Linen: Did you mean...?

A text known as The Lay of the Harper, dating from the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) encourages its audience to make the most of the time because death is a certainty: Make a holiday! And do not tire of playing! For no one is allowed to...

Nicodemus was an early follower of Jesus Christ, uniquely mentioned only in the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John. According to that gospel, he was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Council) in Jerusalem at the time of...

The language of the Etruscans, like the people themselves, has remained somewhat mysterious and has yet to be fully understood. The alphabet used a western Greek script, but the language has presented difficulties to scholars because it is...

Harper's songs were lyrics composed in ancient Egypt to be sung at funeral feasts and inscribed on monuments. They derive their name from the image which accompanies the text on tomb or chapel walls, stelae, and papyri in which a blind harper...

Gideon was a judge and military leader, whose story was recounted in the Biblical Book of Judges. “Judge” (Hebrew, shofet) in this book was not a circuit, court judge, but someone raised up by the God of Israel during a crisis. It is equivalent...

Tarquinia (Etruscan name: Tarch'na or Tarch, Roman name: Tarquinii) is a town located on the western coast of central Italy which was an important Etruscan and then Roman settlement. It is famous today as the site of around 200 Etruscan tombs...

The hypaspists or hypaspistai were a distinct type of infantry soldier who served as a vital part of the Macedonian armies of both Phillip II of Macedon (r. 359 BCE - 336 BCE) and his son and heir Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BCE). The...

William Dampier (1651-1715) was an English explorer, navigator, and naturalist, who was the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He was also among the first Englishmen to step foot on Australian soil when he sailed into King...

The pezhetairoi (foot companions) were part of the imposing army that accompanied the Macedonian commander Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BCE) when he crossed the Hellespont to face the Persian king Darius III in 334 BCE. Armed with long...

Odo of Bayeux (d. 1097 CE) was the bishop of Bayeux in Normandy and half-brother of William the Conqueror (r. 1066-1087 CE). After the Norman conquest of England in 1066 CE, Odo was given vast Anglo-Saxon estates and made, as the Earl of...