Zheng He: Did you mean...?

The Constantinian Excerpts, or Excerpta Constantiniana is the conventional name given to the mid-10th Century Byzantine palace encyclopedia commissioned by the scholar emperor Constantine VII ‘Porphyrogenitus’ (reign 945-959). It was a work...

Eustathios Rhomaios was a prominent Byzantine judge and jurist during the late-10th and early- to mid-11th century. He studied Roman Law and began his career under Basil II (reign 976 to 1025) and became the chief judge during the mid-1020s...

Bodo was a early 9th-century Frankish farmer. He and his family hailed from a manor owned by the monastery of St.-Germain-des-Prés near Paris and worked as its tenants. He ploughed the farmlands while his wife, Ermentrude, took care of their...

Magic was ever-present in the wider Greco-Roman world. Spells and herbs, spirits and gods, curses and blessings, prophecies and oracles, they were all the domain of the magic and crafts of the magician for the people living in the ancient...

The Warring States period (c. 475–221 BCE) represents the final and most transformative phase of the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BCE), marked by political fragmentation, sustained interstate warfare, and profound institutional change. As...

A silk scroll painting by Shen Du depicting a giraffe given in tribute by King Saif Al-Din Hamzah Shah of Bengal to the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424 CE) of China's Ming Dynasty. The tribute was one of the many collected by Admiral Zheng He...

The Han Dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE) was the second dynasty of Imperial China (the era of centralized, dynastic government, 221 BCE - 1912 CE) which established the paradigm for all succeeding dynasties up through 1912 CE. It succeeded the...

Islam is an Abrahamic-monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah (l. 570-632 CE, after whose name Muslims traditionally add “peace be upon him” or, in writing, PBUH). Alongside Christianity and Judaism...

The Warring States period (481/403 BCE - 221 BCE) describes the three centuries when various rival Chinese states battled viciously for territorial advantage and dominance. Ultimately the Qin state was victorious and established the first...

The Great Wall of China is a barrier fortification in northern China running west-to-east 13,171 miles (21,196 km) from the Jiayuguan Pass (in the west) to the Hushan Mountains in Liaoning Province in the east, ending at the Bohai Gulf. It...