Even the most well-read history buffs among us often go cold when they read about ancient cultures calling today, 21 June - the “winter solstice”. Let’s delve into solstice mechanics, and explore why...
The clanking of metal and the sight of knights riding on horseback with their full suits of armor is a familiar image from medieval times. But what was it really like to wear such heavy and bulky...
Precisely oriented to the rising sun of the winter solstice, researchers have found a tomb in the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa ( Aswan ) that registered the entire solar cycle related to rebirth...
A recently excavated archaeological site in the Tek Tek Mountains in the Şanlıurfa Province of Anatolia is shedding new light on the ingenuity and astonishing creativity of the Neolithic people from...
Forever intertwined, Morana, goddess of winter and death, and Vesna, goddess of spring and rebirth, could not exist without each other. However, they could not possibly exist in the same place at the...
On Friday, February 26 2021, a city park in Madison, Wisconsin will host a unique sporting competition . Newcomers and experienced practitioners alike will be given the opportunity to play snow snake...
“Magic preceded art, art served magic, and art was then liberated from magic.” This was among a number of sometimes controversial assertions made by Scottish anthropologist James Frazer in his 19 th...
Did Stone Age Neanderthals wait out the coldest days of winter snuggled up safely beneath furs deep inside caves, in a state of suspended animation for months while the winds raged, and the snow...
During nineteenth and first-half-of-the-twentieth century, a popular proverb on every Kashmiri’s tongue was Sountas na keneras, Te hardas na neeles , meaning “plough the soil in spring even if it is...
What we see is not always what we expect, whether from nature or man-made. This is often true with archaeological remains of cities or human settlement, when new discoveries shed unexpected light on...
Tomorrow, 22 December, the Irish will celebrate the Winter Solstice as they did thousands of years ago – at Newgrange, a 5,000-year-old megalithic monument into which the sun shines at sunrise on the...
In Norse mythology, Skaði (also anglicized as Skadi, Skade, or Skathi) is a giantess and goddess. She is most often associated with winter. Apart from that, Skaði is also connected with hunting,...
In our crowded modern cities, there are some who wish that they could live by themselves in a remote wilderness area sometime in the past. They yearn for a time when life was, at least supposedly,...
A group of friends surveying World War II bunkers in Sicily, Italy, uncovered something much older—a rock on a hill with a circular hole that was apparently carved into it through which the winter...
A team of researchers exploring the southern coast of Sicily have found an intriguing prehistoric calendar rock. After conducting some empirical observations, they discovered the rising sun of the...
In the Doctor Who Christmas Special from 2010, Michael Gambon’s Scrooge-like character remarks that across different cultures and worlds people come together to mark the midpoint of winter. It is, he...
Every year, almost without thinking about it, we incorporate certain plant species into out Christmas celebrations. The most obvious is the Christmas tree, linked historically in England to Prince...
Odin, the high god of Norse mythology, rode his eight-legged horse Sleipnir through the nine worlds dispensing ecstasy to all those who invoked him. Now an image of a man with a horse depicted on a...
In Scottish folklore, Beira is said to be the goddess of winter. According to some sources, she is known also as the Cailleach, a name which is said to be translated literally into English from...
Ded Moroz, translated to (Grand)father Frost, or Old Man Frost, is a legendary Slavic character that makes his rounds every New Year’s Eve. Along with his companion, Snegurochka (Snow Maiden), he...
Ded Moroz, translated to (Grand)father Frost, or Old Man Frost, is a legendary Slavic character that makes his rounds every New Year’s Eve. Along with his companion, Snegurochka, he brings delight to...
For Iranians around the world, the winter solstice is not just the longest night of the year, it is also the time to commemorate the triumph of Mithra , the Sun God, over darkness in an ancient...