Articles

The Lycian Way follows over 540km (335 miles) of ancient roadways, mule tracks and shepherds' paths along one of Turkey's most remote and untouched coastlines. Theresa Thompson discovers the joys of following the trail and finding the ancient...

How did a mere 167 Spaniards conquer an empire of 10 million people? The Spanish were outnumbered 200-to-1 yet they were able to seize the Inca capital, Cuzco, and dispose of the Inca ruler within only a year. Kim MacQuarrie's The Last Days...

A symbol is an image or object which represents an abstract concept, often having to do with one's religious beliefs. Every civilization, from the most ancient to the present, has made use of symbols to make the abstract concrete and visible...

Provence has inherited a rich legacy from antiquity, boasting some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in Europe. In the 2nd century BCE, the Romans began their conquest of the region and called it “Provincia Romana,” giving us the region's...

In 2017 CE, Uppsala University archaeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson published her study of a Viking grave discovered in Birka, Sweden in the 1800's CE which she and her team had revisited. She claimed that what was formerly understood...

Trade and commerce in the medieval world developed to such an extent that even relatively small communities had access to weekly markets and, perhaps a day's travel away, larger but less frequent fairs, where the full range of consumer goods...

Alcohol played an integral part in Norse culture. People drank ale more than water because the brew had to be boiled as part of the process and so was safer to drink. The Norse of Scandinavia had four main types of fermented beverage: ale...

The Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, England on 25 September 1066 CE saw an army led by English king Harold II (r. Jan-Oct 1066 CE) defeat an invading force led by Harald Hardrada, king of Norway (r. 1046-1066 CE). Hardrada, aided...

Norse cosmology divided the universe into nine realms. The center of the universe was the great world-tree Yggdrasil and the nine realms either spread out from the tree or existed in levels stretching from the roots down and, marginally...

Monasteries were an ever-present feature of the Medieval landscape and perhaps more than half were devoted solely to women. The rules and lifestyle within a nunnery were very similar to those in a male monastery. Nuns took vows of chastity...