The arabian nights: Did you mean...?

The Tomb of the Lion of Kuza (Qasr al-Farid) is a 1st-century CE Nabatean unfinished tomb carved into a single huge rock in Hegra (Madain Saleh) in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Nabatea's second capital after Petra. Qasr al-Farid is isolated...

The life of wealthy Romans was filled with exotic luxuries such as cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, or silk acquired through long-distance international trade. Goods from the Far East arrived in Rome through two corridors – the Red Sea and the Persian...

Caesarea Maritima, the city Herod the Great (r. 37-4 BCE) built for Rome on the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean served as the Roman Empire's powerbase of operations both commercially and militarily. With Rome's ultimate goal of adding...

Catherine de' Medici (l. 1519-1589) was the queen of France, mother of three kings and two queens and, between 1559 and c. 1576, the most powerful woman in France and, possibly, all of Europe. She was the strength behind the French throne...

Diana was the goddess of childbirth, the fertility goddess, the goddess of the moon as well as the patron goddess of wild beasts in Roman mythology. However, she is best known as the goddess of the hunt, with her sacred animal being the deer...

Uranus (also spelt Ouranos) is the personification of heaven and the sky in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Caelus. Gaia (Earth) gave birth to Uranus and chose him to be her equal. She lay with him, resulting in the birth of the...

Ivar the Boneless (Old Norse Ívarr hinn Beinlausi) is known from Old Norse and medieval Latin sources as the son of the legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, in these stories raiding alongside his father and brothers and becoming the ruler...

The Sumerian Flood Story (also known as the Eridu Genesis, The Flood Story, Sumerian Creation Myth, Sumerian Deluge Myth) is the oldest Mesopotamian text relating the tale of the Great Flood which would appear in later works such as the Atrahasis...

The London Blitz was the sustained bombing of Britain's capital by the German and Italian air forces from September 1940 to May 1941 during the Second World War (1939-45). The objective was to bomb Britain into submission, but despite almost...

The Pillow Book (Makura no Soshi) is a personalised account of life at the Japanese court by Sei Shonagon which she completed c. 1002 CE during the Heian Period. The book is full of humorous observations (okashi) written in the style of a...