Immortalized forever as an incompetent, ill-advised monarch by his epitaph, King Aethelred II has been viewed unfavorably by history. Over the last decade, historians have made moves to reinterpret...
In May 2022 I wrote an Ancient Origins news article about the discovery of “42, syphilis -ridden, colonial Spaniards.” These bodies were unearthed at a 500-year-old hospital in Lima, Peru’s capital...
Tattoo art and designs, like virtually everything else in Japanese life, are often based on traditional beliefs or historical events. In fact, some of the most popular Japanese tattoo designs are of...
Archaeologists believe they are uncovering the lost city of Bassania, an ancient Illyrian settlement mentioned by Livy as lying between two important ancient centers - the Illyrian capital of Shkodër...
One of the prerequisites for winning at the Olympics is to actually be alive. Or so I thought! The story of Arrichion of Phigalia, an Olympic wreath winner famed for his post-mortem victory, is one...
A beachcomber exploring sea caves along the north coast of western Oregon, USA discovered timbers from the hull of the Beeswax wreck Spanish galleon that sunk in the Pacific Ocean more than 300 years...
The Tomb of Lyson and Kallikles is the smallest of the four Macedonian Tombs of Lefkadia and holds a mystery that has become the subject of debate amongst scholars of art and architectural history...
For a long time, most only associated the word “Antikythera” with an ancient computer. In 2020, that changed after Greek divers recovered a giant marble head from the world-renowned shipwreck...
Flavius Zeno was a 5th century Roman Emperor, whose reign was plagued by domestic revolts and religious dissention, and it appears that he was just as unlucky in death as he was in life! According to...
Escherichia coli, popularly known as E. coli , is a bacteria that is commonly found in the lower intestine of healthy, warm-blooded organisms. Most E. coli bacteria are harmless, but a few have the...
Situated on a high ridge between two tidal inlets in the south-west corner of Wales, Pembroke Castle, with its walls still standing sentinel after hundreds of years, dominates the landscape. These...
In October of 312, a battle would take place that would not only make Constantine I the ruler of the entire Roman Empire but would change its course in history forever. The Battle of the Milvian...
Hunter's tools excavated in England over a century ago have been dated to, wait for it, between 560,000 and 620,000 years ago! These latest discoveries made on the outskirts of Canterbury confirm the...
For over 1,000 years, Constantinople held out against a never-ending stream of failed attacks. Capital of the Byzantine Empire, a.k.a. the Eastern Roman Empire , it was famed for its heavily...
Dutch archaeologists from the private archaeological consulting firm RAAP recently uncovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old Roman temple complex in the Netherlands. While religious sanctuaries...
Tucked away in Mauritania, surrounded by the imposing, shifting dunes of the Sahara Desert, lies the Richat Structure. A spectacular rock formation of many names, the “Eye of the Sahara” has guided...
Archaeologists in Mexico unearthed one of the largest and most impressive collections of Aztec artifacts ever found, just northeast of the central plaza of Mexico City. This incredible Aztec artifact...
For many true crime junkies, podcasts are the way to go to get your next fix. But before podcasts and streaming documentaries, what did people do to get their true crime docs? When did true crime...
When we think of the empowerment of women, we usually think about Western culture. Nevertheless, the East has had its fair share of female role models. While Islam has historically given men the role...
The Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, was the very first empire the world had seen, established in ancient Mesopotamia in about 2370 BC. This empire was remembered as having been...
A new study published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology has suggested that many remains of the roughly 60,000 Waterloo soldiers who died in the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 may have been...
A bone expert investigating a mass grave in Ireland has found clear evidence of hyper-violence, including smashed bones and bound limbs. Last year, beneath Nancy Spain’s Public House, Barrack Street...
In the ancient city of Assos in Turkey there existed a bizarre phenomenon – the stone sarcophagi within the Assos necropolis could decompose bodies unusually fast. Instead of taking between 50 and...
Even after a successful political career, Johan de Witt has gone down in history for having suffered one of the most bizarre assassinations in history and one of the few recorded cases of cannibalism...
