Archive for the 'Archaeology' Category

Colonization vs. colonialism

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

The expansion across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea by the Greeks in the 8th to 6th centuries is a well-known phenomenon, and the Greeks themselves were aware of this (Socrates for example famously compared the Greeks to frogs around a pond). Equally significant, but of a somewhat different ... More


History knows no boundaries

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

We have all learnt at school the three great historical periods of history: Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Modern times. Antiquity, finishing in 476 with the fall of the Roman Empire, gave way to the religious Middle Ages, which themselves ushered in the Renaissance and modern world in 1492 when ... More


The legacy of Minos

Friday, February 6th, 2009

Minos was not Greek. Rather, the historical Minoans discovered barely a hundred years ago by Sir John Evans were certainly not Greek, but–linguistically and ethnically–related to the Near East. But for all that we know of Minoan civilization, i.e. not much, they have always been an ... More


Constantinople’s Hippodrome

Friday, February 6th, 2009

A video on one of Constantinople’s grandest secular public building, the hippodrome. ... More


Roman figurine found in Jerusalem

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

An 1,800-year-old figurine believed to have originated from the eastern stretches of the Roman Empire has been discovered by archaeologists outside the walls of the old city, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said. The 2-inch marble bust depicts the head of a man with a short curly beard and ... More