Ancient history

• The Slow Christian Reconquest

  La Reconquista is the ambition to return the Iberian Peninsula to those who consider themselves its rightful owners. The Kingdom of Asturias quickly took first place in these battles. Burgos was founded in 884, Salamanca taken over in 941. The big deal was the rise of Castile. A condottiere symboliz

• The Christianization of the Vikings

  Conversion to Christianity was not a clause of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but it constituted, according to Archbishop Francon, the pledge of success:it was for the Vikings the assurance of a stable and definitive peace with the Franks. Dudon briefly exposes the facts, suggesting that this c

• The tomb of Nicolas Rolin finally discovered

  The Virgin of Chancellor Rollin (detail), by Jan Van Eyck. Around 1435. Louvre Museum, Paris • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS The burial of Nicolas Rolin, the founder of the hospices of Beaune, was found near the cathedral of Autun, in Saône-et-Loire, in the basement of a church which was destroyed during th

• A drakkar exhumed in the open field

  Restitution in synthetic image of the boat in its environment • INSTITITE FOR ENERGY TECHNOLOGY AND NORDIC MEDIA LAB A Viking ship in the open Norwegian countryside:this is the spectacle that delighted the inhabitants of the town of Gjellestad, near Halden, in the south-east of the country. Norw

• A century of Viking raids

  Plundering expeditions are an aspect of the Scandinavian expansion of the VIIIth -IXe centuries. It is due in particular to the formation of the Norwegian and Danish kingdoms, and to the contacts of these countries with the Carolingian world. The Vikings used trade routes they knew to conduct raids

• The Merovingians found in the Jura

  This cabin background revealed the arrangement of a hearth inside the latter. • INRAP / PRESS SERVICE The site looks like a vast construction site in preparation, and it takes a little imagination to transport yourself there a few centuries back. But there was indeed, in this district of Gravill

• 1492, Granada surrenders:the end of the Reconquista

  After the capture of the Nasrid capital on January 2, 1492, Boabdil, the deposed sultan, came to hand over the keys of Granada to the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. The episode, which marks the end of the Reconquista, is represented here by Francisco Pradilla. 1882. Pal

• The time of the knights:a memorable tournament

  In 1390, during a truce in the Hundred Years War, three French knights (Marshal Boucicaut, Renault de Roye and Chamberlain de Saimpy) challenged anyone who wished to confront them to come to Saint-Inglevert, near Calais. . The candidates for the game, which took place from March 20 to April 20, nota

• The Egyptian ibis, a sacred animal

  White ibis mummy. Greco-Roman period. Museum of confluences, Lyon • MUSEUM OF CONFLUENCES Pharaohs werent the only ones mummified in ancient Egypt. Animals fulfilling a sacred role were also embalmed and buried in the tombs to accompany the deceased:monkeys, cats, crocodiles and birds, especiall

• Pompeii:Talkative Victims

  Both lie on the ground, petrified. Ones head tilted back, the others face turned to the ground, arms folded with hands on their chests, these two men were surprised by the eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD. . Their skeletons were recently unearthed by Italian archaeologists who

• Gilgamesh and the Flower of Immortality

  Desperate after the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, undertakes a journey in search of Utanapishtim, survivor of the universal deluge, who has received the gift of immortality from the gods. After overcoming all sorts of dangers, Gilgamesh arrives at the abode of Utanapishtim, at

• The universal Flood tablet emerges from oblivion

  Tablet from the 13th century BC. J.-C., relating the dream of Gilgamesh. • BRITISH MUSEUM In 19th Victorian England century, modest families can do little to raise their children in society. Such is the case of George Smith. Born in March 1840 in London, he worked from an early age in a publishi

• The great pyramid of Cheops

  The Great Pyramid of Cheops, Giza, near Cairo • ISTOCKPHOTO L dimensions Its original height was 146.6 m; each side measured about 230 m. It is estimated that 230,000 limestone blocks were required to build it. L e weight and volume Its volume is estimated at 2,521,000 m3 , and its weight at 5,

• Greeks and Romans take a liking to drugs

  The Siesta (detail), by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. 1868 • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS At Vth century BC. J.-C., the Ionian philosopher Diagoras de Melos assured that it was better to die than to succumb to the charms of opium, thus alerting to a now proven danger to health:drug addiction. His warnings, however

• Cicero, the idealist who had to be killed

  Statue of Cicero in front of the Palace of Justice in Rome • ISTOCK At 60, the age at which, for Romans, a man is already an old man, Marcus Tullius Cicero, or Cicero, is convinced that his political career is over. Far are his glorious years as a defender of corrupt politicians and enemies of t

• Women of Rome, power under conditions

  Detail of a fresco from Pompeii (Italy). 1st century AD. AD • ISTOCKPHOTO On this day of 52 AD. BC, all the Romans eager for great shows rushed to Lake Fucin, east of the capital. The Emperor Claudius gave the most gigantic naumachia ever organized there. A real naval battle on an artificial bod

• Socrates, the ruler of Greece

  The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David. 1787. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS “Like a gadfly on the side of a limp horse. This is how Socrates summed up his role as a tireless agitator, working within the Athenian city. Until his death sentence in 399 BC. J.-C., t

• The architects of the pyramids, anonymous geniuses of the pharaohs

  The three pyramids of Giza, near Cairo, Egypt. 4th Dynasty (circa 2670 - 2450 BC) • ISTOCK The three great pyramids built during the IVth dynasty (c. 2670-2450 BC) in the plain of Giza are spectacular. However, four and a half millennia after their construction, many mysteries still surround the

• Minotaur, the labyrinth monster

  Theseus fighting the Minotaur. By Etienne-Jules Ramey. 1821-1827. Tuileries Garden, Paris • ISTOCKPHOTO And I, who gave birth to this monster without being in any way guilty, laments Pasiphaé in a tirade of the Cretans of Euripides, a piece dated to the years 430 BC. J.-C. Along with Phèdre, Can

• Roman Emperors:When Power Goes to Their Heads

  Nero at Bayes. By Jan Styka. Private collection How do we know we have power over people? By making them suffer. The “mad emperors” of antiquity did not know this precept of George Orwell, but they all applied it cheerfully. Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian or Commodus all had one thing in com