Roman North Africa: Did you mean...?

Homo sapiens ('wise man'), or modern humans, are the only species of human still around today. Despite having invented countless ways of labelling the world around us, we have so far done a surprisingly poor job at defining ourselves...

Fritigern (also Fritigernus, died c. 380 CE) was a Visigothic king best known as the victor of the decisive Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE, which decimated the Roman army and haunted Roman military commanders for decades afterwards...

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an eyewitness account of ancient travel to Africa and India via the Red Sea written by an unknown Greek-speaking Egyptian author in the 1st century CE. In this detailed account...

The Romans built roads over ancient routes and created a huge number of new ones. Engineers were audacious in their plans to join one point to another in as direct a line as possible whatever the difficulties in geography and costs...

A photograph showing Dar es-Salaam when it was the capital of German East Africa. Taken some time just before or during the First World War (1914-18). German Federal Archives

An 1880s photograph of ivory traders in East Africa.

An early-20th-century painting by Wilhelm Kuhnert depicting German-led African Askari troops at the Battle of Mahenge during the Maji-Maji Rebellion (1905-7) against colonial rule in German East Africa.

A satellite image by the European Space Agency (ESA) of Africa's Great Lakes. Top centre is Lake Victoria. Bottom left is Lake Tanganyika. Top left is Lake Albert.

The first tunnels in the Mediterranean were built to transport water from distant springs and mountains to arid areas and cities. They also ensured the constant supply of water when cities were under siege. For example, the 533...

Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos (r. 80-51 BCE) was king of Ptolemaic Egypt and father of Cleopatra VII (r. 51-30 BCE). His illegitimate birth and drunkenness inspired ridicule, and he was nicknamed "Auletes" ("the Flute-Player") for his...