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Ancient History
A basement renovation project led to the archaeological discovery of a lifetime: the Derinkuyu Underground City, which housed 20,000 people.
When battles raged in ancient cities, their rocks blazed so brightly that they could be reoriented according to Earth's magnetic field.
Along with obsidian that dazzled scientists in Canada.
The Parthenon embodies the ideals of perfection Classical Greeks sought from architecture. The neighboring Erechtheion offers something else.
From Æthelred the Unready to Halfdan the Bad Entertainer, these strange epithets colored the legacy of four rather unlucky historical figures.
The volcano’s historic eruption preserved an ancient library, but rendered its content illegible. A public competition aims to change that.
These nematodes complicate how we understand evolutionary lineages.
Perhaps it’s not just an oddly shaped hill, after all.
A single knife is sometimes worth more than a thousand armies.
Long before the birth of Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic appointed all-powerful dictators to protect their state in times of crisis. They were remarkably self-restrained and obedient to the Roman Constitution.
This necropsy represents an early entry in what would become a tradition of performing autopsies to consider an individual’s sanctity.
Gladiators fought in rounds, and there were referees to enforce rules. Only rarely were gladiators killed.
The clash of academic archaeology and what might be called folk archaeology comes into stark focus at Stonehenge.
Destruction of the Ukrainian dam unleashed a catastrophic flood—and surfaced centuries of cultural heritage. Now there’s a call not to rebuild it.
By the end, even his mom wanted him gone.
These astounding inventions show that civilizations of the past were a lot more advanced than we might have thought.
The history of hell doesn't begin with the Old Testament. Instead, hell took shape in the 2nd century from Mediterranean cultural exchange.
Tikal, one of the biggest cities the Maya ever built, was home to a vast and flourishing society.
Discover how the threads of myth, legend, and artistry have been woven together by storytellers to craft history.
This minimalist map unties Asia’s mountainous geography, centered on the “Pamir Knot.”
In ancient Rome, collective bathing was the norm. In the West today, it’s the exception — and that’s too bad.
The stench of death is actually fairly pleasant.
In an attempt to prove Christianity inferior to communism, a Soviet scientist hoped to play God.
Historians have been able to piece together a clear picture of how the average Roman citizen spent their waking hours.
His crime was so great, he was not only sentenced to death but his name was to be erased from memory.
Dive into China's profound intellectual legacy through five seminal texts that have shaped millennia of thought.
Though over three billion people speak an Indo-European language, researchers are not sure where the language family originated.