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Troy

Fresco of the battle of Troy. Credit: quasarphotos / Adobe Stock

Surprise Discovery Reveals Ancient City of Troy is 5,500 Years Old

The city of Troy has fascinated people for millennia. Once thought to be purely mythological, the lost city emerged as a real place in history when it was discovered in Turkey by Heinrich Schliemann...
Aeneas carrying his father Anchises from the burning city of Troy’ (1627-1664) by Daniel van Heil. Details in the Iliad cast doubt on the generally accepted location of Troy. Source: Public Domain

Homer’s Iliad Casts Doubt on the Aegean Location of Troy

Historian Bernard Jones has spent more than three decades researching the ‘Story of Troy’ and he maintains that Homer’s Iliad is the greatest reference work on the Bronze Age world. Homer describes...
Helen of Troy

Helen of Troy, The Beauty Who Sparked the Trojan War

In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy is known as the woman whose beauty sparked the Trojan War. But Helen’s character is more complex than it seems. When considering the many Greek and Roman myths that...
Roman mythology from Ovid’s Metamorphoses – Diana and Actaeon by Giuseppe Cesari

Roman Mythology of the Ages of Man, Metamorphoses and the Founding of Rome

The Romans possessed a rich mythology that exerted (and continues to exert) a significant influence on Western culture. Many Roman myths, specifically those concerning the gods, have their equivalent...
Women Warriors: Queen Zenobia Addressing Her Soldiers by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Warrior Women: Despite what Gamers Might Believe, the Ancient World was Full of Female Fighters

Eve MacDonald / The Conversation One of the great things about computer games is that anything is possible in the almost endless array of situations on offer, whether they are realistic or fantasy...
Still from Troy, Fall of a City

Fall of Troy: The Legend and the Facts

Mariacarmela Montesanto / The Conversation The legendary ancient city of Troy is very much in the limelight this year: a big budget co-production between the BBC and Netflix: Troy, Fall of a City ,...
Aerial view of the excavations of the huge Bronze Age citadel found in Romania.

Huge Bronze Age Citadel, Three Times Larger than Troy, Found in Romania

Archaeologists had no idea of the immensity of the project they had begun when they started excavating an archaeological site in Sântana, Arad county, Romania almost a decade ago. They’ve now...
Scene from the movie, Troy, loosely based on Homer’s Iliad. (Troy)

Toxic Masculinity Fostered by Misreadings of the Classics

Homer’s Iliad has been used by some men to hail the virtues of traditional masculinity in the 21st century. Typically, the famous work of literature serves as a sort of manual of manliness . Scholars...
Representational image of broken Roman statues. The statues here were found before the current discovery and are housed in the Hierapolis Archaeological Museum, Turkey.

Corporate Terrorists Strike Roman Temple in Turkey

A storm in the Black Sea has washed up ancient Roman pillars and artifacts in Turkey's Amasra district. According to Hurriyet Daily News “locals found the ruins lying among the rocks on the beach and...
Poseidon, god of the Mediterranean Sea

Poseidon’s Wrath - The Scourge of the Sea Peoples

Perhaps 3 000 years from now archaeologists will be debating the reasons for the diaspora that occurred in the lands around the Mediterranean Sea during the early 21st century. What would have...
Luwian Hieroglyphic inscription by the Great King of Mira, Kupanta-Kurunta, composed at about 1180 BC.

3,200-Year-Old Stone Inscription Narrates the Tales of Sea People and a Trojan Prince

A group of Swiss and Dutch archaeologists have announced the rediscovery of a 29-meter-long (95 ft) Luwian hieroglyphic inscription that supposedly narrates the tales of mysterious “Sea People” and a...
Devil's Dyke

Was the Devil’s Dyke in England once Part of the Legendary City of Troy?

In a small village northeast of Cambridge, near the most northern route of the ancient Icknield Way, a great 'dyke' emerges smoothly from the ground and rises to over two stories high. This...
Sixth-Century silver plate of Hercules

The Rocks, Stained Red with Blood: A Son of Hercules Slew Giants at Salcombe, Devon?

The myth of Brutus of Troy is well over a thousand years old, yet it continues to fascinate and current scholarship seeks to find new truths hidden in its mossy folds. John Clark’s excellent paper ‘...
Underwater World (Public Domain) and ruins of the Palace of Sayil, Yucatan. (Rose Vekony/CC BY-SA 3.0); Deriv

Atlantis Unearthed – Do Surprising Underwater Scans Show Lost Architecture on the Sea Floor?

In his poems of the Iliad, the Greek Philosopher Homer introduces us to the mythical city of Troy, which remained a curiosity to many until the late 1870s when Heinrich Schliemann, on a hunch, began...
Rafael's School of Athens, depicting Plato's Academy.

The Lost Knowledge of the Ancients: Were Humans the First? Part 2

Until documents of bygone ages are unearthed, located and recovered we are stuck with sacred texts, classical writings and myths of the past. Can these documents we know of now be considered as...
The Mother of all Gods: The Phrygian Cybele

The Mother of all Gods: The Phrygian Cybele

A goddess of ecstatic and chthonic reproductive mysteries, Cybele was the primary mother goddess of ancient Anatolia, and Phrygia's only known goddess thus far. She was a "Mistress of Animals", "...
The skeleton of a woman who died 800 years ago on the outskirts of the ancient city of Troy in modern Turkey.

800-Year-Old Skeleton Discovered in Troy Shows Signs of Death from a Fatal Infection

Eight hundred years ago, in a hardscrabble farming community on the outskirts of what was once one of the fabled cities of the ancient world, Troy, a 30-year-old woman was laid to rest in a stone-...
This 50-kilogram (110-pound) block of hand-worked stone very well may be a throne of ancient Mycenae, tragic royal houses immortalized by the ancient Greek epic poet Homer.

Archaeologist says he Found Part of the Throne of the Cursed Mycenaean Kings

A Greek archaeologist says he has found part of the throne of the tragic kings of ancient Mycenae, one of whom was said to be among the Greek gods and heroes who attacked Troy and was later murdered...
The True Origins of the Legend of Brutus of Troy and the London Stone

The True Origins of the Legend of Brutus of Troy and the London Stone

Until very recently, the London Stone was set into a shop wall in Cannon Street, nearly opposite the entrance to the railway station, but a few weeks ago it was removed and on 13 May this year [2016...
The London Stone, seen through its protective grille.

The Forgotten History of the London Stone, an Artifact Linked to Aeneas, King Arthur, and John Dee

The London Stone is a historic artifact that can be found on London’s Cannon Street. This mysterious relic is basically a block of limestone. This type of limestone does not occur naturally in or...
The Mycenaean Death Mask of Agamemnon

Questioning the Mycenaean Death Mask of Agamemnon

The German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann is perhaps one of the luckiest archaeologists in history. His discovery of the Mask of Agamemnon was not his first, but second remarkable discovery...
Treasures of Priam

The Treasures of Priam: Golden Riches from the Legendary City of Troy

Homer’s Iliad is often considered as one of the greatest works of Western literature. For many centuries, Homer’s Troy, the city besieged by the Greeks, was considered to be a myth by scholars...
Helen of Troy

In Search of Helen of Troy

Her face was the face that launched a thousand ships. Considered to have been the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen would be seduced by the Trojan prince, Paris and travel to his homeland of...
Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons

The Dramatic Life and Death of Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons

Penthesilea was an Amazonian Queen from Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Ares and Otrera and the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope and Melanippe. One of many famous Amazonian Queens, Penthisilea’s...

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