Society
video
Thinkers and theories
A rare female scholar of the Roman Empire, Hypatia lived and died as a secular voice
5 minutes
essay
History
What would Thucydides say?
In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian
Mark Fisher
video
The ancient world
The six priestesses who kept the flame of ancient Rome alight at risk of death
5 minutes
essay
The future
Prehistory in the atomic age
To understand the terrifying futures unleashed by nuclear weapons, we urgently need to return to the deep past
Maria Stavrinaki
video
The ancient world
An ancient Roman’s hilarious (and perhaps relatable) response to a social snub
2 minutes
video
The ancient world
Meet the absentee gods and nefarious spirits of ancient Mesopotamia
6 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
Vergil’s secret message
Long derided as mere coincidences, acrostics in ancient poetry are finally being taken seriously – with astonishing results
Julia Hejduk
essay
Archaeology
The secret life of Druids
The Greeks and Romans portrayed these elusive priests as bogeymen who bathed in their victims’ blood. Who were they really?
Miranda Aldhouse-Green
essay
The ancient world
The great libraries of Rome
Passersby could wander at will into grand public libraries in imperial Rome. Could they trust what they found inside?
Fabio Fernandes
essay
Stories and literature
Poet of impermanence
Enheduana is the first known named author. Her poems of strife and upheaval resonate in our own unstable times
Sophus Helle
essay
The ancient world
The horrors of Pompeii
The name ‘Eutychis’ was etched into a wall 2,000 years ago. Finding out who she was illuminates the dark side of Rome
Guy D Middleton
essay
Art
All those naked Greeks…
Men in ancient Greek art exercise, fight battles, pursue lovers and mourn lost friends, all without their pants on. Why?
Sarah Murray
video
The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
essay
The ancient world
Guide to a foreign past
The iconoclastic French historian Paul Veyne illuminated the past by showing how deeply alien it is to the present
Carlos Noreña
video
History of science
How an ancient polymath first calculated Earth’s size, as told by Carl Sagan
7 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
The sage and his foibles
Scholars cannot agree whether the letters of Plato are fake or genuine. Is this just a symptom of misplaced reverence?
James Romm
essay
Archaeology
What the tablets say
Some 3,700 years ago, an enslaved girl, a barber, and a king crossed paths in a city by the Euphrates. This is their story
Amanda H Podany
essay
The ancient world
The other Cleopatra
Daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, she became the influential queen of a mysterious, abundant North African kingdom
Jane Draycott
essay
Global history
It never existed
The idea of a ‘precolonial’ Africa is theoretically vacuous, racist and plain wrong about the continent’s actual history
Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
essay
Archaeology
The pharaoh’s trumpet
The truly wondrous treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb are not made of gold. They are the mundane things of everyday life
Toby Wilkinson
video
The ancient world
What did the Rosetta Stone’s inscription actually communicate?
17 minutes
essay
The ancient world
Wanderlust of the ancients
The Roman Empire enabled an early version of globalisation that offered travellers adventure, novelty and opportunity
Fabio Fernandes
video
The ancient world
Sappho’s homoerotic poetry was beloved in ancient Greece – and burned centuries later
5 minutes
video
The ancient world
Why did the Romans create a massive, entirely impractical map of their empire?
7 minutes