- + Sophia and the Fall: The Gnostic Creation Myth Explained—Gnosticism is an esoteric religious movement which has flourished in the first centuries AD. It offers a truly unique view on existence, and blends th...
- + Neolithic Communities in Europe Featured Surprising Gender Equality—As genetic research into the characteristics of ancient DNA has increased, scientists have uncovered a wealth of valuable information about how prehis...
- + Footprints Reveal 2 Extinct Hominin Species Living Side By Side—Anna K. Behrensmeyer , Kevin Hatala & Purity Kiura / The Conversation Human footprints stir the imagination. They invite you to fol...
- + The Megalithic Gate of Ha-amonga a Maui—Scattered over 700,000 square kilometers (270, 271 sq mi) in the southern Pacific Ocean are the Tonga islands. On one of the 176 islands that make up ...
- + Romans Are Said to Have Ingested Fish Brains That Caused Hallucinations—Ancient Romans reportedly ingested the brains of a bream called the dreamfish to get high, and modern scholarly studies have confirmed the toxicity ...
- + Legendary Nebra Sky Disc Creation Method Has Been Discovered—A circle of corroded bronze, measuring 12 inches (30cm) across, adorned with golden shapes, was unwittingly discovered in 1999 in Nebra, Germany, now ...
- + Facebook Censorship: Penalizing the Innocent and Still Missing the Harmful?—Once again Ancient Origins has been blocked by Facebook for posting content deemed not fit for general consumption. This is becoming an almost monthly...
- + Educating Claudius: Transforming the Family Outcast into the Emperor of Rome—When the mad Roman Emperor Caligula was assassinated in 41 AD, his uncle Claudius ran to one of the palace's apartments and hid behind a curtain. Clau...
- + Fossils Found in China Come from a Huge Human Ancestor, Scientists Say —A pair of scientists who study hominin fossils and human evolution in China and East Asia claim to have discovered a new human ancestor that appeared ...
- + Graffiti Was a Powerful Form of Protest in Ancient Rome – as Gladiator II Shows—Claire Holleran /The Conversation Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II features a scene in which a senator, seated at a pavement cafe in Rome, reads a pri...
- + How the Thanksgiving Food Favorites Won Their Place at the Table—Thanksgiving, celebrated annually in the United States, is a time-honored tradition marked by a feast that brings together family and friends. It is i...
- + Otto the Great’s Tribute to His Late English Queen Finally Makes Sense—A historical document composed by King Otto I, better known as Otto the Great, to his English queen has been re-examined and re-dated by a medieval hi...
- + Thanksgiving Evolved From Fasting and Prayer to Feasting and Mourning—Thanksgiving observances predate the feast of the year 1621 shared by the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Seve...
- + Bronze Age Sword Found in Danish Bog Leads to Hoard—A Bronze Age sword, ritually bent before being deposited as an offering, has been unearthed in Værebro Ådal by a metal detectorist on his first outing...
- + Oldest US Firearm Found in Arizona and Tied to Coronado Expedition—A groundbreaking discovery in southern Arizona has unveiled the oldest known firearm in the continental United States. A bronze wall gun, dating to th...
- + The Wendish Crusade: Holy War or Political Ambition in the Baltic Frontier?—For centuries, the Polabian Slavs lived in their ancestral homeland around the Elbe River, in what is today Germany. Following their age-old traditi...
- + Shipwreck off Kenyan Coast May Have Been Vasco da Gama’s São Jorge—A new study links a shipwreck off the Kenyan coast of Ngomeni to be Vasco de Gama’s famed ship, the Sāo Jorge, from one of his many voyages through th...
- + Dongba: The Last Hieroglyph and the Struggle to Save Naxi Culture—The Dongba symbols are an ancient system of pictographic glyphs created by the founder of the Bön religious tradition of Tibet and used by the Naxi pe...
- + Focaccia Didn’t Originate in Rome, but in Mesopotamia 9,000 years ago!—By Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona A study led by researchers from the UAB and the University La Sapienza in Rome indicates that during the Lat...
- + Pylon of Ptolemaic Temple Uncovered in Sohag Along Western Bank of Nile—A complete pylon of a Ptolemaic temple called Batlmy, described as a ‘significant milestone’, has been found on the western side of the main temple in...
