Sri Lanka: Did you mean...?

The Suez Canal in Egypt, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, was taken over by the British in 1882 and was only reluctantly released 75 years later. The seizure in the 19th century caused an international furore every bit as damaging...

In the 13th century, astonishing quantities of spices and silk passed from the Far East to Europe. Exact amounts are not known, but spice popularity in both cuisine and medicine reached its historical peak during the Middle Ages in Europe...

Eunuchs were powerful political players in ancient Chinese government. Originating as trusted slaves in the royal household they were ambitious to use their favoured position to gain political power. Advising the emperor from within the palace...

Cyrus the Great (558-530 BCE) built the first universal empire, stretching from Greece to the Indus River. This was the famous Achaemenid Empire of Persia. An inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam, the tomb of his able successor Darius I (521-486...

The spices clove, nutmeg, and mace originated on only a handful of tiny islands in the Indonesian archipelago but came to have a dramatic, far-reaching impact on world trade. In antiquity, they became popular in the medicines of India and...

Tea, still probably the world's most popular prepared beverage, was first drunk by Chinese monks to aid meditation and those who valued its medicinal qualities, but it quickly grew in popularity, spreading to other East Asian cultures, especially...

As the 15th century ended, Europeans were still mostly in the dark about the Eastern world. Early travelers like Marco Polo had given the West tidbits of information, but these accounts were too highly colored and fragmentary to provide a...

The royal city of Ayutthaya (ah-you-tah-ya) was a small kingdom in Siam (modern Thailand), and it was an unrivalled commercial and maritime power from 1350-1767 CE. Ayutthaya became the second capital of Siam in 1438 CE when it absorbed the...

Alice is a curator and an archaeological researcher. She is also the youngest woman ever to become a curator at the British Museum. She works at the British Museum's Department of Asia, specialising in knowledge of South Asia; Sri Lanka and...

Angkor Wat is a temple complex in the province of Siem Reap, Cambodia originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu in the 12th century CE. It is among the largest religious buildings ever created, second only to the Temple of Karnak at Thebes...