Articles

The Julio-Claudians were the first dynasty to rule the Roman Empire. After the death of the dictator-for-life Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, his adopted son Octavian - later to become known as Augustus (r. 27 BCE - 14 CE) - fought a civil war against...

Women in the Mongol Empire (1206-1368 CE) shared the daily chores and hardships of steppe life with men and were largely responsible for tending animals, setting up camps, childrearing, producing food and cooking it. Having rather more rights...

To the ancient Romans, everything was imbued with a divine spirit (numen, plural: numina) which gave it life. Even supposedly inanimate objects like rocks and trees possessed a numen, a belief which no doubt grew out of the early religious...

Rome began as a small city on the banks of the Tiber River in Italy. The Latin tribes (also known as the Latini or Latians) inhabited the region c. 1000 BCE but the founding of the city is dated to 753 BCE. The family was the center and foundation...

Halloween is among the oldest traditions in the world as it touches on an essential element of the human condition: the relationship between the living and the dead. The observance evolved from ancient rituals marking the transition from...

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal) is currently hosting the North American premiere of the exhibition Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives. Visitors can meet six mummies who lived in ancient Egypt from...

Monotheism is simply defined as the belief in one god and is usually positioned as the polar opposite of polytheism, the belief in many gods. However, the word monotheism is a relatively modern one that was coined in the mid-17th century...

The peoples of the Mongol Empire (1206-1368 CE) were nomadic, and they relied on hunting wild game as a valuable source of protein. The Asian steppe is a desolate, windy, and often bitterly cold environment, but for those Mongols with sufficient...

The term mythology comes from the Greek words mythos (“story of the people”) and logos (“word”) and so is defined as the spoken (later written) story of a culture. Modern scholars have divided myths into different types which serve many different...

The clothing worn by the Mongols in the 13th and 14th century CE, like most other aspects of their culture, reflected their nomadic lifestyle in the often harsh climate of the Asian steppe. Typical items included felt hats, long jackets with...