video
The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
essay
The ancient world
Guide to a foreign past
The iconoclastic French historian Paul Veyne illuminated the past by showing how deeply alien it is to the present
Carlos Noreña
video
History of science
How an ancient polymath first calculated Earth’s size, as told by Carl Sagan
7 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
The sage and his foibles
Scholars cannot agree whether the letters of Plato are fake or genuine. Is this just a symptom of misplaced reverence?
James Romm
essay
Archaeology
What the tablets say
Some 3,700 years ago, an enslaved girl, a barber, and a king crossed paths in a city by the Euphrates. This is their story
Amanda H Podany
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