Category: Ancient History

The gold funerary mask found at Mycenae in 1876 is conventionally called the ‘Mask of Agamemnon.’ That label is memorable but not a secure identification. The National Archaeological Museum places…

The Phaistos Disc is a fired-clay object from the Minoan palace at Phaistos on Crete. Luigi Pernier found it during excavation on 3 July 1908. The Heraklion Archaeological Museum dates…

Two crowns, a raised weapon and a pair of intertwined animals make the Narmer Palette an unusually persuasive image of royal power. They also make it easy to ask the…

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are powerful evidence precisely because they were not collected as a modern library. They came from ancient rubbish mounds in a dry Egyptian environment, where scraps of…

The Dead Sea Scrolls are often introduced as a spectacular archaeological discovery, but their historical value is easier to understand when the evidence is separated into layers. The manuscripts are…

The Herculaneum papyri are often described as a lost library waiting to be opened. That image captures their promise but hides the evidence problem. More than 1,800 papyrus scrolls were…

Pompeii is often presented as a perfectly frozen afternoon. The surviving evidence is more complicated. The Roman town was buried during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, but ash…

Troy is one of the best examples of why historical evidence must be separated from famous story. The Iliad gives a powerful poetic account of conflict, honour and loss, but…

The pyramids at Meroë are often introduced as a surprise: pyramids in Sudan, smaller and steeper than the most famous monuments of Egypt. That framing attracts attention, but it can…

The Dendera Zodiac is useful because it forces a reader to slow down. It is a carved ceiling relief from a chapel connected with Osiris in the Hathor temple complex…