Middle East: Did you mean...?

Arsenical copper axe-head, dating to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. It has nine binding-holes, three in each tang. Traces of the original wooden haft survive and the remains of some organic material are preserved in the corrosion...

Life in the Middle Ages The Knight

A c. 1759 painting by Charles Brooking East Indiamen in a Gale showing ships of the East India Company. (Royal Museums Greenwich)

Kilwa, an island located off the coast of East Africa in modern-day southern Tanzania, was the most southern of the major Swahili Coast trading cities that dominated goods coming into and out of Africa from and to Arabia, Persia, and...

The Seventh Crusade (1248-1254 CE) was led by the French king Louis IX (r. 1226-1270 CE) who intended to conquer Egypt and take over Jerusalem, both then controlled by the Muslim Ayyubid Dynasty. Despite the initial success of...

The Admonitions of Ipuwer (also known as The Papyrus Ipuwer and The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage) is a literary text dated to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2040-1782 BCE). The...

Western astrology refers to a form of divination based on the motion of astronomical objects such as stars or planets. The belief that astronomical objects are divine or influence events on Earth is found in many cultures, but...

The Parthians ruled from 247 BCE to 224 CE creating a vast empire that stretched from the Mediterranean in the west to India and China in the east. East of the Caspian Sea there emerged from the steppe of Central Asia a nomadic...

A concise discussion of religion in medieval Europe focusing on how the Church worked, aspects of worship, and tenets of belief.

Byzantine medallion with the Virgin from an icon frame, gold, silver, and enamel worked in cloisonné, c. 1100. The medallion was originally one of twelve that once surrounded an icon of the archangel Gabriel...