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The Description of Africa
The Description of Africa is the first comprehensive book about Africa, written by Leo Africanus, an African scholar trained in the Islamic intellectual tradition, in 1526, during the Italian Renaissance. A skillful mixture...
Definition
The Christmas Truce - When the Fighting Paused in World War I
The Christmas Truce of 1914 occurred on the Western Front during the First World War (1914-18). On Christmas Eve soldiers in the trenches spontaneously agreed to a ceasefire. Beginning with...
Definition
Ptolemaic Police
Ptolemaic police, or phylakitai, were responsible for law enforcement throughout Ptolemaic Egypt. The existence of a professional police force made Egypt different from ancient societies like the Roman Empire, which had no police...
Definition
Mary Prince
Mary Prince (l. c. 1788 to c. 1833) was the first enslaved Black woman to publish an autobiography/slave narrative. Prince was illiterate but dictated her life story to the writer Susanna Strickland (l. 1803-1885), published in 1831...
Definition
Crates of Thebes
Crates of Thebes (l. c. 360-280 BCE) was one of the most important Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece. He was born to a wealthy family in Thebes but gave away his inheritance after realizing the futility of material possessions...
Definition
Sofonisba Anguissola - The Founder of Feminist Art
Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532-1625) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Cremona who achieved considerable fame during her lifetime as the first widely-known female artist. She was invited by the...
Definition
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69 – c. 130/140 CE), better known simply as Suetonius, was a Roman writer whose most famous work is his biographies of the first 12 Caesars. With a position close to the imperial court he was able to...
Definition
Mitanni
The Kingdom of Mitanni, known to the people of the land, and the Assyrians, as Hanigalbat and to the Egyptians as Naharin and Metani, once stretched from present-day northern Iraq, down through Syria and into Turkey and was among the...
Definition
Heian Period
The Heian Period of Japanese history covers 794 to 1185 CE and saw a great flourishing in Japanese culture from literature to paintings. Government and its administration came to be dominated by the Fujiwara clan who eventually were...
Definition
Amber in Antiquity
Amber, the fossilised resin of trees, was used throughout the ancient world for jewellery and decorative objects. The main source was the Baltic region where amber, known to mineralogists as succinite, was washed up onto beaches...
