discover a sealed and abandoned mineshaft that hadn’t been visited by anyone since the early...
While most people have heard of Michelangelo , the majority have no idea that he had some pretty filthy habits. Nicknamed Il Divino (“the divine one”) by his contemporaries, Michelangelo was a master...
Ancient Norse literature is filled with place names of towns, farms, and fjords. While many of these names have survived to the modern day, making their discovery relatively straightforward, others...
A most peculiar medieval feature of Nottingham Old Market Square has been recreated using a new augmented reality (AR) app. Nottingham Market Wall divided the center of the city for almost 700 years...
An international team of archaeologists, anthropologists, and marine scientists has just published a landmark article in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology that details their research into...
When Tutankhamun’s tomb was first discovered in 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter was stunned by the astonishing array of grave goods – more than 5,000 artifacts were left for the boy king to use in...
Cristobal Colón was born in mid-1460 as the illegitimate son of Prince Carlos (Charles IV) of Viana, Spain, and Margarita Colón, of a prominent Jewish family in the ghetto of the Island of Mallorca,...
If you thought the Greek gods had a monopoly on selfishness, rape, deception and other shady derring-do, you were wrong. Take, for instance, the Inca god Coniraya (also Cuniraya), who might have fit...
The Earth’s glaciers are a storehouse for more than just water. They also contain a plethora of frozen microbes that came into existence thousands of years ago. Should the planet’s glaciers melt...
A young Norwegian woman was browsing online for jewelry earlier this week, when she bought a jumbled collection of costume jewelry in an online auction. Upon receiving her purchase, she spotted a...
The Middle Ages had its fair share of terrible jobs, from cesspit cleaners to rat catchers and even royal bottom-wipers , but few were as soul-destroying as the job of a sin-eater, who carried the...
Archaeologists in Poland have been studying the mummy of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian woman who died young and evidence suggests she died from nose cancer. Scientists suspect this mummy could provide...
When archaeologists began excavations on the site of the demolished Bucklesbury House, little did they know that they would uncover the earliest written documents found in Britain. Dating from...
Today Baku is most well known for being the capital of the Azerbaijan Republic. Thousands of tourists every year flock to Baku to visit the Walled City of Baku and the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and...
In 1982, the now-famous Thracian tomb of Sveshtari was discovered by archaeologists just south of what is now Sveshtari, Razgrad Province in Bulgaria. The tomb of Sveshtari likely belonged to...
An 8,000-year-old "Mother Goddess" figurine has been uncovered at a Neolithic site in Israel. Why then, does she have “coffee-shaped” eyes? Located at the foot of the Golan Heights in the Jordan...