- + Researcher Says Aliens May Be Using Star Systems as Spaceships—Astronomers have observed stars that are accelerating through space at a shockingly rapid pace. Normally this is assumed to relate to gravitational fo...
- + The Ancient Hangover Cure Found in a 1,000-Year-Old Cookbook—Written nearly a thousand years ago, the Kitab al-tabikh (book of cookery) written by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, is the most comprehensive work of its kind...
- + Murder in the Family: The Ptolemies—For 275 years, the Ptolemies ruled as Egypt’s last, enduring dynasty. Each king carried the name Ptolemy, and each queen carried the name Cleopatra ,...
- + Earliest Fishing Operation Found in Central America, Dating to 2,000 BC—Even before the rise of the great Maya civilization, the people who occupied Central America’s Yucatan Peninsula were applying their engineering skill...
- + Oldest Statement of Christian Faith (Jesus is God) Found In Israeli Prison—“Jesus is God.” An inscription declaring this to be a reality, the earliest and oldest written expression of the Christian faith, has been deemed 'the...
- + The Gruesome Goat’s Tongue: Greatest Torture of All Time?—History is full of inventive, albeit disturbing, methods of making people squirm, confess, or simply regret their life choices. Among these is the les...
- + Dedicated Roman Gladiator Superfans Were the Football Hooligans of Their Day— John Pearce /The Conversation In the amphitheatre of Gladiator II , Ridley Scott trains his lens on fighters and emperors – but no account of anc...
- + Church Built by Roman Emperor Justinian I Excavated in Aquileia, Italy—In the quiet and peaceful village of Aquileia, in northern Italy near the Adriatic Sea coast, archaeologists from the Austrian Archaeological Institut...
- + Shocking 2,000-Year-Old Fig Find Opens New Chapter in Ireland’s History—A recent discovery at the Drumanagh promontory fort in North Dublin is reshaping our understanding of Ireland’s Iron Age trade networks. The find—a 2,...
- + 65,000-year-old Neanderthal Glue Factory Discovered in Gibraltar—A recent discovery in Gibraltar has unveiled one of the most advanced manufacturing sites of the ancient world: a Neanderthal tar distillation oven da...
- + New Study of Balearic Island Bronze Age Swords Reveals Complex Origins—A recent study revealed many new details about the manufacture, material composition, and cultural importance of Late Bronze Age swords recovered duri...
- + Europe’s Highest Petroglyphs Found in Lombardy, Italy—A series of petroglyphs have been identified in the Alpine Lombardy region at over 3,000 meters (9842 feet), more than 7 years after they were found b...
- + Who were Caracalla and Geta, the Unhinged Roman Brother Emperors Depicted in Gladiator II?—Michael Hanaghan /The Conversation When Gladiator I was released in 2000, I was a high school Classics student and the film brought Classical liter...
- + Podcast: History Fuzz: Episode 07: Professor Brian S. Bauer: Island of the Sun and the Inca ceque system—In this episode, Dr. Brian S. Bauer, a Full Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, takes us on a journe...
- + Forgotten Giants: Were There Really Giants in Ancient Times?—One of the most enduring myths of humankind is that pertaining to giants. In almost every major civilization and culture in the world, there are tales...
- + A 5th Century Amulet Depicting Prophet Solomon Has Been Found in Hadrianopolis—During the excavations carried out in the ancient city of Hadrianopolis in the Eskipazar district of Karabük, an amulet depicting Solomon on horseback...
- + Study Concludes Fall of Eastern Rome is Falsely Linked to Climate and Plague—It has widely been accepted that climate (in the form of the Late Little Ice Age or LLIA and the Justinianic Plague were the primary culprits of empir...
- + Theory of Alphabet Origins in Syria Gains Traction—The roots of alphabetic writing may stretch back much further than previously believed. Evidence unearthed at the ancient site of Umm el-Marra in nort...
- + Italian Police Seize Stolen Etruscan Treasures, Including a Princess’s Sarcophagus—In a significant operation against the illicit trade of antiquities, Italian police have recovered a trove of Etruscan funerary treasures in Umbria, b...
- + Rattling the Divine: The Mystical Role of the Sistrum—The sistrum was one of the most sacred musical instruments in ancient Egypt and was believed to hold powerful magical properties. It was used in the w...
