Strands of human hair from the Bronze Age burial and cult-cave of Es Cà rritx in Menorca have been analysed, providing the first direct evidence of ancient drug-use in Europe. Around 1450 BC, Menorca’s inhabitants started to use natural caves as funerary structures. Among them was Es Cà rritx, which had already…
Water may separate the Mediterranean islands from the mainland, but the sea also offers a vital link. Anastasia Christophilopoulou considers how objects from Crete, Cyprus, and Sardinia reveal aspects of shifting island identities over time, and stories of their connections.…
• The artists behind Maya masterpieces
• Art and identity in the Mediterranean
• Unravelling the myths and archaeology of Minoan Knossos (available on The Past 23 February)
• Exploring palatial pleasures in Parma
• Touring the ancient theatres of Epirus…
The mountains and forests of Epirus offer a dramatic backdrop for a tour through the theatres of the Greek region’s ancient cities. Diana Bentley finds stories of a famed oracle and a celebrated victory along the way.…
Recent breakthroughs in the study of Maya hieroglyphs have revealed artist signatures on artefacts long considered to be the work of anonymous artisans. Joanne Pillsbury and Laura Filloy Nadal introduce us to the newly identified sculptors and painters who worked in the Maya royal courts.…
The former palace of the Farnese family in Parma contains no fewer than five cultural institutions. Dalu Jones is our guide to the recently renovated Pilotta complex, where the dukes of Parma put art, archaeology, and theatre to use.…
Thousands of engraved owl-shaped plaques have been discovered in Copper Age tombs and pits throughout the Iberian Peninsula.…
The dates listed below may have changed since we went to print. Check the websites of the museums for the most up-to-date information and bookings.…
Between 1926 and 1935, American scholar William F Badè and his team unearthed the remains of a small town at the site of Tell en-Nasbeh in Mandate-era Palestine. Thought to be the biblical town of Mizpah, the site, which flourished c.1000-586 BC, yielded a great number of Iron Age, Babylonian…
Finds from the palace include a large stone vase and inscribed fragments of ivory and of ostrich eggshell.…
Review by Diana Bentley The ancient Near East has not always attracted the popular attention it deserves, especially in comparison with other cultures of the surrounding area, like Greece, Rome, and Egypt. This latest work by Amanda H Podany, Professor Emeritus of History at California State Polytechnic University, should certainly…
The Manchester Museum, Bengaluru's new art gallery, and the House of the Vettii in Pompeii open to the public.…
A deity of wisdom and war, born fully grown, and armed, from the head of her father Zeus/Jupiter, Minerva – and her Greek counterpart Athena – played an important part in Greek and Roman religion.…
Kingfishers and pigeons had previously been identified amid this scene in the palace’s so-called ‘Green Room’, but new research has offered explanations of further details.…
In those days, Mesoamerican archaeology was not for the faint-hearted, and Sylvanus Griswold Morley – ‘physically frail, short of stature, squeaky-voiced and near-sighted’, according to Prudence Rice and Christopher Ward – wasn’t really cut out for it. He suffered stomach complaints, malaria, and dysentery, and one of his ‘huskies’ (as…
The discovery was made during excavations that uncovered two separate clusters of Pre-Pottery Neolithic buildings at the site.…
• Painting Pompeii: how Roman houses were decorated
• Silk Road oases: exploring ancient Uzbekistan
• Chariot kings: the evolving image of the pharaoh
• Shock and awe: the imaginative work of Henry Fuseli
• Persia and beyond: the mythical legend of Alexander the Great in the East…
The dates listed below may have changed since we went to print. Check the websites of the museums for the most up-to-date information and bookings.…
Alexander the Great’s ambitions of conquest took him far from his Macedonian home and into Asia and Babylon, where he died. Ursula Sims-Williams investigates the mythical legacy of Alexander in the East, where different traditions cast him variously as an accursed figure, a philosopher-king, and even a prophet.…
Review by David Stuttard On an Apulian funerary vase, a fair-haired young man sits clutching a spear in his left hand as he exclaims in terror, ‘I’m not coming!’ But it is no use. Grabbing his wrist in a vice-like grip is Hermes, escort of dead souls to the Underworld,…
Conservation work is being carried out on a painting of Hercules and Omphale, recently attributed to Artemisia Gentileschi, that was damaged during the massive explosion in 2020 in Beirut.…