Seals: Did you mean...?

In many depictions of Vikings, whether in film or other media, a group is often seen gathered around a flaming pit while an animal of some type – usually a boar – turns on a spit above. While the people of Scandinavia certainly ate meat...

In this interview, Ancient History Encyclopedia is speaking with Wendy Orr, the rather prolific author of numerous books who has recently published the book Swallow's Dance. It is a book of historical fiction set in the Bronze Age Aegean...

Mesopotamian religion was informed by the belief that humans were co-workers with the gods in maintaining the order created at the beginning of time and so religious expression was integral to daily life in ancient Mesopotamia in how they...

Civilization (from the Latin civis=citizen and civitas=city) is a term applied to any society which has developed a writing system, government, production of surplus food, division of labor, and urbanization. The term is difficult to define...

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...

Ur was a city in the region of Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia, and its ruins lie in what is modern-day Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq. According to biblical tradition, the city is named after the man who founded the first settlement there, Ur, though...

India is a country in South Asia whose name comes from the Indus River. The name 'Bharata' is used as a designation for the country in their constitution referencing the ancient mythological emperor, Bharata, whose story is told, in part...

The Predynastic Period in ancient Egypt is the time before recorded history, from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic Age and on to the rise of the First Dynasty, and is generally recognized as spanning the era from circa 6000 to 3150 BCE (though...

Menelaus (also Menelaos) is a figure from ancient Greek mythology and literature who was the king of Sparta and the husband of beautiful Helen, whose abduction by the Trojan prince Paris sparked off the legendary Trojan War. The story is...

The art of the Minoan civilization of Bronze Age Crete (2000-1500 BCE) displays a love of animal, sea, and plant life, which was used to decorate frescoes and pottery and also inspired forms in jewellery, stone vessels, and sculpture. Minoan...