The religion of Buddhism has several sacred icons, but one of the most sacred is the famous Emerald Buddha. Housed in a temple named after it, the Emerald Buddha is an essential aspect of Buddhist...
The still famous and active Shaolin Temple monastery is best known as the birthplace of Shaolin Kung Fu and Chan Buddhism, a traditional Chinese subtype of Mahayana Buddhism. Also called Shaolin...
There is an incredible archaeological site just outside the city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha, India that attracts thousands of tourists each year. The Udayagiri caves are part natural, part man-made...
Dutch archaeologists from the private archaeological consulting firm RAAP recently uncovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old Roman temple complex in the Netherlands. While religious sanctuaries...
Archaeologists in Mexico unearthed one of the largest and most impressive collections of Aztec artifacts ever found, just northeast of the central plaza of Mexico City. This incredible Aztec artifact...
The Ateshgah Baku fire temple, located in the capital of Azerbaijan, was built over a natural gas vent, and constructed between the late 17th and early 18th centuries AD. There is evidence, however,...
Nanjanagudu is located in India’s ancient Mysuru (Mysore) district and is home to Srikanteshwara Temple, an ancient, important Hindu pilgrimage site. For this reason, the Nanjanagudu area is a holy...
For almost 100 years archaeologists in Turkey thought they knew everything about the famous 7th-century-BC Maltaş monument. That just changed, after a 40-day emergency excavation revealed the rock-...
A 4,000-year-old urban settlement has been discovered on the road to Ur in modern Iraq. Researchers suspect the discovery represents a lost Mesopotamian city capital that was founded on the ashes of...
Malta’s prehistory is as dazzling as it is opaque. The excavations and research by archaeologists and other academics have been incredibly thorough, and have helped to create fantastic insights into...
Police in Myanmar have opened fire on protesters in Bagan, the former ancient capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, bringing even more destruction to one of the world’s oldest religious centers...
Along the rust colored, arid, and rocky costal valleys of North Central Peru, within the Supe Valley resides an extensive archaeological site known as Caral. This is one of the most important...
India is generally associated with two remarkable features: the vast Himalayan mountain range, which hosts some of the highest peaks in the world, and for being the birthplace of religions. Hinduism...
Italy takes pride in its long history and is home to some of the most famous architectural monuments, as well as archaeological locations. The Roman Forum was the heart, not only of the city, but...
The Khajuraho temple complex is a series of beautifully built and decorated buildings in Madhya Pradesh. Of the 85 temples originally built by the Chandela dynasty between 900 AD and 1130 AD, only 25...
Göbeklitepe, the world’s oldest temple , is around 12,000 years old. It was built by hunter-gatherers in the pre-pottery Neolithic period, before writing and the wheel were invented. Göbeklitepe has...
In a monumental archaeological discovery, whose magnitude hasn’t been seen in decades, an aerial survey over northern Guatemala revealed tens of thousands of Maya structures, including pyramids,...
A ritual based religion, Shintoism is defined as "the way of the gods" in Japan, from the Chinese Shendao. It is the indigenous religion of the country, and survives today as the state religion,...
As the name would suggest, a false door is an imitation door usually found in mortuary temples and tombs across ancient Egypt. Facing west, these doors served as an imaginary passage between the...
Long ago, the city of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya was a global center of economics and commerce. Within a few centuries of being founded, the city grew to having a population of one million inhabitants...
With the help of airborne laser mapping technology, a team of archaeologists, led by University of Arizona professor Takeshi Inomata, is exploring on a larger scale than ever before the history and...
Ryōanji, translated as Peaceful Dragon Temple, is a Zen Temple located in the northwestern part of Kyoto, Japan. This well-known temple was built during the 15th century, and is today best known for...
It is probably not possible to tell when humans first began to wonder about the stars, the sun, and the moon or try to understand their motion, though there is evidence of a lunar calendar being used...
Lions are often said to be the kings of all animals. They are also a symbol of power and popular archetypes for influential rulers. Most civilizations have depicted these regal animals in their...