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While the Medieval Norse world was judicially controlled by circular open-air assemblies called Things , at mounds called thingstead or thingstow , early Medieval Britain was peppered with moot ,...
From its initial discovery in 1994, ancient Anatolia's Göbekli Tepe has closely guarded a mysterious secret. Although the secret has been scrutinized and probed in great detail, the answer still...
During antiquity, Rome was an international metropolis, a melting pot bustling with people from all four corners of the empire. The city had impressive marble structures towering over overcrowded...
Euripides (circa 480 – 406 BC) was the last of the three great tragedians of Classical Greece - the other two being Aeschylus, the ‘Father of Tragedy’ who, among many others wrote Agamemnon (458 BC)...
Ancient governmental terminology such as monarchy, oligarchy and democracy have been used for more than 2,000 years and have Greek and Roman origin, but in Early Germanic societies, right up to the...
Even if school’s history class was a bit of a drudge, historical movies and television series delivered the same old stories with much more passion and intrigue than tweed wearing professors...
Gregorij Efimovich Rasputin was a country man with course manners and an immoderate passion for women and wine, a charismatic personality, a mystic with healing abilities and the scapegoat for the...
Since ancient times, people have feared sharks and crocodiles. But how long have these two species actually been on earth and how did they evolve? Crocodiles and sharks have one thing in common: the...
Three, the Triad, is a perfect number, the number that distinguishes the Holy Trinity and the three theological virtues, of Faith, Hope and Charity. Three, in the Jewish Kabbalàh , also indicates the...
"Let us be quiet, that we may hear the whispers of the gods." This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson hints at the subjective experience of religious revelation - the revealing of a higher truth to a...
Considering the fact that the Bible is the bestselling book of all time with several copies in many homes, one would get diverse responses to the question: Who wrote the Bible? Many Jews, Christians...
Strabo, Philostratus and Pliny all wrote about mythological giants: Antaeus, Ilio son of Hercules , Orestes, Cyclops and many others, and one of the most common components of creation myths found in...
Throughout the world, prehistoric and pre-industrial shamanic cultures have rendered painted imagery onto rock faces; often in deep cave systems, but also in above-ground shelters. This rock art...
According to ancient Mesopotamian tradition, Etana, founder of the first dynasty of Kish, was the very first ruler ever to have ruled as king. Not only did the kings of Kish stand tall in the history...
The Venetians themselves tell how in 828 AD two of their merchants, Tribunus and Rusticus, fetched a mummy from Alexandria in Egypt, which was said to contain the corpse of St Mark the Evangelist...
Before the invention of pottery, before the birth of agriculture, before the advent of what is now called civilization, there was Göbekli Tepe. In one of the most stunning archaeological discoveries...
Due to its ability to mimic important events, enchant the audience as well as evoking joy and extasy in the audience and performers alike, the art of dance was infused in many religious rituals and...
The ancient landscapes of India, from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, consist of some astounding rock-cut cave temples that are not only rich with clues about ancient and medieval cultures, but each one of...
Medieval Italy gave birth to the most talented sculptors, such as Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Rome hosts some of the most famous sculptures such as the Pieta, Moses, David and the busts...
Two thousand years after the death of Ovid – the Roman poet who was banished by Augustus from Rome to the remote town of Tomis on the Black Sea in 8 AD – the reason for his exile remains a mystery...
Today human cultures suffer nuclear power station meltdowns, rivers of plastics destroying natural environments and petrol fumes clogging cities’ airways and human arteries, but ancient history is...
Confucian values in ancient China held that since one's hair is a gift from one's parents it is to be treated with utmost respect. This rule applies to men and women alike. Haircuts were therefore...
In 1512 Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, identified a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar as the Mascarene islands (modern-day Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues). The...
One version of an old story has it that when Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born, a local priest visited the family compound and prophesied that the young man would grow up to be either an emperor or...
