Wine: Did you mean...?

Lying at the crossroads of the eastern Mediterranean, the island of Cyprus has long been a meeting point for many of the world's great civilizations. Situated where Europe, Asia and Africa meet, its location shaped...

During the Elizabethan Era (1558-1603 CE), people of all classes greatly looked forward to the many holidays and festivals on offer throughout the year. The vast majority of public holidays were also religious commemorations...

Schooldays (written circa 2000 BCE) is a Sumerian poem describing the daily life of a young scribe in the schools of Mesopotamia. The work takes the form of a first-person narration and dialogue...

The ancient Egyptians experienced the same wide array of disease that people do in the present day, but unlike most people in the modern era, they attributed the experience to supernatural causes. The common cold, for...

In the ancient world, human sexuality was crucial for the survival of the tribe and clan as well as pleasurable, a gift from the gods. Thousands of native cults emphasized fertility through rituals and...

Pliny the Younger's (61-112 CE) letter (Epistulae X.96) to Roman Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 CE) is one of our earliest sources on Christianity from an outsider's point of view. It highlights the Christian movement's...

The threshing floors of the Bible were outdoor stone floors, usually circular in fashion, used by farmers to process the grain of their crops. For the larger community, like watermills of the recent past, they could...

The Sandbar Fight of 19 September 1827 made James 'Jim' Bowie famous, as well as the Bowie knife – less than 10 years before the Alamo (where he fell alongside the heroes William Barret Travis and David...

The greatest party ever thrown in antiquity is the inaugral event thrown by Ashurnasirpal II (r. 884-859 BCE) in 879 BCE at the completion of his new city of Kalhu which was attended by...

The Curse of Agade (also given as The Cursing of Agade) is a poem dated to the Ur III period of Mesopotamia (circa 2112 to circa 2004 BCE), though it is thought to be somewhat older in origin...