Theodoret of Cyrrhus (423–457) tells us that when little girls played games in forth-century Syria, they played monks and demons. One of the girls, dressed in rags, would reduce her little friends...
The first researchers of Paleolithic caves and sites related to the earliest humans called the people who left paintings and other pieces of early art “men.” Due to this decision, people created an...
One of the aspects of culture regarded as distinctive to the ancient Greeks was their pursuit of sport. Apart from its function as the act of worship to Zeus, athletic competition, particularly at...
When archaeologists unearthed a large chamber tomb in San José de Moro, a ceremonial center of pre-Columbian Moche civilization on the northern coast of Peru, they found the remains of a woman who...
The term harem comes from the Arabic haram meaning forbidden place . This defines the sphere of women in a polygynous household and makes reference to their enclosed quarters being forbidden to men...
It is often assumed that women in the ancient world held little power or influence. However, women in ancient Egypt could become highly influential physicians, political advisors, scribes, or even...
Nomad Women Have Hunted with Eagles since Antiquity The ancient practice of eagle hunting is carried on today by a few hundred nomadic Kazakhs in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Xinjiang (...
Evidence that Nomad Women Hunted with Eagles since Antiquity "A fast horse and a soaring eagle are the wings of a nomad." --Kazakh proverb Falconry, training raptors to hunt for game, is particularly...
Analysis of remains from the famous megalithic site of Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England, have revealed the relics of 14 wmen. According to researchers, the women were very important to the society...
Caterina Sforza was a powerful force to be contended with in Renaissance Italy. She has been called a Renaissance virago (woman who fights like a man), a lioness, tigress, and a warrior woman. One of...
A rather interesting Ancient Egyptian document is currently being exhibited in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago , which you might think, at first sight, is an example of Egyptian...
Great finds continue to be unearthed at the Bronze Age site of Kültepe-Kaniş-Karum, in Turkey. The latest discovery includes millennia old cuneiform tablets referring to commercial interests as well...
The Valkyries of Norse mythology were women of vast prestige and power. They were one of the few factions of warrior women from ancient lore recognized as having any power over the mortal realm...
Now learn, my dears, the art of beautifying your faces; learn by what means you can retain your charms. This line, taken from Publius Ovidius Naso's (Ovid's) Medicamina Faciei Femineae , or The Art...
The 2,500 year old figure of an ancient Amazon woman has been discovered on a small vase preserved in an American museum. The figure was found painted on to a white pyxis , a cylindrical box often...
In AD 921, the Arab traveler and Islamic theologian Ahmad ibn Fadlan was sent by the Abbasid caliph, al-Muqtadir to the court of the king of the Volga Bulghars as part of a diplomatic party. During...
Queen Tin Hinan is renowned in Tuareg history as a fourth century matriarch of great prestige – named “Mother of Us All”. Her monumental tomb was located in 1925 in the Sahara desert, but dramatic...
The reputation of the Scandinavian Vikings presents the men as brutal warriors that went off marauding and pillaging from the 800s to 1100s AD along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean...
Archaeologists in France made a rare and important discovery when they unearthed a statuette of a woman dating back some 23,000 years during excavations in Amiens. The precious relic, which matches...
It is often said that ‘behind every great man is an even greater woman’. Justinian I was one of the most powerful emperors of the Byzantine Empire. During his reign, he sought to revive the empire’s...
The Virupaksha Temple in Pattadakal is one of the most stunning landmarks in India and the main center of pilgrimage at Hampi, the capital of the ancient Vijayanagar empire. Dating back 1,300 years,...
A new study published in the journal Hesperia claims to have deciphered the names of ancient warrior women from Greek pottery dating back 2,500 years. According to the National Geographic , linguists...
Five 1800-year-old ivory tablets found in the Albanian city of Durres have just been deciphered shedding new light on the role that women played in ancient Illyrian culture, according to a report in...
Anyone who has interest, even minimally, in the history of medicine in classical antiquity, knows the names of Hippocrates and Galen. The two Greek physicians were the pillars on which the entire...