How a culture buries its dead provides a crucial understanding of a culture across time periods, across historical divides, across geographical territories. Some of these ancient and prehistoric...
The first Persian Empire (550 BC – 330 BC), called the Achaemenid Empire, is known for having an elite force of soldiers. Named the “Immortals” by Herodotus, this army consisted of a heavy infantry...
Recently, a rare, ancient Salish war club was discovered by a resident of British Columbia, Canada in his backyard! Mark Lake was clearing up his backyard after a heavy storm had hit his home at...
AI is helping historians rewrite history, quite literally. Published in the journal Nature , a new study reports that AI can fill gaps in ancient Greek inscriptions and indicate where and when they...
It was 1836 when William Celenso, a Christian missionary from Cornwall in England, first stumbled upon the mysterious Tamil Bell in a remote Maori village in New Zealand. It was being used as a...
Mass hysteria is a term used to describe the situation in which physical or psychological symptoms appear en masse, spreading rapidly throughout communities, and occasionally across whole cities and...
How did people of ancient times treat the difficult and complex condition known today as cancer? In recent years, a rising number of scholars have taken a look at the prevalence of cancer diagnoses...
In Bronze Age Britain (2,500 to 800 BC), gold was frequently mined and used to manufacture a range of decorative and ceremonial objects. But in contrast to other areas, it seems that people of that...
Considered the world’s most expensive spice , saffron has been highly valued by many ancient civilizations, but its origins have long been debated. A new study claims to have traced the evolution of...
Game pieces from the gaming and gambling history of Norway have been discovered in medieval Oslo. So bad did gambling addiction become that the king had to change national gaming laws. An excavation...
One of ancient Egypt’s most-enduring embalming enigmas has to be its cryptic head cones. These unusual objects can be seen in tomb paintings perched atop the heads of both mummies and living people...
Mali has recently been in the news for its decision to oust French troops from its territory. The French were originally summoned to prevent jihadists from taking control over Africa’s eighth-largest...
The National Museum of Ukraine in the city of Lviv was once a busy and active place. Tourists and visitors streamed in and out in large numbers every day, enjoying the opportunity to explore its...
The House of Trastámara was a royal dynasty that ruled over Spain during the Late Middle Ages. The dynasty was a cadet branch of the House of Burgundy, and initially ruled over the Crown of Castile...
Rapa Nui, the original name for Easter Island, is most famous for its giant monolithic moai statues. Located 3,512 km (2,182 mi) off the coast of Chile, Rapa Nui has suffered a history of constant...
When nations go to war, the most tragic aspect is the disruption and annihilation of civilian lives. International media has been reporting the robust resistance put up by Ukrainian citizens in many...
Sir Ernest Shackleton's lost Endurance shipwreck has been discovered at the bottom of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. And while this isn’t a discovery from the ancient world, it packs such a historically...
During a raid on a private home in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) seized a large cache of stolen or illegally excavated archaeological...
In 117 AD, at the time of Caesar Trajan’s death, the Roman Empire had reached its territorial peak, stretching across the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa and Western Asia. And the Romans used ships...
Situated in southern Turkey near the upper Euphrates, Gōbekli Tepe has become famous for its surprisingly advanced megalithic architecture and symbolism, seemingly too early for the hunter-gather...
A legendary volcanic rock in Japan associated with an ancient evil vixen-demon, has split in two. While geologists assure the occurrence is natural, others are convinced the chaotic fox spirit has...
Nothing recalls the medieval era in Europe better than the image of a gallant knight in shining armor mounted on a fully barded—or armored—steed. But how effective was such mail horse armor in...
Everyone has heard of Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster, but what about the Giant Anaconda? The Giant Anaconda is a fascinating creature first described by 19 th century explorer Percy H. Fawcett,...
Archaeologists in Scotland have unearthed a carved Pictish stone which might be associated with the formation of the nation in what has been dubbed “the find of a lifetime.” When describing the...