Mercenaries are soldiers who are paid for their martial services from the pocket of their employer and from the spoils obtained in war. Most mercenaries once fought in professional armies before...
The word ‘magic’ makes us think of sleight of hand, tricks and illusion, but historically African magic was a way to achieve goals by harnessing the creative powers of nature, which were regarded and...
The assassination of Julius Caesar on the 15th of March 44 BC was a turning point in Roman history. Centuries later, the expression ‘Beware the Ides of March’ was found in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...
In 1798 the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte, led an expedition to Egypt vowing to annex the country and halt the military and commercial march of the British. But a little over three years later,...
Translating cuneiform as a historical source is still nowhere near an exact science, and what we find amongst so many specialists is a reliance on interpretations of the latest Akkadian versions of...
In ancient Rome, ID-cards, passports and other modern forms of identification did not exist. How could a Roman citizen identify himself in a world without pictures, computers or biometrics? Ancient...
Deep in the rain forests of darkest Africa close to the Equator, in the Central African Republic, the Ba’Aka tribe – formerly known as pygmies - have lived for more than 40,000 years. Elusive, hiding...
Scotland’s Rosslyn Chapel came under the world spotlight in 2003 after Dan Brown featured it in his bestseller, The Da Vinci Code . A hitherto unseen correspondence between this legendary chapel in...
Given the virtual lack of royal males who were old enough to rule, disarray over who would assume the throne after Akhenaten’s death seems to have plagued the Amarna family. Having accorded...
During the final years of the Atenist heresy, an obscure ruler came to the throne of Egypt. No one is certain about the identity of this person - especially if it was a man or a woman. Akhenaten’s...
The evolution of ‘higher education’ in the ancient world led to variations of standards in different cultures. In ancient Egypt, higher education originated from copying religious texts for use in...
One of the most common fears shared by most humans at some time in their lives, is what will happen to them after they die? Many parents freeze when their children ask this question and avoiding the...
Chief Michikinikwa, who is more popularly known as ‘Chief Little Turtle’ originated from the Miami tribe and was born in 1752, near the Eel River in what is today Union Township in Whitley County...
The Ica region on the southern coast of Peru, was once the homeland of the Nazca civilization, who thrived in the desert area from 2nd century BC to about 800 AD, due to their expertise in hydraulic...
The first European records of gunpowder were written in the 13th century by Roger Bacon, the English philosopher and Franciscan friar who was believed by many to have been a wizard. In 1248, a...
In 1853, Hormuzad Rassam discovered fragments of an ancient Sumerian text which is now considered to be the first great work of literature our civilization ever produced. After its translation it was...
Even though Pharaoh Ramesses III had been the master of all that he surveyed – striking awe in the hearts of his enemies and earning admiration among his subjects – the glory days were drawing to a...
The collapse of the Late Bronze Age world brought chaos to the shores of ancient Egypt. Vibrant trade and tributes from Near Eastern lands had all but ceased after the Sea Peoples decimated those...
We recognize heaven as a place to which we will go after our deaths if we have led a good or virtuous life. It is a paradise accessible by earthly beings depending on their standards of faith or...
In 2010 the existence of a previously unknown archaic human population was revealed following the DNA sequencing of a finger bone over 41,000 years old. It was discovered in 2008 in the Denisova Cave...
The standard school curriculum teaches that Native Americans descended from a small band of Paleo-Indian people from north-east Asia who walked across the now-vanished Beringia land-bridge between...
Once upon a Time, they all lived happily ever-after. In the 1891 publication The Science of Fairy Tales , the folklorist Edwin Sidney Hartland devoted three chapters to ponder over ‘The Supernatural...
While the Israelites saw Yahweh in the spiritual sense as their divinely armed warrior leading the way, in the physical realm, they were anything but divinely armed. At Sinai, Moses instituted a...
To most people the Los Angeles Public Library is a functional city building providing books and reference material to the public. Online, however, the library has come under attack by a growing army...
