Cultural Exchange: Did you mean...?

Italy occupied Ethiopia for five years, from 1935 to 1941, following a mass-scale invasion launched by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). However, Ethiopia had been a long-aimed colonial objective of Italy, which had already...

Feudalism in medieval Japan (1185-1603) is the relationship between lords and vassals where land ownership and its use were exchanged for military service and loyalty. Although present earlier to some degree, the feudal system in Japan was...

Göbekli Tepe is the world's oldest example of monumental architecture; a 'temple' built at the end of the last Ice Age, 12,000 years ago. It was discovered in 1995 CE when, just a short distance from the city of Şanliurfa in Southeast Turkey...

Ancient East Asia was dominated by the three states known today as China, Japan, and Korea. These kingdoms traded raw materials and high-quality manufactured goods, exchanged cultural ideas and practices, and fought each other in equal measure...

Local trade in ancient Mesopotamia began in the Ubaid period (circa 6500-4000 BCE), had developed into long-distance trade by the Uruk period (circa 4000-3100 BCE), and was flourishing by the time of the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia...

I was recently invited to an archaeological symposium at the site of AlUla in Saudi Arabia. I had known about AlUla since 2018 and seen photographs of the amazing Nabatean tombs from there. A conference was held at AlUla in 2023, but I was...

The relationship between the Byzantine Empire and ancient Armenia was a constant and varied one with an equal mix of wars, occupations, treaties of friendship, mutual military aid, and cultural exchange. Regarded as a vital defence to the...

In August of 410 CE Alaric the Gothic king accomplished something that had not been done in over eight centuries: he and his army entered the gates of imperial Rome and sacked the city. Although the city and, for a time, the Roman Empire...

The poem Lokasenna belongs to the Poetic Edda, a bulk of Old Norse poetry written down in Iceland in the 1200s but based on linguistic features dating back as far as the 900s. In this invaluable resource for Norse mythology, Lokasenna stands...

The Maya are an indigenous people of Mexico and Central America who have continuously inhabited the lands comprising modern-day Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador...