Relics: Did you mean...?

Swords used by Japanese samurai were renowned for the craftsmanship which produced strong yet flexible curved steel blades with a single, super-sharp cutting edge. Produced from the 8th century CE onwards and symbolic of the samurai's elevated...

Edessa (modern Urfa), located today in south-east Turkey but once part of upper Mesopotamia on the frontier of the Syrian desert, was an important city throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages. A city within the Seleucid Empire, then capital...

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1469-1536) was a Dutch humanist scholar considered one of the greatest thinkers of the Renaissance. A prolific writer who made full use of the printing press, he produced editions of classical authors, educational treatises...

Thomas Cromwell (l. c. 1485-1540 CE) served as chief minister to Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) from 1532 to 1540 CE. With his king and the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (in office 1533-55 CE), Cromwell masterminded the...

Mount Sinai (Hebrew: Har Sinay, Arabic: Jabal Musa, "mountain of Moses") is a holy site for the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. It has traditionally been located in the center of the Sinai Peninsula, between Africa...

Aethelflaed (r. 911-918 CE) was the daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex (r. 871-899 CE) and became queen of Mercia following the death of her husband Aethelred, Lord of the Mercians (r. 883-911 CE). She is best known as the “Lady...

The Byzantine Emperor ruled as an absolute monarch in an institution which lasted from the 4th to 15th century CE. Aided by ministers, high-ranking nobility, and key church figures, the emperor (and sometimes empress) was commander-in-chief...

The Canterbury Tales (written c. 1388-1400 CE) is a medieval literary work by the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (l. c. 1343-1400 CE) comprised of 24 tales related to a number of literary genres and touching on subjects ranging from fate to God's...

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is the English translation of the Tibetan texts known as bar-do thos-grol (Bardo Thodol) – “Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State” – and serves as a guide for the soul of the deceased after...

Magadha was an ancient kingdom located on the Indo-Gangetic plains in eastern India and spread over what is today the modern state of Bihar. At the height of its power, it claimed suzerainty over the entire eastern part of the country (roughly...