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!
Faerie-type entities have always been an important component of British and Irish folklore. In the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Motif Index of Folk Literature (ATU) there are over 500 motifs within folktales...
In the 19th century a Hindu priest introduced British army Colonel James Churchward to ancient tablets, revealing the existence of a primordial lost civilization, which led to Churchward’s lifetime...
A common cosmological theme within ancient cultures was the concept that the Netherworld, Underworld or afterlife was entered from this world through portals and these ancient gates were often built...
Kinryuzan Sensoji Temple, located in Asakusa, Tokyo is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan. Dedicated to Kannon Bosatsu, the Bodhisattva of compassion, the temple is one of the most widely...
Traditional religious literature affirms that the Heilige Lanze (Sacred Lance), also called Spear of Destiny, Longinus Spear, Maurice’s Spear and a myriad of other names, was the weapon with which...
The Dead Sea copper scroll has been deciphered. In a fascinating decoding exercise, it was discovered that the numbers listed as weights of treasures and cubit measurements on the scroll, were...
For millennia the phenomenon of lightning has been shrouded in mystery, inspiring much fascination by humans, who for the longest time lived outdoors in the shadows of these cosmic blasts of light...
Before the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in Mainz, Germany, around 1440 AD, recognizable systems of writing had developed in three major ancient cultures: around 3000 BC Mesopotamian...
" Penitenzàgite! (Do penance) ", shouted Gherardo Segarelli, a young and eccentric peasant, with flaming, hallucinated eyes and a long beard, as he wandered barefoot, wrapped only in a cloak, in the...
The modern-day Java Island of Indonesia now boasts diverse ethnic and religious communities, but the island was once divided by the bitter Battle of Bubat, when a royal wedding turned into a blood...
On July 12, 2020, Pope Francis stood silently in a pulpit placed in the large window overlooking St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in Rome. He had just delivered the weekly Angelus prayer given each...
The standard definition of an obelisk is a monolithic stone monument whose four sides, which generally carry inscriptions, gently taper into a pyramidion at the top. These massive, pointed shafts of...
Of all the mysteries and forgotten wisdom of lost civilizations, perhaps the most profound examples are to be found in their study of the heavens. It is not that modern man lacks information about...
Alchemy is a word almost everyone has heard of, but few have ever committed more than a handful of hours trying to grasp what this heavily loaded symbolic word actually means, in its entirely. So...
“ Sì come schiera d'ape, che s'infiora / as a host of bees, which blooms” said Dante Alighieri in Paradiso , XXXI, v.7 The Popol Vuh , the sacred book of the mythology of the Maya, tells how the bee...
Classic works such as Odyssey by Homer, The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe tell about mysterious distant islands. These islands are usually exotic and inaccessible...
Amphipolis is situated upon the eastern bank of the River Strymon about five kilometers (3.10 miles) inland from the northern shore of the Aegean Sea. In the time of Alexander the Great and his...
The world is under the impression that the scourge of witch hunts came to an end in the 18th century. Cory was among the seven women and one man hanged as witches on September 22, 1692 in America and...
Humans are the most successful predator on the planet and stand sentinel at the spearhead of the planetary food chain, but this was not an achievement that came easy. Mankind’s ancestors had to fight...
A strange mystery baffled Egyptologists when opening the tombs of kings who had been laid to rest in The Valley of the Kings. In 1816 explorer Giovanni Belzoni had reached the far end of the valley...
Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital and largest city, is a sprawling mass of cars, trucks, motorcycles and street vendors that can take hours to drive through. Jakarta is the gateway to the small town of...
During the Archaic period in the eighth century BC, a tipping point was reached in Greece. Perhaps as a result of better nutrition and of changes in marriage practices, so that women married younger...
“ Let her be banished for life ,” Augustus (63 BC-14 AD) is recorded as saying about the harsh exile of his only biological child, Julia, to the barren and windswept penal island of Pandateria (...
The beginnings of what archaeologists often call ‘true civilization’ are most often attributed to the Neolithic Revolution, which began at different places around the world from around 10,000 BC. It...
