Would you have sex with a Homo sapiens neanderthalensis if they hadn’t gone extinct? Your ancestors may have. Scientists are testing cave dirt for the presence of Neanderthal DNA from disintegrated...
There has long been debate among scientists regarding how Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals compared in terms of their cognition and intelligence. Some anthropologists believe Neanderthals were just as...
Although we nowadays associate ‘Happy Holidays’ with celebrations during Advent and the run-up to Christmas Day and then on to New Year’s Eve (or Hogmanay in Scotland) not that many years ago the ‘...
Ground up bones rubbed into pots, possible skull binding, and alignment of megaliths for rituals involving the southern moon are coming to light with exciting new research into the enigmatic Beaker...
Three hikers discovered rare engravings of a menorah and a cross in an ancient water cistern in south-central Israel this past weekend. The religious symbols were found amongst other interesting...
Pedro Madruga is remembered as one of the most important Galicians. His life was full of adventure and also created one of the greatest mysteries of this region. According to many researchers and...
The Instructions of Shuruppak are a set of 4,600-year-old Sumerian proverbs given by a king to his son, which essentially set out how he should behave. The ancient inscriptions were engraved in...
A team of Chinese archaeologists have excavated a brilliant sword that is still sharp and shining despite its age of more than 2,300 years. The amazing discovery was made in an ancient tomb in the...
Between prayer, Gregorian chants, and spiritual contemplation, Benedictine monks of Saint-Wandrille monastery in northern France are now dedicating their spare time to producing France's only...
Like many foundational inventions that we use every day, such as wheels and law codes, the Ancient Sumerians living in Ancient Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of civilization, created the oldest...
Some babies shake rattles and others shake up kingdoms. We hear many stories of the unhappy lives and ends of child rulers. Most recently, in 1908, Puyi became the last emperor of China at only two...
Agesilaus II was a king who ruled over the ancient Greek city state of Sparta during the 4 th century BC. Agesilaus was from the Eurypontid family, one of the two royal dynasties of Sparta (the other...
An Egyptian medical document dating back about 3,500 years is being translated by a Danish Egyptologist, who reveals strange ingredients that to most modern people may not seem beneficial. The...
The Descent of Inanna (known also as ‘Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld / Underworld’) is a piece of work in the literary corpus of ancient Mesopotamia. This story, which was originally written in...
A group of scientists is attempting to re-wild 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of European lands, and one of the keys in the circle of life will be reintroducing the fierce, huge, wild...
The Royal Tombs of Ur is a 4,800-year-old Sumerian burial site of around 2,000 graves located in the ancient city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia (in the south of modern day Iraq). Sixteen of the...
The 7,000-year-old ancient city of Mari (known today as Tell Hariri) is one of the oldest known cities in the world, located on the west bank of the Euphrates River in what was once northern...
Adding to the list of names among the greatest libraries of the past, the Bayt al-Hikmah (translated as ‘The House of Wisdom’) was established in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Empire, around...
Anomalies have been documented for centuries, and while many odd events or unusual artifacts have been explained over the years, strange happenings continue to incite controversy and imagination...
Modern astrology as we know it – in the form of a yearly, monthly or daily horoscope – is based on a celestial coordinate system known as the “zodiac”, a Greek word that means the circle of life. And...
This year has provided an array of exciting, and sometimes puzzling, discoveries for archaeologists and ancient history enthusiasts. Looking back to our most ancient ancestors, a few of the...
The grand palace of Assurnasirpal (Ashurnasirpal) II was one of the most incredible sites of ancient Assyria. Located in Nimrud, Iraq, the immense palace was richly decorated with sophisticated...
In 660 BCE, mighty Assyria was about to be shaken. A Scythian named Dugdammi united many nomadic tribes into a confederation. This nomadic confederation pushed at the borders of Assyria which so...
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a set of nearly 1,000 manuscripts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and ancient Greek, which contain some of the oldest known versions of the Hebrew Bible and are said to be one of the...
