Sacrifice: Did you mean...?

To the ancient Romans, everything was imbued with a divine spirit (numen, plural: numina) which gave it life. Even supposedly inanimate objects like rocks and trees possessed a numen, a belief which no doubt grew out of the early religious...

The fall of Tenochtitlan on 13 August 1521 was a decisive moment in the dramatic collapse of the Aztec empire which had dominated Mesoamerica. Led by Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), the Spanish conquistadors enjoyed superior weapons and tactics...

The Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi (c. 1700 BCE) is a Sumerian and later Babylonian poem on the theme of unjust suffering, which is thought to have influenced the biblical Book of Job. Also known as The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, the title translates...

The Aztecs of northern Mesoamerica (c. 1345 and 1521 CE) worshipped some of the weirdest, most fantastic and downright scary gods seen anywhere in history. The Aztec civilization and the empire it created revolved around winning special favour...

The dog as "man's best friend" has a long history going back to the ages long before the civilization of ancient Egypt was established but the Egyptians were among the earliest people to recognize the value of the dog and show their appreciation...

Making the Sacred Bundle is an origin story of the medicine bag from the Pawnee nation. A medicine bag is a pouch or bundle containing items of resonant spiritual power for an individual or the tribal community that symbolize and maintain...

Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531) wrote his 67 Articles in 1523 as a confession of faith to be presented at the First Disputation in Zürich where he defended his beliefs against accusations of heresy by the Catholic Church. Zwingli's 67 Articles...

Diogenes of Sinope (c. 404-323 BCE) was a Greek Cynic philosopher best known for holding a lantern to the faces of the citizens of Athens claiming he was searching for an honest man. He was most likely a student of the philosopher Antisthenes...

Ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia were understood as a reality of life just as they were in other civilizations of antiquity. Although the cultures of the various Mesopotamian civilizations differed between c. 5000 BCE-651 CE, the belief in ghosts...

The Dexileos Stele assesses the way that Athenian political thought penetrated all levels of society, showing the conflict that the aristocratic classes were faced with in trying to find their place within the Athenian Democracy. As a visual...