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!
According to the Sumerian King List , Lugalbanda was one of the kings who belonged to the First Dynasty of Uruk in Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia. What is particularly striking about Lugalbanda is the...
The Vikings were warriors and therefore weaponry was at the forefront of their culture, and this is why the heroes and gods of Norse religion and folklore were armed with a range of awesome weapons...
Nestled in a sacred valley, at an altitude of about 1,700 meters (5,560 feet) above sea level, to the south of Mexico City, lies the town of Tepoztlán. The surrounding landscape has been shaped by...
The ancient peoples of Anatolia and the Near East did not go unaffected by the terrible consequences of the Younger Dryas comet impact event, now known to have devastated the North American continent...
Sun Tzu's Art of War was, one is told, written by an ancient Chinese soldier - except there is no evidence that there ever was a General Sun Tzu. In general, the commentary on Art of War just guesses...
The Ark of the Covenant must be thought of as two or even three separate things. First of all it is a box with a cavity in the middle of it that can contain a medium-sized object, such as an...
In the Myth of the Minotaur , if not for the ministrations of the humble Princess Ariadne, Theseus —the Greek hero—would not have had a prayer. Although often portrayed as a mere maiden, truth be...
“And after some days my son, Methuselah, took a wife for his son Lamech, and she became pregnant by him and bore him a son. And his body was white as snow and red as a rose; the hair of his head as...
The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis has received considerable attention since its publication in 2007 in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)...
The number 666 has been sanctified and this should bring sighs of relief to all those who were wary at the number of the beast fearing it symbolised satanic forces. It has transpired that the number...
There are only a handful of surviving texts that describe what could be termed true “rites of passage” along the Way of Hermes. One such text—which contains what many consider the essential Hermetic...
At the core of the philosophy of Plato, we find one of the oldest written accounts of a type of psychological physics in the history of Western literature. Drawing from Pythagorean and archaic Greek...
In 1127, the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279) lost control of northern China and, with it, access to the Silk Road and Persia's riches. After overthrowing the Song Dynasty and rising himself to the imperial...
The religious influences upon both Akhenaten and his brother Tuthmose from the temples of Heliopolis went a long way in fashioning their comparative belief systems. By encouraging the older solar...
Modern science has, for the last two centuries, replaced most of the spirits, entities, demons and ghosts of the ancient world with logical explanations demonstrated through scientific...
In 1219, Genghis Khan led his armies into the mighty Khwarazmain Empire (present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran) and smashed it. The provocation of this attack was due to the mistreatment of...
The word ‘siege‘ conjures up imagery of high wooden towers attacking thick stone castle walls, but in the ancient world sieges also required extreme engineering prowess. Innovations in attack...
In ancient India, legendary King Udayana was a king of the city of Kaushambi in the north-central India as well as a patron of Shakyamuni Buddha. The Buddhist scripture Samyutta Nikaya records...
Almost 12,000 years ago, in the remote recesses of Anatolia, today's southeast Turkey, something happened that, seemingly overnight, completely changed the course of human evolution. Far flung bands...
Nan Madol is a mysterious place, there is nothing like it the world over. Its people are vanished and its purpose spectacularly obscure. Was it built by the mythical brothers Olishipa and Olosohpa,...
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...