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Mummification is the natural or artificial preservation of the soft tissue of a dead body. Natural mummification can happen in extremely cold, dry, or anaerobic conditions. Perhaps the most famous example of a natural mummy preserved in ice...

This gallery features images of Roman gladiators. In ancient Rome, gladiators were professional combatants who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire by violently confronting other gladiators and wild animals. They fought...

Ghost stories are among the oldest in recorded history and were as popular with the Plains Indians of North America as in any other ancient culture. The descendants of those nations still tell the same stories of ghostly apparitions in the...

This gallery features images of Greek and Roman chariot racers. Chariot racing was the most popular spectator sport in ancient times. In Greece, chariot racing was important in aristocratic funeral games from an early period. As formal races...

The first non-functional human-made objects that could be clearly classified as art date back to the Upper Paleolithic (c. 50,000 to c. 12,000 years ago) in Europe. Although Upper Paleolithic art is mostly associated with rock art, besides...

Ancient Persian religion developed in the region of Greater Iran by the 3rd millennium BCE and corresponds to what is known today as ancient Persian mythology. This belief system informed the Persian Achaemenid Empire, even after the acceptance...

Belief in an afterlife was common in the ancient world, as it is today, and each culture created its own unique vision of the land that existed beyond the grave. Even with their differences, there are many similarities, including a concept...

The Isles of Scilly are a small island group west of Cornwall. Despite their small size, they abound in prehistoric sites dating from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, including cairns, burial chambers and passage graves. While prehistoric...

In this gallery, we present 20 of the most striking frescoes found in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in Italy. These frescoes were once buried under a thick carpet of volcanic ash from the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE. Year after year, archaeologists...

This gallery showcases 20 photos of Petra (Jordan), the former capital of the Nabataean kingdom, which thrived as a trading centre from the 4th century BCE to the 3rd century CE. Petra is an ancient city carved into a canyon by the...