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The Japanese Tea Ceremony (chanoyu or chado) is a cultural tradition involving very particular places, procedures, and equipment for drinking green tea. Originating as a habit of Chinese Buddhist monks to aid their meditation...

Gnosticism is the belief that human beings contain a piece of God (the highest good or a divine spark) within themselves, which has fallen from the immaterial world into the bodies of humans. All physical matter is subject to decay...

Macao (Macau) is located on a peninsula in the estuary of the Pearl River delta in southeast China and it was a Portuguese colonial settlement from c. 1557 until 1999. Macao was a major trade hub of the Portuguese Empire and with...

In Greek mythology, the Titan Prometheus had a reputation as being something of a clever trickster and he famously gave the human race the gift of fire and the skill of metalwork, an action for which he was punished by Zeus, who ensured...

The Greek Dark Age (c. 1200 to c. 800 BCE, overlapping with the Iron Age, c. 1200-550 BCE) is the modern-day term for the period in Greek history following the Bronze Age Collapse when the Mycenaean Civilization fell and the Linear...

The Mahdist War (1881-99) in Sudan was led by the inspirational Muhammad Ahmad, an Islamic holy man who declared himself the Mahdi (the Messiah). The Mahdists wanted to overthrow Ottoman-Egyptian rule in Sudan...

Ancient China covered a vast and ever-changing geopolitical landscape, and the art it produced over three millennia is, unsurprisingly, just as varied. Still, despite continuous indigenous technical developments, changes in...

Chiusi (Etruscan name: Clevsin, Roman: Clusium), located in central Italy, was an important Etruscan town from the 7th to 2nd century BCE. Relations with the Romans famously soured when the king of Chiusi, Lars Porsenna, attacked Rome...

A Roman triumph was a spectacular celebration parade held in the ancient city of Rome for a military commander who had won an important victory on the battlefield. Granted by the Senate, it was a lavish and entertaining propaganda...

Athena was the goddess of wisdom, war, and the crafts. She was the favourite daughter of Zeus and was, perhaps, the wisest, most courageous, and certainly the most resourceful of the Olympian gods. Zeus was told that his son would take...