Christina was a Queen of Sweden who lived during the 17th century. As Christina ruled in her own right, she may be called a ‘queen regnant’. Christina inherited the Swedish throne about a month...
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was one of the most powerful and influential men who lived during the early days of the Roman Empire. Agrippa was a statesman, general, and most important of all, a close...
Maps are a useful modern tool, telling us how to get places, showing us where borders lie, and illustrating the distance between two places. While modern technology has made the creation of and...
Leizu (嫘祖), known also as Lady Hsi Ling Shih (西陵氏) is a legendary figure in Chinese history credited with the discovery of silk and the invention of the silk loom. Silk is undoubtedly one of the most...
An ancient secret is buried in front of us—just meters below our current street level. Four years ago Spanish researchers of the Institute of History of the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences...
The Pula Arena is a Roman amphitheater located in Pula, on the southern tip of the Istria peninsula, north-western Croatia. It has been estimated that there are around 230 Roman amphitheaters that...
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, known more commonly as Marcus Aurelius, was the 16th emperor of Rome, who reigned from 161 AD to his death in 180 AD. Marcus Aurelius is remembered as the last of the Five...
A researcher translating Latin textbooks from the 2nd and 6th centuries has joined language learners of the past in discovering how to best deal with a variety of aspects of life in the Roman Empire...
Slaves and other lower-class residents made up a big part of the population of the city of Rome around the 1st century AD. But who were these people? Where were they from? What were their lives like...
The Cup of the Ptolemies is one of the most spectacular ancient cups to have survived the ages. This attractive artifact has also gained a fascinating story over the years of its existence. The cup...
The ancient Babylonians were the first to use sophisticated geometry – a staggering 1,400 years before it was previously thought to have been developed. Sadly, these mathematical innovations were...
Few are aware that in the heart of Rome there sits a 2,000-year-old pyramid constructed as the burial tomb for a Roman praetor named Caius Cestius. It is Rome’s only surviving pyramid from ancient...
Female gladiators (gladiatrix) were just a thing of legend for many years. However, decades of research have made it possible to finally confirm their existence and importance in the Ancient Roman...
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, known more commonly as Leonardo da Vinci, is arguably one of the most well-known figures of the Italian Renaissance. Leonardo’s primary claim to fame is in the field...
A Colorado State University professor says he wants to write a book on caelia—an ancient Spanish beer that was replaced by wine after the Roman Empire invaded Iberia. He also may collaborate with a...
Archaeologists have excavated an ancient fortress on a small peninsula in Bulgaria occupied since at least the Neolithic and have found the Roman-occupied town was destroyed by barbarian tribes in...
Prior to the Romans, Greece was the only part of Europe to have had toilets. But by the peak of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD, the Romans had introduced sanitation to much of their domain,...
In Pompeii , the well-preserved Roman city inundated by hot volcanic gas and then covered with ash in 79 AD, experts have renovated and opened to public viewing several buildings, including a public...
Underwater Italian archaeologists have located a first or second century AD shipwreck that was carrying 3,000 clay jars filled with Roman fish sauce made by fermentation of salted fish intestines...
Scientists say that in a few births per thousand there are males born with female chromosomes and females born with a male chromosome. One such case came to light recently in London in the skeleton...
In 753 BC, two twins, Romulus and Remus, founded the city of Rome, and Romulus became the ruler of the city and reigned for 39 years. The identity of the two brothers has both historical and...
Marcus Gavius Apicius is one of those Roman names that have (almost) been lost to the ravages of time. The characteristic that has allowed Apicius to stick out from the rest of the crowd of obscure...
London appears to have been just as ethnically diverse when it was founded by ancient Romans as it is now, when only 45 percent of its residents are Caucasian and people of various neighborhoods...
A pagan basilica of first century AD Rome dedicated to Pythagoras’ and Plato’s metaphysics but depicting many types of Greek and Roman mythical beings has opened to the public. The family that...
