In Han Dynasty China, Bisexuality Was the Norm | JSTOR Daily

In the last years BCE, Emperor Ai was enjoying a daytime nap. He was in his palace, in Chang’an (now Xi’an, China), hundreds of miles inland, wearing a traditional long-sleeved robe. Laying on one of his sleeves was a young man in his 20s, Dong Xian, also asleep. So tender was the emperor’s love for this man that, when he had to get up, instead of waking his lover, he cut off the sleeve…

Source: In Han Dynasty China, Bisexuality Was the Norm | JSTOR Daily

It Wasn’t Just Pompeii. Archaeologists Say the Roman Republic and Even an Ancient Egyptian Kingdom May Have Been Ended by Volcanoes

Okmok Caldera, Alaska. Photo by J. Reeder. Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.

What led to the demise of the Roman Republic?

Experts now believe that the eruption of a remote Alaskan volcano may be partly to blame.

The Okmok volcano erupted early in the year 43 BC, spewing clouds of ash into the atmosphere and blocking the sun’s rays, causing two of the coldest years in the past two and a half millennia. The event triggered a famine that exacerbated existing political tensions in Rome and led to the rise of the Roman Empire, according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings…

Source: It Wasn’t Just Pompeii. Archaeologists Say the Roman Republic and Even an Ancient Egyptian Kingdom May Have Been Ended by Volcanoes

3000-Year-Old Pharaoh Ramses II Statue Found In Cairo Slum: It’s “One Of The Most Important Discovery Ever” – FLOW ART STATION

3000-Year-Old Pharaoh Ramses II Statue Found In Cairo Slum: It’s “One Of The Most Important Discovery Ever” A team of German and Egyptian archaeologists made a colossal discovery on March 9th – lit…

Source: 3000-Year-Old Pharaoh Ramses II Statue Found In Cairo Slum: It’s “One Of The Most Important Discovery Ever” – FLOW ART STATION

‘Britain’s Atlantis’ found at bottom of North sea – a huge undersea world swallowed by the sea in 7000BC …

I meant to post this last September when the news came out!

For decades North Sea boatmen have been dragging up traces of a vanished world in their nets. Now archaeologists are asking a timely question: What happens to people as their homeland disappears beneath a rising tide? source

Doggerland was an area of land, now lying beneath the southern North Sea, that connected Great Britain to mainland Europe during and after the last…

Source: ‘Britain’s Atlantis’ found at bottom of North sea – a huge undersea world swallowed by the sea in 7000BC …

Recovering Palimpsests | crafty theatre

I’m thrilled! The future is here! The speculation of yesterday is the modus operandi of today! Early on in my blogging life, I pondered the loss of Menander’s comedies. How could the wor…

Source: Recovering Palimpsests | crafty theatre

solving an art historical mystery, in the old Library Trinity College Long Room. – Arran Q Henderson

Sheemaker’s “Cicero”

Look at this bust of the great Roman orator, statesman, and lawyer, Marcus Tullius Cicero. It is by the Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781) who in the 18th century was commissioned by Tr…

Source: solving an art historical mystery, in the old Library Trinity College Long Room. – Arran Q Henderson

Eight thousand year-old figurines discovered in Turkey | The Heritage Trust

Figurines found by Polish archaeologists in Turkey. Image credit Jason Quinlan

Science & Scholarship in Poland have reported on the discovery by Polish archaeologists of two unique eight th…

Source: Eight thousand year-old figurines discovered in Turkey | The Heritage Trust

Buried History: Tutankhamun | A R T L▼R K

On the 4th of November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter (1874 –1939) and his team found the entrance to the 14th-century BC Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, …

Source: Buried History: Tutankhamun | A R T L▼R K

Incredible 5,000-Year-Old Temple Complex In Orkney Could Re-Write History Of Scotland | MessageToEagle.com

More important than Stonehenge: The temple precinct being uncovered in Orkney contains 100 Stone Age buildings

MessageToEagle.com – The excavations at the Ness of Brodgar have been attracting a lot of attention recently and now it’s time for yet another surprise that could re-write the history of Scotland and change our image of prehistoric people who inhabited this region. Ness of Brodgar is an archaeological site between the Ring of Brodgar and […]

Source: Incredible 5,000-Year-Old Temple Complex In Orkney Could Re-Write History Of Scotland | MessageToEagle.com

The Minoans | Letters from Athens

On the island of Crete, which lies nearer to the coast of Africa than to the Greek mainland, a brilliant civilization flourished from approximately 3650 to 1400 BCE. It was rediscovered at the begi…

Source: The Minoans | Letters from Athens

The History Girls: On The Trail of Cleopatra: Part 2 by Lucy Coats

Creative Commons: Edwardwexler

In my last post for The History Girls, I talked about the importance of research. For the second of my two Cleopatra novels, CHOSEN, it was even more vital for me to get it as right as I could – and in some ways even harder to do so. The research I had to do for the first book took me to the depths of ancient Alexandria (almost literally), and to Philäe. This time my Cleo had a longer journey, to Crocodilopolis in the Fayum, across the White Desert and back and then on to Rome. The challenges of portraying such a wide-ranging panorama of settings in an authentic way without…

Source: The History Girls: On The Trail of Cleopatra: Part 2 by Lucy Coats

Etruscan ‘Rosetta Stone’ found in Italy | texthistory

The Etruscans are a little known civilisation that preceded Rome, so this discovery provides a rare insight into their language. This is from the i, 5 April: An ancient stone tablet, discovered by …

Source: Etruscan ‘Rosetta Stone’ found in Italy | texthistory

‘Hugely important’ iron age remains found at Yorkshire site | Science | The Guardian

Bronze bracelet with coral decoration discovered at the site in Yorkshire. Photograph: MAP Archeology

Almost 3,000 years after being buried, the remarkably well-preserved remains of 150 skeletons and their personal possessions have been discovered in a small market town at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds.

The remains of the burial ground that contained skeletons of people from the middle-iron age Arras culture in Pocklington, east Yorkshire is being hailed as…

Source: ‘Hugely important’ iron age remains found at Yorkshire site | Science | The Guardian

The real story behind the assassination of Julius Caesar | New York Post

“The Death of Caesar: The Story of History’s Most Famous Assassination” by Barry Strauss (Simon & Schuster)

On Feb. 15, in the year 44 BC, Julius Caesar, the all-powerful ruler of Rome, visited a soothsayer named Spurinna, who “predicted the future by examining the internal organs of sacrificial animals,” among other omens.

As per the ritual, Caesar “sacrificed a bull,” and Spurinna “made the chilling announcement that the beast had no heart.”

Brave Caesar was “unmoved,” but Spurinna said that he feared Caesar’s life “might come to a bad end,” and warned the dictator that “his life would be in danger for the next 30 days.”

He did not say anything about the “Ides of March,” just one difference of many between the version of Caesar’s assassination presented by William Shakespeare and the likely truth, according to Cornell University history professor Barry Strauss’ new book, “The Death of Caesar.” Strauss pored through ancient texts to determine…

Source: The real story behind the assassination of Julius Caesar | New York Post

Almost 6000 years old case of Scurvy discovered in Egypt

Dr. Mamdouh El Damaty, minister of antiquities announced today the discovery of the first case of Scurvy (Vitamin C deficiency) in ancient Egypt.

AKAP (Aswan-Kom Ombo archaeological project) directed by Dr. Maria Carmela Gatto and Dr. Antonio Curci discovered a skeleton of a child who died younger than one year old was buried in predynastic Nag Quarmila settlement. (3600-3800  BC)…

Source: Luxor Times