Paleofutures are the futures that were predicted in the past. It’s fascinating to look back at what people of the past thought would happen in their future. Occasionally the predictions turn out to be correct—a hundred years ago, one writer predicted that we would all be carrying wireless telephones—but more often the predictions turn out [more...]
Near the fabled Pompeii is Herculaneum, another city buried and frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Herculaneum was smaller, much wealthier, and more important to Roman high society, than the now more famous Pompeii. Herculaneum catered to the richest of the rich and the most powerful of the Empire. After the eruption of [more...]
Stretching across the Nazca plains like a giant map left by ancient astronauts, are the famous Nazca Lines of Peru. The drawings as well as their meaning are even more mysterious than their origin. It is not known how long it took to create them, nor how the creators were able to measure them with [more...]
One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis, also known as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis and completed in 550 BC at Ephesus. Only foundations, which are in a rather swampy hole, and some sculptural fragments remains from the temple. Artemis was [more...]
Ephesus was an ancient city on the west coast of Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League and was famed for the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The area of Ephesus was inhabited during the Early Stone Age about 6000 BC. The city [more...]
Persepolis was founded by Darius I in 518 B.C., as the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. It was constructed on an immense half-artificial, half-natural terrace, where the king of kings created an impressive palace complex inspired by Mesopotamian predesessors. The earliest remains date from around 515 BC. To the ancient Persians, the city was called [more...]
There are the ruins of many civilizations found at the Lebanese city of Byblos, one of the oldest Phoenician cities. It has been inhabited since Neolithic times and has been closely linked to the history of the Mediterranean region for thousands of years. Byblos is associated with the history of the Phoenician alphabet. The city [more...]
The Olmec were an ancient people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico. They flourished during Mesoamerica’s Formative period, from about 1400 BC to about 400 BC. The Olmec was the first Mesoamerican civilization and it laid the foundations for the civilizations that followed. The best known Olmec sites are along rivers on the coastal [more...]
First of all, “Sumerian” applies to all speakers of the Sumerian language. So when writing about ancient Sumerians I will be combining information about more than one city state to summarize a culture. Sumerian Civilization was composed of about a dozen independent city-states, with limits defined by canals and boundary stones. Sumerian Civilization was continuous [more...]
Two lovers each wear a ring for their engagement; then on marriage they fit the two together to make a wedding ring. This romantic custom, using a double-hoop gimmel ring, was at a peak of popularity during the 16th and 17th centuries. Gimmel rings have been revived by modern jewellery designers, and seem to have [more...]
It is in fact the largest pyramid as well as the largest monument ever constructed anywhere in the world. Each side of the structure’s base is over 1300 feet in length. It has a total volume almost one third larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The temple-pyramid was built over [more...]
The Great Zimbabwe, or “stone buildings”, is the name given the ruins of an ancient city in the the country of Zimbabwe, which is named after it. The Great Zimbabwe and its satellite ruins extend a radius of 100 to 200 miles, a diameter almost as great as the country of France. The Great Zimbabwe was [more...]
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization on the island of Crete. It was the first of two civilizations on that island and both were the forerunners of later Greek civilization. Minoan culture lasted from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC. Named after the legendary King Minos, the Minoan culture was destroyed by earthquakes and [more...]
Ancient Hatra is one of the legendary Lost Cities of Tayyab. Located in modern Iraq, it was founded as an Assyrian city some time in the 3rd century BC. As a religious and trading center of the Persian empire, it flourished during the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. Later on, the city became the capital [more...]
Old Damascus is a virtual step back in time. As soon as you enter the old city through any of the gates from the modern city, you find yourself in a maze of alleys and small streets covered with arches, or even vines. There are numerous small shops, mosques, ancient Eastern Orthodox churches, restaurants hidden [more...]
Every rag rug is a unique hand-made piece of craftwork, and so it seems ironic that new industrial methods of textile production gave rag rug-making a big boost in the 19th century. Rugs made from strips of cloth existed well before factories began producing cheap fabric, but not in anything like the same quantity. Even in [more...]
Claddagh rings, with a crowned heart held by two hands, are named after a fishing community in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, where they were used for betrothals and marriages, and handed down from mother to daughter. When I first heard a well-known story about their origins it seemed too fanciful to be true [more...]
2009 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, scientist and naturalist who wrote On the Origin of the Species. The foundation of this theory of evolution came from the many thousands of specimens he collected during a round the world voyage on a British Navy survey ship, HMS Beagle. The voyage lasted from [more...]
A coromandel screen is a Chinese folding screen coated in black or dark lacquer. The dark background is richly decorated with painted scenes from life or literature, or landscapes, and a variety of trees, flowers, and birds. Wooden panels are coated with pale clay followed by several layers of lacquer. The design is carved into [more...]
“… match me such a marvel, save in Eastern clime A rose-red city, half as old as time.” ["Petra", John William Burgon] Petra was initially established around the 6th century BC, by the Nabataeans. They were a nomadic tribe who settled in the region and built the foundations of a commercial empire that extended into Syria and [more...]