Articles

The British authorities controversially used concentration camps for civilians during the Boer War (1899-1902) in Southern Africa. The reason was to deprive Boer guerrilla fighters of logistical support and provide some sort of accommodation...

The Sumerian poem The Descent of Inanna (circa 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the journey of Inanna, the great goddess and Queen of Heaven, from her realm in the sky to earth and down into the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal...

Among the most interesting and revealing artifacts discovered from ancient Mesopotamia are cylinder seals. These fairly small items may be seen today in museum exhibits around the world, but, perhaps owing to their size, they are not given...

The Marduk Prophecy is an Assyrian document dating to between 713 and 612 BCE found in a building known as The House of the Exorcist, adjacent to a temple in the city of Ashur. It relates the travels of the statue of the Babylonian god Marduk...

The discovery of gold at Witwatersrand in Transvaal in 1886, coupled with that of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867, transformed the entire region of Southern Africa. The 'Rand' proved to be the largest gold deposit in the world, and it led to...

The discovery of diamonds in 1867 in Griqualand ultimately transformed the entire region of Southern Africa. Huge European financial investment and significant immigration followed. The diamonds led to Britain taking over Griqualand and the...

The Suez Canal in Egypt, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, was taken over by the British in 1882 and was only reluctantly released 75 years later. The seizure in the 19th century caused an international furore every bit as damaging...

On 22 September 1326, a strong wind carried 95 ships from the shores of Flanders into the foamy maw of the North Sea. The weather was fair for the first hours of their voyage, but gradually, blue morning skies were replaced by seething dark...

The search for the source of the Nile River was one of the last great geographical mysteries of 19th-century European exploration. Men like Livingstone, Burton, Speke, and Stanley launched multiple expeditions to reach the rumoured Great...

Lullaby for a Son of Shulgi is a Sumerian cradlesong from the reign of Shulgi of Ur (2094 to circa 2046 BCE) written for one of his sons. The lullaby follows a standard form of encouraging sleep through repetition coupled with the speaker's...