Articles

Piracy has involved many nationalities over the centuries, but one of the prominent groups in the medieval and early modern periods was the French pirates, who terrorised the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean. French writers often...

Clove, nutmeg, and mace are native to only a handful of tiny islands in the middle of the vast Indonesian archipelago – cloves on five Maluku Islands (the Moluccas) about 1250 km (778 mi) west of New Guinea, and nutmeg on the ten Banda Islands...

Iran, or Persia as it was formerly known, is a country with a long and rich history stretching back thousands of years and where many civilisations thrived. With 24 historical sites registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List and each with...

World History Encyclopedia is joined by Egyptologist and author Garry Shaw to chat about his new book Egyptian Mythology: A Traveller's Guide from Aswan to Alexandria. Kelly (WHE): Do you want to start with telling us what the book...

The Legend of Cutha (also known as the Cutha Legend and Kutha Legend) is a fictional work dated to the 2nd millennium BCE belonging to the genre known as Mesopotamian Naru literature. It features the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (r. 2261-2224...

Located west of the Danube, Pannonia was essential for the protection of the Roman Empire's eastern frontier. It had been occupied since 9 BCE but did not willingly accept Roman authority. Pannonia and Dalmatia revolted in 6 CE, and it would...

The treasure ports of the Spanish Main such as Cartagena, Portobelo, Panama, and Veracruz were used to collect the riches the Spanish Empire had extracted from the Americas, ready for transport in the two annual treasure fleets back to Europe...

New Testament studies now place Jesus Christ within the parameters of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE, attempting to go behind the layers of later Christian theology and philosophy (such as the trinity) to understand how his message...

Mesopotamian inventions include many items taken for granted today, most of which were created during the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2334 BCE) or developed from achievements of the Uruk Period (4100-2900 BCE). The Sumerians are credited...

The Frog Princess is a Slavic folktale focusing on the importance of recognizing someone’s inner beauty, regardless of their outward appearance, as well as the possibility of redemption after failure. The tale has many variants and appears...