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Ancient Sicily
The Mediterranean island of Sicily, with its natural resources and strategic position on ancient trading routes, aroused the intense interest of successive empires from Carthage to Athens to Rome. Consequently, the island was never far from...
Definition
Tartessos
The Tartessian culture existed from the 9th to the 6th centuries BCE in the south-westernmost part of Spain. The landscape between the modern cities Huelva and Cádiz is defined nowadays by the lower course of the Guadalquivir, but...
Definition
Tophet
The tophet (also topheth) was a sacred precinct usually located outside cities where sacrifices and burials were made, especially of young children, in rituals of the Phoenician and then Carthaginian religion. The tophet is the most evident...
Definition
Leptis Magna
Leptis Magna (aka Lepcis Magna), located in western Libya, North Africa, was a Phoenician city founded by Tyre in the 7th century BCE. Continuing to be a major city in the Roman period, it was the birthplace of Emperor Septimius Severus (r...
Definition
Council of the Indies
The Council of the Indies (El Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias) operated from 1524 to 1834 and was the supreme governing body of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Spanish East Indies. Reporting directly to the monarch, the Council...
Definition
Christopher Jones, Captain of the Mayflower
Christopher Jones (l. c. 1570-1622 CE) was the English captain and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, the cargo ship that brought the religious separatists (now known as pilgrims) to the New World in 1620 CE. Little is known of Jones' life prior...
Definition
Utica
Utica (also Utique), 33km north of Tunis, was the first Phoenician colony on the North African coast. The strategically important port was an ally to Carthage in the First Punic War, but the city switched sides in the Second and Third Punic...
Image Gallery
5 Maps on the Origins of the United States
In this gallery of five maps, we examine the creation and expansion of the United States from the colonization of North America by European powers to the routes of the explorers who pushed ever westwards to the Pacific coast. Here we can...
Article
Trade in Ancient Greece
Trade was a fundamental aspect of the ancient Greek world and following territorial expansion, an increase in population movements, and innovations in transport, goods could be bought, sold, and exchanged in one part of the Mediterranean...
Article
Cortés & the Fall of the Aztec Empire
The Aztec empire flourished between c. 1345 and 1521 CE and dominated ancient Mesoamerica. This young and warlike nation was highly successful in spreading its reach and gaining fabulous wealth, but then all too quickly came the strange visitors...