During the Bronze Age, Mesopotamia witnessed several climatic crises. In the long run, these crises fostered the development of stable forms of statehood and thus encouraged cooperation between political elites and non-elites. This is the main conclusion of a study published in the journal PNAS and
The ancient Greeks had in great consideration everything related to food, and especially with food as a social act of meeting, whether they were banquets or symposiums in which each one contributed a part of the food or in private homes. The main meal of the day for the Greeks is what the Romans la
Both in the Middle and Near East, Mesopotamia, China, Anatolia and the Greco-Roman world, there were great archives and libraries that have disappeared today. The last of all those great libraries was the Imperial Library in Constantinople. It was founded by Constantine the Great sometime between 3
Everyone knows how the Romans wrote numbers. It is not a very complicated system, at least until it comes to representing very high numbers, because they did not have decimals or negative numbers among other things. In essence, an I represents 1, a V represents 5, an X represents 10, an L represent
In ancient Arcadia, now included in the Greek region of Achaia north of the Peloponnese, is a mountain range called Aroania that is home to the third highest peak in the country (2,355 meters). The mountains are traversed by several rivers to the north and southeast, and the Krathi River rises fro
The religion of Ancient Egypt was a complex and diverse system that brought together different beliefs and practices, from diverse origins. Each region had its own creation myth, in which different gods were involved, although in all of them the world (or more specifically Egypt) had arisen in simil
From the earliest days of Athenian democracy the only taxes levied on citizens were those on property, really the only source of measurable wealth. And only the rich paid them. There were two types of taxes or fees. One was applied only in cases of extreme necessity due to wars or other serious cir
Around the year 511 B.C. Calias (called Callias II to distinguish him from his grandfather and grandson, both of the same name) was born in Athens into a wealthy eupatrid family (the nobility of the Attica region and the highest social class, above demiurges and geomoros) enriched with the managemen
The city of Tire in southern Lebanon is one of the oldest cities in the world. Originally founded by settlers from the nearby city of Sidon in the third millennium B.C., Tire became politically independent as Egyptian influence waned in Phoenicia, later surpassing even Sidon to become the most impor
On March 15, 44 B.C. Julius Caesar was assassinated at the hands of a group of senators, an event that marked a turning point in the history of Rome and that would ultimately lead to the rise of the Empire. Four months later, between July 20 and 23, as was customary since Caesar himself established
In the early summer of 55 B.C. Three years had passed since Julius Caesar had begun his conquest of Gaul. At that time the eastern border of the new provinces was located on the Rhine. The Germanic tribes on the east side of the river launched raids to the west under the protection of this natural b
According to an anonymous work written in 727 AD. entitled Liber Historiae Francorum (Book of the History of the Franks), after the fall of Troy a large group of 12,000 Trojans, led by Priam and Antenor, fled to the Tanais (Don) river and settled in Pannonia by the Sea of Azov. There they founded a
Did the Greeks come to Iceland before the Vikings? That is what Andrew Charles Breeze, professor of philology at the University of Navarra, thinks. That the Greek traveler Pytheas, who we have already mentioned here reached the Arctic in the 4th century BC, would have discovered Iceland and would ha
After his victory over Licinius (Eastern Emperor) in 324 AD. Constantine remained the sole ruler of the Roman world, ending the period of the tetrarchy, thus becoming the first emperor to rule alone since Diocletian. Precisely the final place of the defeat and surrender of Licinius (who was married
As if late-imperial Rome hadnt had enough fronts to deal with, in the 4th century AD. another one opened up to him as unexpected as it lasted -almost a hundred years-, and with somewhat surreal overtones because it was not developed against external or internal enemies but consisted of a harsh contr
Not long ago we dedicated an article to the three wives of Alexander the Great and explained that he married the Persian princesses Statira II and her cousin Parisatide to fulfill the local tradition of marrying the daughter or widow of the overthrown ruler and, above all, to bond with the Achaemeni
The Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens began in 431 BC. and it would extend for almost 28 years. In the end, Sparta prevailed, but its hegemony would not last long, since first Thebes and then Macedonia would end up imposing themselves on the Greek world. Here we have already seen several e
It is curious that the weapon that propitiated the hegemony of Rome in the Mediterranean (which in imperial times was known by the name of Roman lake , just as centuries later the Pacific would be called Spanish Lake ), was one as underestimated as the classis (navy, fleet) that, despite being the o
It sounds strange that a Chinese poem from the 4th century AD. carry the word calibrator in its title, but it really is the most accurate translation we can think of for what is also called Xuanji tu in Chinese (璇玑圖, Rotating Sphere Image ). It is a poem written by the poetess Su Hui (also known as
Circa 750 B.C. the Greeks developed their own alphabet from the Phoenician. This led to the development of writing beyond a purely administrative use, as had happened in the Mycenaean palaces, where numerous tablets written in Linear B were found detailing transactions, inputs and outputs of product
Chariots were used on the battlefield in China as early as the 5th century BC. They were mainly mobile defensive elements for the protection of the soldiers, while they carried out some activity such as the excavation of tunnels or trenches. From these primitive models it was developed in the 3rd c
The Melanesian archipelago consists of four individual nations; Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. The term Melanesia was first used by a French explorer, Jules Dumont dUrville. The Wantok people are known for their mostly peaceful past, despite the presence of almost 70 dist
The Russian general Sukhomlinov was one of the key factors in the tragic preparation of the Russian army before the First World War. Ambitious and archomaniacal, servile and a man of intrigue, a slave to his passions and an enemy of every modernizing idea, he was responsible for the deaths of tens o
The character Loki (also known as Lopt and Hvedrung) is a god in Norse mythology. He is the son of the giants Farbauti and Laufey. Despite his origins, he was considered an Aes after Odin welcomed him to Ásgard. Only Odin and Thor agreed to be with him. In the Gylfaginning, 33, Hárr describes him