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Ancient Origins Premium offers a wealth of knowledge and a variety of learning methods (articles, eBooks, webinars, expeditions and more) that will help you embark on a journey you will never forget!

Rediscovering Iconic Artifacts From Noah’s Flood In The Stars

Rediscovering Iconic Artifacts From Noah’s Flood In The Stars

The story of a primordial, global Deluge popularized in the Noah’s Ark narrative endures as one of antiquity’s most baffling enigmas. Old Testament theologians unanimously agree that the Biblical...
The Enigmatic H-Symbol Linking Gōbekli Tepe, The Priesthood And The Zodiac

The Enigmatic H-Symbol Linking Gōbekli Tepe, The Priesthood And The Zodiac

Could the strange H-symbol on the tunics of first century Jewish high priests of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem resonate with the similar H-symbol, that was deemed sacred almost 10,000 years...
Enchanted landscape of Fairy Chimneys forms of sandstone in the canyon near Cavusin village, Cappadocia (Andrew Mayovskyy / Adobe Stock)

Cappadocia, Enchanted Land of Khepat, Ancient Anatolia’s Mother Goddess

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...
Vincent van Gogh's Pair of Shoes was painted in June 1895 at Auvers-sur-Oise. (Public Domain)

Magic Shoes And Boots: The Soles Of Mythology

Interest in the history and archaeology of ancient footwear began in the 17th century and today the formal study of footwear is called ‘ calceology.’ This field of science includes interpreting...
A Twelfth Night Feast: 'The King drinks' by Jan Steen (1661) Royal Collection (Public Domain)

Twelfth Night Ghost Story: The White Lady Of Flamborough

In the spirit of Twelfth Night one of Ancient Origins Premium’s favorite storytellers Charles Christian, entertains with his Father’s Ghost Story: I may have mentioned before I am sufficiently...
Jerusalem’s Enigmatic Golden Gate: Countdown To The End Of Days

Jerusalem’s Enigmatic Golden Gate: Countdown To The End Of Days

There is an ancient gate on the east side of Jerusalem that to this day remains bricked up and unpassable. It is believed by millions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims that it will miraculously open...
Perchance To Dream: Oneiromancy Ancient History Of Dream Interpretation

Perchance To Dream: Oneiromancy Ancient History Of Dream Interpretation

Dreams and their ancient interpretations are documented in contemporary written sources such as official inscriptions, literature, even special dream books, called oneirocritics, from Mesopotamia and...
King Roger II Of Sicily: Christian Sultan And Half Heathen King

King Roger II Of Sicily: Christian Sultan And Half Heathen King

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...
Mycenaean Cult Of The Dead And Burial Architecture

Mycenaean Cult Of The Dead And Burial Architecture

Tholos and the grave circles in the ancient citadel of Mycenae, located on a small hill, nestled between two larger hills on the fertile Argolid plain in the Peloponnese, Greece, exemplify a synergy...
The Befana with sweet coal and candy on wooden background. Italian Epiphany day tradition (vetre/Adobe Stock)

Babbo Natale And Befana: The Italian Santa Claus Duo

Christmas and Epiphany are undoubtedly two of the most popular holidays for Italian children. Children love to be told fantastic stories and excitedly await the arrival of Babbo Natale and the Befana...
Three wise men and star ( losw100 / Adobe Stock)

Unveiling The Star Of Bethlehem Amid The Celestial Tableau Of Jesus’ Nativity

The ‘Star of Bethlehem’ described in the Gospel of Matthew remains one of astronomy’s greatest mysteries. Matthew 2:1-12 explains how magi or astrologer-priests observed the rising of a certain star...
Tracing Scotland’s Neolithic Civilization Back To Armenian And Sardinian Roots

Tracing Scotland’s Neolithic Civilization Back To Armenian And Sardinian Roots

Around 5300 BC a revolution occurred on Orkney. A group of unnamed astronomers and seafarers dared to sail across one of the most hostile waterways in the world to establish the earliest stone...
Primaeval Temples Of Egypt: Hidden Gods In The Sand

