Ancient origins

Jiroft artifact, Persia, 3000 BC Throughout the history of antiquity there have been numerous instances where art has interacted with ancient discoveries to forge new art trends and revitalize established arts. From the middle of the 8th century BC, the developing eastern trade connections led to an Orientalising of the Greek decoration of the ceramic arts with new subjects being introduced including palmettes, lions, panthers, rosettes, lotus flowers and the tree of life. Corinth developed…

The Breed of Giants that Existed in the Remote Past One of the biggest controversies related to ancient prehistoric cultures of North America revolves...

Ariadne discovered by Dionysus, asleep on the island of Naxos. 2009, ink and watercolor, Leonard Porter Studio.

Last summer I posted about how certain pinched types of plasma discharges resembled petroglyphs from around the world. I wrote: "The Squatter Man (Squatting Man) Petroglyphs" The first two images in the top left corner represent how a certain pinched type of high-energy plasma discharge would appear to a viewer; the other images show examples of petroglyphs from around the globe apparently showing the same phenomena. For more information, see Peratt, Anthony L., "Characteristics for the…

A number of words commonly used in the English language come from Greek – some directly from Ancient Greek, but most through Latin, French and/or other languages. We recently published a 4-part series dedicated to these words, divided according to various fields (such as literature, science or religion) but did not include the multitude or […]

Archaeological digs around ancient Egyptian sites still have plenty of secrets to give up yet – like the huge, black granite sarcophagus just discovered at an excavation in the city of Alexandria, on the northern coast of Egypt.

The ancient people referred to as the Philistines have long been an enigma. Not much is known about them beyond biblical stories. However, archaeogeneticist Mic

The overflow from Lake Congo would recreate this paleolake, to an even larger size. It is hard to say what the maximum extent of the lake could ultimately: the hot Sahara climate would cause an increasing degree of evaporation as the lake grows until ultimately the level of the lake would stabilise. This large degree of evaporation would have a large climatological impact on the surrounding areas of the Sahara with increasing levels of rainfall.