Ear: Did you mean...?

The staggering quantity of gold the conquistadors extracted from the Americas allowed Spain to become the richest country in the world. The thirst for gold to pay for armies and gain personal enrichment resulted in...

The wearing of cosmetics and perfumes by both men and women goes back a very long way indeed as the ancients were just as keen as anyone to improve their appearance as quickly and as easily as possible using all manner...

Music and dance were highly valued in ancient Egyptian culture, but they were more important than is generally thought: they were integral to creation and communion with the gods and, further, were the human response...

Written by a former Greek slave, in the late to mid-6th century BCE, Aesop's Fables are the world's best known collection of morality tales. The fables, numbering 725, were originally told from person-to-person as much for entertainment...

In his epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Greek poet Homer (c. 750 BCE) told the story of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by an alliance of Greek city-states. Troy was also known by its Latinised...

If there was one thing the Roman people loved it was spectacle and the opportunity of escapism offered by weird and wonderful public shows which assaulted the senses and ratcheted up the emotions. Roman rulers...

The ancient Celtic pantheon consisted of over 400 gods and goddesses who represented everything from rivers to warfare. With perhaps the exception of Lugh, the Celtic gods were not universally worshipped across Iron Age...

The so-called Vénus de Milo is perhaps one of the most iconic works of Western art of any period. The statue of the goddess was found on the Aegean island of Milos, to which she owes her name, on the...

Buried for most of its life in the desert sand, an air of mystery has always surrounded the Great Sphinx, causing speculation about its age and purpose, method of construction, concealed chambers, role in prophecy...

The idea that Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE), the famous last queen of ancient Egypt, owed her powerful position to her beauty persists. “The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have...