Primaeval Temples Of Egypt: Hidden Gods In The Sand

Temples have always fascinated people. Although their structure, design and meaning, are sometimes taken for granted, they seem to be magical religion made manifest. It seems to be one of mankind’s...
Snap-Apple Night (1833) by Daniel Maclise, shows people playing divination games on 31 October (Samhain) in Ireland, reminiscent of The Morrígan, goddess of fate (Public Domain)

The Ancient Celtic Lords And Ladies Of Death

Traditionally, history classes have been focused on installing widespread knowledge of the ancient Greek gods of the Underworld, led by Hades , but less is taught about Nyx, the goddess of night, and...
The Colossi of Memnon on the Theban West Bank. Antonio Beato. Brooklyn Museum. (Public Domain); An 18th century apothecary vessel with the inscription MUMIA. Deutsches Apothekenmuseum Heidelberg (Public Domain); Amy, Flinders Petrie's sister-in-law, buying antiquities at Abydos, circa 1899. © The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL, London. (Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin / CC BY-SA 4.0); One of the dahabeahs of Thomas Cook & Son, (Egypt) Ltd. Brooklyn Museum Libraries. Wilbour Library of Egyptology. (Ju

A History Of Egyptian Antiquities: Assessing Pivotal Highs And Lows Down The Centuries

Following the culmination of the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882, the British used their experiences in colonizing the Indian subcontinent to tackle the geo-political scenario in Egypt, opening the...
Lives And Losses Of Laodicea, Crown Of Phrygia

Lives And Losses Of Laodicea, Crown Of Phrygia

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...
Fatally Disrupting The Thesmophoria: The Savagery Of Greece’s Citizen Wives

Fatally Disrupting The Thesmophoria: The Savagery Of Greece’s Citizen Wives

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...
Ireland’s Hidden Animals and Shadow People

Ireland’s Hidden Animals and Shadow People

Just when one thinks everything that could possibly be said about monsters had been vocalized at least 1,000 times over, comes a fresh approach to the marvelous world of hidden animals and shadow...
Arctic explorer Bernard Buigues contemplates the Jarkov woolly elephant tusks emerging from the frozen landscape in Siberia, 1998. These tusks are about three meters (10ft) and over 45kg (100lbs) each.  There is a growing body of evidence that overhunting is the main cause of the extinction of the mammoths. (Francis Latreille / ©The World As It Once Was)

The World As It Once Was: The Shifting Baseline In Iconic Megafauna

Centuries of trophy and commercial hunting, isolation in captivity and poaching, have caused a baseline shift in the perception of iconic megafauna such as Asian and African elephants, which should...
18th Century Post-Mortem Punishment: Gibbets ‘Hanging In Chains’ In England

18th Century Post-Mortem Punishment: Gibbets ‘Hanging In Chains’ In England

The curious English have a predilection for heaping abuse upon the corpses of the unfortunate dead, including a cruel and unusual punishment the bodies of executed murderers were subject to in the...
Taş Tepeler: Anatolia’s Land Of Great Transformation

Taş Tepeler: Anatolia’s Land Of Great Transformation

Taş Tepeler means “Stone Hills” and refers to an area covering some 200 kilometers (124 miles) in ancient Anatolia, now Turkey, in the vicinity of present day Şanlıurfa . The Turkish Tourist Board...
Jonah and the Whale  by Pieter Lastman, (1621) (Public Domain)

How Jonah Was Swallowed By The Celestial Sea Serpent Cetus

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...
The Last Will and Testament of Alexander the Great: Its Appearance, Disappearance And Legacy

The Last Will and Testament of Alexander the Great: Its Appearance, Disappearance And Legacy

“…the uncomfortable fact remains that the Alexander Romance provides us, on occasion, with apparently genuine materials found nowhere else, while our better-authenticated sources, per contra, are all...
Caricatures by Katsushika Hokusai (Wellcome Images/Public Domain)

From Frescos to Manga: The Ancient History of Comic Books

Debuted in 1825, The Glasgow Looking Glass - later renamed The Northern Looking Glass - was a satirical publication which lampooned the fashions and politics of the time. The Glasgow Looking Glass...

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