essay
The ancient world
The other Cleopatra
Daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, she became the influential queen of a mysterious, abundant North African kingdom
Jane Draycott
essay
Global history
It never existed
The idea of a ‘precolonial’ Africa is theoretically vacuous, racist and plain wrong about the continent’s actual history
Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
essay
Archaeology
The pharaoh’s trumpet
The truly wondrous treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb are not made of gold. They are the mundane things of everyday life
Toby Wilkinson
video
The ancient world
What did the Rosetta Stone’s inscription actually communicate?
17 minutes
essay
The ancient world
Wanderlust of the ancients
The Roman Empire enabled an early version of globalisation that offered travellers adventure, novelty and opportunity
Fabio Fernandes
video
The ancient world
Sappho’s homoerotic poetry was beloved in ancient Greece – and burned centuries later
5 minutes
video
The ancient world
Why did the Romans create a massive, entirely impractical map of their empire?
7 minutes
video
Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
essay
The ancient world
Our trip to Antioch
Ancient Romans bought mementos to commemorate their travels. These speak eloquently of their world, if we care to listen
Maggie Popkin
essay
The ancient world
Cracking the Cretan code
Linear B has yielded its secrets, but Linear A remains elusive. Can linguistic analysis unlock the meaning of Minoan script?
Ester Salgarella
essay
Cities
Energised crowding
To understand why early cities thrived, look not to the temples of kings but to their subjects’ bustling neighbourhoods
Michael E Smith
essay
Stories and literature
The way of dharma
How do ancient stories of talking elephants and singing birds encourage a life of truth, nonviolence and compassion?
Keerthik Sasidharan
essay
History of ideas
Blackness in antiquity
To truly see black people in ancient art we need to look beyond the historically recent trope of ‘Blackness = inferiority’
Sarah Derbew
video
The ancient world
Walk like a Roman in this digital reconstruction of the ancient city
9 minutes
essay
Archaeology
Nefertiti’s bust
How did this ancient and enigmatic sculpture of a beautiful Egyptian queen end up as fortune’s hostage in Germany?
Joyce Tyldesley
essay
The ancient world
Uncovering Sparta
Mythological home of Helen, war-making polis of Leonidas and now a modest municipality: the city is a palimpsest
Daphne D. Martin
essay
Archaeology
Unearthing David’s city
Archaeologist Eilat Mazar dug with a spade in one hand and a Bible in the other. Should her theories be taken seriously?
Andrew Lawler
essay
Thinkers and theories
Why philosophy needs myth
Some see Plato as a pure rationalist, others as a fantastical mythmaker. His deft use of stories tells a more complex tale
Tae-Yeoun Keum
essay
Archaeology
Poseidon’s wrath
Vanished beneath the waves in 373 BCE, Helike is a byword for thinking about disaster, for ancients and moderns alike
Guy D Middleton
video
The ancient world
Not a lost kingdom but a parable – how to read Athens in Plato’s story of Atlantis
24 minutes
video
The ancient world
A balanced account of Nero’s life reveals the ‘editing and destruction’ of history-making
27 minutes
essay
The ancient world
The whitewashing of Rome
White supremacists fetishise ancient Rome – but antiquity was more diverse and polychromatic than racists will admit
Jamie Mackay
essay
Nations and empires
Enlisted, enslaved, enthroned
Vandals, Goths, Alemanni, Sueves… the Romans grappled endlessly with the status of ethnic peoples in their vast empire
Douglas Boin
essay
Nations and empires
The road from Rome
The fall of the Roman Empire wasn’t a tragedy for civilisation. It was a lucky break for humanity as a whole
Walter Scheidel