Song: Did you mean...?

The Hymn to Ninkasi is at once a song of praise to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer, and an ancient recipe for brewing (though this claim has been challenged). Written down circa 1800 BCE, the hymn is no doubt much older, as evidenced...

The term 'mythology' comes from the Greek mythos (story-of-the-people) and logos (word or speech), meaning the spoken story of a people. Every civilization of the ancient world developed a belief system, which is characterized as 'mythology'...

The Mongol invasions of Russia and Eastern Europe occurred first with a brief sortie in 1223 CE and then again in a much larger campaign between 1237 CE and 1242 CE. The Mongols, seemingly coming from nowhere and quickly gaining a reputation...

Imagine something that has never been thought of before. If one holds a book in one's hands, one can imagine an e-book, a large-print book, a picture book, all kinds of books. But how does one imagine a book in a world where even the concept...

The literary works of William Shakespeare (l. c. 1564-1616) are often regarded as some of the most important in the English language. Alongside his famous plays, he also wrote poems, including 154 sonnets. Included here are six of the best-known...

The Shield of Heracles (also known as The Shield of Herakles and, in the original, Aspis Herakleous) is a poem of 480 hexameter lines written by an unknown Greek poet in the style of Hesiod (lived 8th century BCE). It deals with the Greek...

A Praise Poem of Lipit-Estar is a Sumerian praise song honoring Lipit-Estar (also known as Lipit-Ishtar, r. c. 1870 to c. 1860 BCE), the fifth king of the First Dynasty of Isin, best known for his legal code written between the time of the...

A Storm Eagle is a Cheyenne story recounting a battle fought between the Cheyenne and Pawnee in the winter of 1854-1855 when the Cheyenne retrieved the horses that the Pawnee had stolen from the Arapaho, who were allies of the Cheyenne. The...

The AHE team live and breathe history, but we all have our favourite historical periods and authors. We thought it would be fun for each of us to nominate one or two books that we would recommend for the general reader as well as high school...

Travelling among Streams & Mountains by Fan Kuan (c. 990-1030 CE). Song Dynasty. Painted silk, 2 x 1 metres. (National Palace Museum, Taipei)