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Conjuring up mystical images of secret initiation rites held under cover of darkness, the Eleusinian Mysteries had a reputation as a dark and dangerous festival. In fact, it was surrounded by such an...
In Egypt, the pharaoh, who was the living incarnation of Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, would undergo at death a transformation from being the living Horus to being the dead and resurrected...
A woman's face, dubbed Hilda, was reconstructed from an ancient skull housed in The University of Edinburgh's Anatomical Museum. Hilda lived between 55 BC and 400 AD and was of Celtic origin. She was...
The world of late antiquity was extremely suspicious of novelty, anything, that is, that made claim to serious attention. Every innovation, whether of thought or technique, had to be justified in...
What is “lost knowledge”? As human civilizations arise and develop, they accumulate knowledge. That knowledge has many forms, from the pragmatic to the theoretical. In most cultures, there is a...
An ancient oracle told by a Pythian priestess says, “ But when the time shall come that the female conquers in battle, driving away the male, and wins great glory in Argos, then many wives of the...
It is an astonishing fact that, from the end of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ and the settlement of Europe, a massive building program took place that was to transform Europe in a hitherto unsuspected...
The Late Bronze Age collapse of the 12th century BC is one of the greatest and most enduring puzzles of Mediterranean archaeology. A cosmopolitan age, perhaps one of the first true episodes of...
“ Thus television... has a prehistory in the domain of oriental folk-lore ,” wrote Berthold Laufer in 1928 in an article with the delightful title, The Prehistory of Television . Television was quite...
The Biblical Enoch corresponds to a remarkable degree with the figure of Etana in Sumerian tradition. It seems reasonable to assume that they belong to the same original tradition handed down in the...
In the heart of the Esquiline Hill in Rome, third century AD Emperor Licinius Gallienus enjoyed the tranquility of the Horti Liciniani , a luxurious complex of ancient Roman villas with large gardens...
Around 1165 AD a mysterious letter addressed to Manuel Comnenus, Emperor of Byzantium, began circulating around Europe. It was from a Prester John who claimed to “ exceed in riches, virtue and power...
In the 12th century BC, the collapse of the complex state system in the Near East led to the rise of ethnic group cohesion that had previously been largely fragmented. These ethnic groups morphed...
The ancient Chinese and South Asian cultures reflected an early interest in the idea that one could build a machine to take to the air, even if the technology to be able to do so was not yet...
Known as the Hidden Empire, Ethiopia’s official name, until recently, was Abyssinia. Its history fades back into the mists of time and for some reason, Ethiopia has largely been written out of world...
In the ancient world elephants were worshiped as divine symbols, harbingers of good luck and the carriers of wisdom, but they were also deployed to intimidate opposing armies and as highly-...
There are few people in the world today who have not at least heard of the tale of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the mysterious Garden of Eden . Their story is told in the first chapters of...
Astrology is a very significant component of traditional magic. Although today it is marginalized even in magical practice, it played a significant role in determining when and how to implement a...
Greatly simplified, one of the primary reasons for the decline of the Roman empire was its rapid expansion, and ultimately its vast size became too expensive to manage effectively and it fell to...
A few years ago, the world of biblical archaeology was treated to a spectacular mosaic find from the ancient Huqoq synagogue , an archaeological site just north of Tiberias. The image-exclusive was...
The 2020 lockdowns saw thousands of planned archaeological excavations canceled and postponed and those archaeologists who persisted at their projects faced serious challenges accessing archives,...
In his writing on the Athenian Statesman Pericles, Plutarch (c. 46 – c. 119 AD), marvels at the "... great art or power this woman had, that she managed as she pleased the leading men of the state...
The simplistic story of the life of Jesus, as it is presented in the New Testament accounts, is well known. He was supposedly a poor carpenter born in a stable, a disadvantaged child who rose to...
It may not be surprising that early cultures pondered the wonder of flight: people in most parts of the world could see birds, bats, and insects flying about, and this likely inspired a great sense...