Archaic Greece: Did you mean...?

John Lee joins World History Encyclopedia to tell us all about his new book, The First Black Archaeologist: A Life of John Wesley Gilbert. Kelly (WHE): Thank you so much for joining me! Let us start by talking about what the book is about...

Xerxes I (l. 519-465, r. 486-465 BCE), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. His official title was Shahanshah which, though usually translated as `emperor', actually means `king of kings'. He is identified...

Demeter was one of the oldest gods in the ancient Greek pantheon. Demeter was a goddess of agriculture and guaranteed the fertility of the earth. She protected both farming and vegetation. The close connection with the earth was inherited...

The roles, rights and lives of women in Ancient Greece varied depending on which city-state you were from, your social class and your wealth. Women in Ancient Greece had very few rights compared to men and, due to our lack of specific information...

Pre-Colonial North America (also known as Pre-Columbian, Prehistoric, and Precontact) is the period between the migration of the Paleo-Indians to the region between 40,000-14,000 years ago and contact between indigenous tribes and European...

The Pinson Mounds are a State Archeological Park in Madison County, Tennessee, USA enclosing a prehistoric Native American religious site comprising earthen mounds built during the Middle Woodland Period (c. 200 BCE - 500 CE). Although there...

Lexical lists are compilations of cuneiform signs and word readings written on clay tablets throughout Mesopotamia. From the late 4th millennium BCE up to the 1st century CE, scribal communities copied, modified, and passed on these cuneiform...

A map showing classical Greece and the Aegaean islands.

The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies came in two stages: from c. 460 to 446 and from 431 to 404 BCE. With battles at home and abroad, the long and complex conflict was damaging to both sides. Sparta...

The Seven Sages (ΟΙ ΕΠΤΑ ΣΟΦΟΙ) of ancient Greece were renowned philosophers, statesmen, and lawgivers celebrated for their wisdom and practical contributions. First explicitly listed in Plato’s Protagoras, they were recognized as "the wise...