By Patrick Hunt – Olaf Tryggvason Olaf I Tryggvason (ca. 960-1000 CE) was the Viking king who forcibly began to Christianize the people of Norway at the end of the 10th century, a change suggested at times by his detractors as conversion forced at swordpoint. If depicted as a bloody […]
By Jess Taylor – In late summer 2007 we decided to drive due south from Istanbul to Antalya. On day three, driving deep into central Turkey from Iznik – the modern name for ancient Nicaea but later famous for its Iznik ware porcelain in the Ottoman period – we detoured […]
By Leanne Ogasawara – 1. A glance at Hobson-Jobson, the historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words in use during the British rule in India, will show that the word “loot” comes into English from Hindi, ultimately deriving from Sanskrit. It entered the English language around the time of the Opium Wars, when the […]
By Ismayil Güracar – Nearly a decade ago I took a solo road and hiking trip along the Likya Yolu or Lycian Way where I encountered the main subject of this article. The Lycian Way is a nearly 500 km (300 mile) marked trail between Fethiye and Antalya along the southwestern […]
By Adrian Arima and Jeff Richardson – The battle at Marathon between the Greeks and Persians was one of the most pivotal battles in history, basically enabling the continued birth and evolution of Western civilization. The Greek charge took the Persians by surprise, and, whether or not they outnumbered the […]
By Patrick Hunt – Most readers of history will recall how the mighty juggernaut Assyria finally fell at the hands of the rebel Babylonians and how Nineveh was sacked in 612 BCE at the able hands of Nabopolassar, Babylon’s new warlord king. Fewer readers know he rebuilt temples in […]
By Patrick Hunt “And the Lord God planted a garden in the east in Eden. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life […]
by Patrick Hunt While photography of archaeological artifacts for recording stretches back over a century plus, the needs to visually preserve a record of materials has only multiplied exponentially since the mid-19th century. In fact, archaeology was one of the first disciplines to employ the nascent medium of photography for […]
by Patrick Hunt Historical linguistics often surprises us about how old are some of the words we use today, especially when we might expect they were coined only within the last century or so. While some of these old words, either commonplace like “star” and “myth”, or not so common […]
By James Geary Mike Newell, acclaimed director of hits including Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire and Four Weddings and A Funeral, spoke to James Geary about the making of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and about his lifelong fascination with archeology. Electrum: What kind of research […]