- + Telling Discovery Indicates Neanderthals Collected Fossils—A Neanderthal cave in northern Spain has yielded 15 marine fossils, indicative that our extinct ancestors might have been collectors, just like we are...
- + Gladiator II: Historians on the Fate of the Real Roman Royalty Featured in the Film—Stephan Blum & Michael La Corte /The Conversation Twenty-four years after Gladiator, Ridley Scott has returned with a sweeping sequel to ...
- + The Rise and Function of the Polis in Ancient Greece —In the society of Ancient Greece, the polis , or the city-state, was perhaps the most distinctive and important political innovation at the time. Eme...
- + Zodiac Symbol of Goat-Fish Found in 2,200-Year-Old Egyptian Rock Art —Until now, no one had ever found a sign of the zodiac encoded in Egyptian rock art. But that has all changed, as scholars from Macquarie University in...
- + Kuntillet Ajrud: The Ancient Fortress that Puzzles Archaeologists—In the Sinah desert stands Kuntillet Ajrud, a remote settlement that was found in 1975 by the archaeologist Ze’ev Meshel of the University of Tel Aviv...
- + Arslan Kaya’s Lost Inscription Links to Materan, the Great Mother Goddess—The legendary Arslan Kaya monument (i.e., lion rock), features a heavily damaged inscription that has been difficult to decipher for ages, and is 2,60...
- + Ship Wrecked in Norway’s Deepest Lake 700 Years Ago Reveals its Secrets—A ship that sunk in Norway’s deepest lake several centuries ago has been identified as a føringsbåt, a type of boat that was used to haul cargo and pa...
- + More Neolithic Stone Circles Found on Dartmoor, May Form “Sacred Arc”—Archaeologist Alan Endacott has devoted the last two decades to searching for new stone circles in Dartmoor, a vast stretch of relatively desolate moo...
- + 12th Century Mass Grave Found in Burial Shaft at Leicester Cathedral—Just last month, after the fanfare of the inauguration of a new visitors recreational area at historic Leicester Cathedral, a rather gruesome discover...
- + Aztec Death Whistle Will Mess Up Your Mind, Study Reveals—One of the most remarkable ancient musical instruments ever discovered is the so-called Aztec death whistle. Newly published research seems to confirm...
- + The Swan Helmet of Tintignac, the Pinnacle of Gaulish Elegance—France has always been the heartland of the Celtic world. Once the home to the fierce Gallic tribes, this nation is dotted with their remnants and the...
- + The Nephilim and the Flood—Who are the Nephilim and what do they represent? Are they biblical giants? What does the term literally translate to, and why does the brief mention o...
- + Explorers of Lost City of the Monkey God Nearly Lose Faces to Parasite—The group of explorers that discovered the remains of an ancient city in the jungle of Honduras while hunting for the legendary lost city of La Ciudad...
- + Rare Roman Knife Handle Depicting Gladiator Found Near Hadrian’s Wall—A rare Roman knife handle, moulded in the shape of a secutor gladiator, was found in the River Tyne at Corbridge Roman Town near Hadrian’s Wall in N...
- + As the Taurid Meteor Shower Passes by Earth, Pseudoscience Rains Down – and Obscures a Potential Real Threat from Space—Mark Boslough /The Conversation With the Taurid meteor shower now hitting the night skies worldwide, look for what could be a celestial treat – you ...
- + Pythagoras: One of the Greatest Minds of His Time —Pythagoras was one of the greatest minds and philosophers of his time and his unquestionable influence can be felt even today in mathematics. It is be...
- + Rate of Human Development First Slowed Down 1.77 million Years Ago—The pace of human physical development is slower than that of other primates, meaning that it takes us longer to move from childhood through adolescen...
- + Professor Finds First Physical Evidence Egyptians Drank Hallucinogenic Cocktails—By Cassidy Delamarter A University of South Florida professor found the first-ever physical evidence of hallucinogens in an Egyptian mug, valid...
- + Unveiling Talgua Cave: The Glowing Skulls of Honduras' Past—Talgua Cave, known also as the ‘Cave of the Glowing Skulls’, is a cave located in the Olancho Valley, which is situated in Catacamas, a municipality i...
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