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The Byzantine Empire existed from 330 to 1453. It is often called the Eastern Roman Empire or simply Byzantium. The Byzantine capital was founded at Constantinople by Constantine I (r. 306-337). The Byzantine Empire varied in size over the...

Albania is located at the crossroads of the eastern Adriatic and was known as Illyria and Epirus throughout the Classical era. It played a strategic role in ancient times and was a point of contact between Illyrian, Greek, and Roman civilizations...

Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad, Iraq) was a city built by Sargon II of Assyria (r. 722-705 BCE) as his new capital between 717-706 BCE. The name means Fortress of Sargon and the building project became the king's near obsession as soon as...

Persepolis was the capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire from the reign of Darius I (the Great, r. 522-486 BCE) until its destruction in 330 BCE. Its name comes from the Greek Perses-polis (Persian City), but the Persians knew it as Parsa...

In 1204 CE the unthinkable happened and Constantinople, after nine centuries of withstanding all comers, was brutally sacked. Even more startling was the fact that the perpetrators were not any of the traditional enemies of the Byzantine...

Sabratha was an ancient port city on the coast of North Africa (in modern-day Libya). The site was originally inhabited by the indigenous Berber Zwagha tribe in the 8th century BCE (according to the 11th-century CE historian al-Bakari) who...

Agrigento (Greek: Akragas, Latin: Agrigentum) was a Greek-founded city-state located on the south coast of Sicily near the river Akragas (now S. Biagio) just 5 km from the sea. At its peak, the city may have had as many as 300,000 inhabitants...

Kalhu (also known as Caleh, Calah, and Nimrud, in modern-day northern Iraq) was a city in ancient Mesopotamia that became the capital of the Assyrian Empire under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 884-859 BCE) who moved the central government there from...

A detail of the roof of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, part of the Temple of Heaven in the Forbidden City, Beijing. The temple and the Forbidden City were first built in the reign of Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (r. 1403-1424...

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, part of the Temple of Heaven in the Forbidden City, Beijing. The temple and the Forbidden City were first built in the reign of Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (r. 1403-1424 CE)