Ironically, Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, written around 370 BC, a narrative describing the education of the ideal ruler centred on Cyrus the Great founder of the Achaemenid Dynasty, was a great inspiration...
For nearly 2,000 years, right up until Captain James Cook’s second voyage to the Pacific in 1775, geographers debated the existence of Terra Australis, a mythical landmass to the south-east said to...
"Man the Hunter," an early 20h-century human origins story, saw hunting as the primary driver of human evolution, emphasizing mankind’s forefathers' bipedalism, large brains, sharp tools, and...
Archaeological excavation and research at Gōbekli Tepe; that incredible ancient megalithic sacred site from an era of at least 12,000 years ago located in modern day Turkey; called by many the world’...
Awareness of Nan Madol as a world class archaeological site has grown exponentially over the last decade, especially since achieving World Heritage Site status in 1996. Constructed upon an offshore...
No trace of the medieval Colne Priory in Essex remains above ground, as the site is now occupied by a later building of the same name, and in private ownership. However, for decades archaeologists...
Nestled deep within an obscure crevice of Russian history, the tale of Prince Alexander Nevsky and his battle against Western crusaders at first appears as a highly interesting if half-forgotten turn...
Modern naval history is considered to have commenced in 1616, but the ensuing century between 1715 and 1820 marked an era not only of geopolitical change, but also a time when oceans were turned into...
Has the search for the modern relatives of Flores Island’s Homo floresiensis turned into a hoax-hunt? Everything that scientists thought about human evolution changed in 1856 after the first fossil...
Since the mid-1950s, experimentalists, scientists, artists, musicians and psychonauts have been indulging in the “jungle alchemy” that is the ayahuasca, or DMT, experience. From 2008 – 2010...
Astrophysics indicate the origin of the Zodiac may just be found within the Star Maps of Gwynedd, one of several counties or administrative districts in North Wales. Thousands of years ago Gwynedd...
It was love at first sight when Achilles locked eyes with the famed Amazon warrior queen, Penthesilea . Romance, however, was the last thing on his mind. Alas, poor Penthesilea—Achilles would realize...
Adoration of the Sun and alignment of monuments to its annual path through the skies was universal in the ancient world. Evidence of that devotion has been uncovered in sacred architecture across...
During a trip to France, cheesy pasta dishes were served to America’s President Thomas Jefferson. Enthralled by the dish, the president went on to have both the pasta and Parmesan cheese imported to...
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer, born in 1490 in the town of Jerez, a place famed for its sweet wines. Although his name, which meant ‘Cow’s Head,’ was amusing to some, it placed...
One need not search too long ago into South American history to identify a range of consumable drinks that would challenge and defeat, hands down, any of their modern derivatives - which are mostly...
The continents of Europe and Asia shake hands across Istanbul’s Bosporus Strait, connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara which in turn connects to the Mediterranean Sea through the Dardanelles...
Britain's Iron Age landscape conceals many secrets and has many tales to tell and few stories are more dramatic than that of the Brigantes and their queen Cartimandua, when the Romans arrived in...
When word of his younger brother’s life-threatening illness reached him, Roman General Tiberius (later Emperor Tiberius Caesar Augustus) who was in Pavia at the time, crossed the Alps like a man...
The Medieval Crusades were a series of important historical events largely told through the perspective of men. Almost all the contemporary commentators, crusader knights, and Christian generals and...
Towering over Istanbul atop one of its highest hills, Hagia Sophia has stood for over 1,500 years as an architectural wonder, one of the largest and most remarkable Christian churches ever built. Its...
Ukraine has always been a complicated place, with one foot in the West and the other in the East, resulting in a unique tension as a constantly contested borderland, a battleground, pitting the...
The dictionary description of a ‘henge’ as “ a circular area, often containing a circle of stones or sometimes wooden posts, dating from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages ,” fails to depart that these...
Centuries before Versailles, Buckingham Palace and the Kremlin Palace, on the shore where the Western world meets the East, cupped by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus Strait and the Golden Horn,...
