Baal cycle tablets: Did you mean...?

Roman education had its first 'primary schools' in the 3rd century BCE, but they were not compulsory and depended entirely on tuition fees. There were no official schools in Rome, nor were there buildings used specifically for the purpose...

The Popol Vuh recounts the story of twins who journeyed to Xibalba. For the Maya, their round of adventures serves as a metaphor for timeless, repeating cycles and for the regeneration of earth and all living things. – Gene S. Stuart, Mayanist...

The Celtic languages form a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. They derive from Proto-Celtic and are divided into Continental Celtic languages (Lepontic, Gaulish, Galatian, Noric, Celtiberian, Gallaecian) and Insular Celtic...

Ancestor worship in ancient China dates back to the Neolithic period, and it would prove to be the most popular and enduring Chinese religious practice, lasting well into modern times. The family was always an important concept in Chinese...

Libraries were a feature of larger cities across the ancient world with famous examples being those at Alexandria, Athens, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Nineveh. Rarely ever lending libraries, they were typically designed for visiting scholars...

For the Greeks magic (mageia or goeteia) was a wide-ranging topic which involved spells and evil prayers (epoidai), curse tablets (katadesmoi), enhancing drugs and deadly poisons (pharmaka), amulets (periapta) and powerful love potions (philtra...

The 1,900th anniversary of the visit of the Roman emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138 CE) to Britain and the construction of the wall that bears his name will be observed in 2022. A year-long festival will be held, filled with hundreds of events...

Gilgamesh is the semi-mythic King of Uruk best known as the hero of The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2150-1400 BCE) the great Babylonian poem that predates Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by 1500 years and, therefore, stands as the oldest piece of epic...

A mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”) is an artistic representation of higher thought and deeper meaning given as a geometric symbol used in spiritual, emotional, or psychological work to focus one's attention. The image first appears in India...

The Torah, also known as the Pentateuch (from the Greek for “five books”), is the first collection of texts in the Hebrew Bible. It deals with the origins of not only the Israelites but also the entire world. Though traditionally the Hebrew...