Towers: Did you mean...?

Although mentioned several times in the Biblical texts, the actual existence of the Hittites was largely forgotten until the late 19th century CE. With the discovery of Hattusa in 1834 CE, the city that was for many years the capital of the...

Colditz Castle in Saxony, Germany, sits high on a precipitous cliff face that towers above a tributary of the river Mulde. First built in the 11th century, the forbidding castle was variously used as a lunatic asylum, a sanatorium for the...

The siege of Antioch in 1097-1098 CE occurred during the First Crusade (1095-1102 CE) when the western Crusader knights were on their way to retake Jerusalem. The great metropolis of Antioch in northern Syria was heavily fortified, and it...

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...

Ireland is filled with historical sites and monuments. The 'Emerald Isle' always has something new in store for those who venture there and are eager to learn about its fascinating past. Many sites have a mystical past told through legends...

George Blaurock (l. c. 1491-1529) was one of the three founders of the Swiss Brethren (known by their opponents as Anabaptists) along with Conrad Grebel (l. c. 1498-1526) and Felix Manz (l. c. 1498-1527). His Origin of the Anabaptists is...

The archaeological site of Tel Gezer is located in central Israel at the edge of the western mountains near the Shephelah, about 9 or 10 km southwest of the city of Ramleh. Gezer was one of the famed "Solomonic" cities of the Hebrew Bible...

The sunbaked plain of the Alentejo region in central Portugal is called planicie dourada (golden plain) by the Portuguese, and it is dotted with cork oak forests, vineyards, olive groves, and hilltop towns with whitewashed houses. 'Alentejo'...

The beauty of being an archaeologist is having the good fortune to find something on an archaeological dig that remains in a relatively good state of preservation. In various degrees, there are those who study how nature can actually help...

The Mali Empire (1240-1645) of West Africa was founded by Sundiata Keita (r. 1230-1255) following his victory over the kingdom of Sosso (c. 1180-1235). Sundiata's centralised government, diplomacy and well-trained army permitted a massive...