Although located on opposite ends of the globe, ancient Rome and China were remarkably similar in their stature, as both commanded respect from the weaker kingdoms enveloped in their spheres of...
Describing the fortress of Azekah 2,700 years ago the mighty Assyrian King Sennacherib wrote that “its walls were strong and rivalled the highest mountains…by means of beaten earth ramos, battering...
It is hard to imagine that the gruesome topic of bodysnatching and the ghastly, gory and gorgeous world of relics would be a main focus of religious veneration throughout the Middle Ages. Through...
An article in the magazine The Horse entitled Carnivorous Horses by Dr Sue McDonnell in which she described horses killing and devouring other animals, spurred some letters to the editors from...
“The female sex has been left defenseless for a long time now, like an orchard without a wall and bereft of a champion to take up arms in order to protect it…” The Book of the City of Ladies by...
Nuclear power has caused some serious disasters throughout the world. Is it a modern phenomenon, or is there evidence of its existence in the ancient world? The worst nuclear disaster in the United...
Coming in an infinite number of shapes and colors, seashells have been used as a medium of exchange for centuries in a variety of locations, such as many Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean islands, as...
The popularity of trashy romance fiction with pirates abducting beautiful virgins and selling heroes as slaves, mistaken identities, shipwrecks, lust, lost lovers reunited and happy-ever-after-...
A series of changes that contributed to the redundancy of London’s port took place during the period of wider disruptions known as the ‘Third-Century Crisis’ - a time of political instability, plague...
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) was known as the Wonder of the World, Stupor Mundi , because there had never been anyone like him; nor will there ever be another to match him. Like many...
Cybele was the sole Phrygian Mother Goddess, acting as an interlocutor between the known and unknown, the living and the dead. As such, one of her chthonic cults was established at the Ploutonion or...
Cappadocia in central Anatolia/Turkey presents an ancient scenery mesmerizing the mind and captivating the imagination, where Khepat, the Mother Goddess, carved a fairy tale landscape against the...
One of the most successful, but little known kings who reigned during the Middle Ages was Roger II (1095-1154) who controlled the island of Sicily along with Apulia and Calabria in Southern Italy...
In the west central part of ancient Phrygia in Anatolia, Turkey, the ruins of Laodicea crown the hill between the narrow valleys of the Asopus and Caprus rivers, converging into the Lycus river...
A dominant paradigm of ancient Greece was turned on its head when subjugated women were made autonomous by participating in a feminine fertility festival known as the Thesmophoria . Devoted to human...
The Old Testament saga of Jonah and his dreadful, three day and night confinement within the “belly of a whale” and disgorgement onto the shore remains one of the Bible’s most enthralling mysteries...