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The discovery was made in Dashur, an archaeological site 90km south of Cairo, where the tattered remains of Pharaoh Amenemhat III's Black Pyramid can be seen today. The huge mortuary temple that originally stood adjacent to this pyramid is believed to have formed the basis of the complex of buildings with galleries and courtyards called a "labyrinth" by famed ancient Greek historian Herodotus. With no visible remains, the story was thought to simply be a legend passed down by generations until Egyptologist Flinders Petrie uncovered its "foundations" in the 1800s, leading experts to theories the labyrinth was demolished under the...

On the origin of the Etruscan civilisation 00:01 14 February 2007 NewScientist.com news service Michael Day Etruscan cippus (grave marker) in the shape of a warrior head. Found in Orvieto, Italy One of anthropology's most enduring mysteries - the origins of the ancient Etruscan civilisation - may finally have been solved, with a study of cattle. This culturally distinct and technologically advanced civilisation inhabited central Italy from about the 8th century BC, until it was assimilated into Roman culture around the end of the 4th century BC. The origins of the Etruscans, with their own non-Indo-European language, have been debated...

Tuscany's Etruscan claim knockedModern Tuscans not descendants of ancient people, DNA says (ANSA) - Rome, May 16 - The Tuscans' proud claim to be the descendants of the ancient Etruscans has taken a knock . A DNA comparison of Etruscan skeletons and a sample of living Tuscans has thrown up only "tenuous genetic similarities", said lead researcher Guido Barbujani of Ferrara University . "If the Tuscans were the direct descendants of the Etruscans the DNA should be the same," said Barbujani, a genetecist who coordinated the study with Stanford University in the United States . The study, which appears in...

The Italian peninsula seems to shimmer and shine with history and art, from graceful, full bodied nymphs set against make-believe cypresses and oaks, to crumbling mounds of marble on which lie the almost breathable, almost visible words of lives, songs, and politics past. But before all the art, before the reawakening, before the soldiers cloaked in scarlet and gold, and the senators in their Senate hall...before the reign of emperors and tyrants was a race of peoples whose culture lived on in the greatest empire the world has ever known. They were the Etruscans, a mysterious tribe that scattered throughout...

In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt and wrote of unusual river boats on the Nile. Twenty-three lines of his Historia, the ancient world’s first great narrative history, are devoted to the intricate description of the construction of a “baris”. For centuries, scholars have argued over his account because there was no archaeological evidence that such ships ever existed. Now there is. A “fabulously preserved” wreck in the waters around the sunken port city of Thonis-Heracleion has revealed just how accurate the historian was.

A wreck discovered in the Nile suggests the ancient Greek historian’s description was spot on. by Jonathan CareyMarch 19, 2019 Found: A Ship Once Described By Herodotus The wooden hull of ship 17. Christoph Gerigk@Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation Herodotus is known as the father of history, but some of his writings have created more questions than answers. In his account of a fifth-century B.C. trip to Egypt, included in his most important work The Histories, the ancient Greek historian describes seeing unusual boats called baris sailing down the Nile. However, no physical evidence was discovered of the ships until now.A team...

Human Remains in Ancient Jar a Mystery Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Jan. 23, 2007 — For over 100 years, four blue-glazed jars bearing the nametag of Rameses II (1302-1213 B.C.) were believed to contain the Egyptian pharaoh's bodily organs. But analysis of organic residues scraped from the jars has determined one actually contained an aromatic salve, while a second jar held the organs of an entirely different person who lived around 760 years later. Now the question is, who was this individual? "We do believe that the unknown person was of importance for at least two reasons," said Jacques Connan,...

One of the most iconic living quarters in the history of mankind, the yurt is most closely associated with the nomadic peoples of central Asia. Herodotus, the father of history himself, was the first to describe yurts in the written word. According to him, yurts were the primary domiciles of the Scythians, who rode horses and lived in a nomadic fashion near the Black Sea from 600BC-300AD. The Ger Nomadic Mongolian families called their homes “gers.” Their dwellings were made up of same-sized orange mesh-like walls that curved around the center of the tent. Each yurt had 3-5 walls and...

The Battle of Thermopylae was of course written by the classical Greek author, Herodotus, who lived in the Persian city of Halicarnassus. His book, 'The Histories' became part of Western folklore only recently. It was not until about 1850 that America embraced Herodotus as the leading authority on Persian history. Before 1850, however, the West had a very favorable impression of the Persian Empire. That's because the West's main source for Persian history was the Bible and the 'Cyropaedia,' written by another Greek author named Xenophon. But the Cyropaedia glorified the monarchy of Cyrus The Great, and in the wake...

It would be a big mistake to see the terror attack in Paris as an attack on the freedom of the press. Such a statement puts the massacre in the French capital in line with attacks against journalists by members of a Colombian drug cartel or the Chechen mafia. That's not the case. The goal of the attack on the office of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was not to frighten newspaper editors so that they would not publish one cartoon or another. The goal was to show and prove who controls the streets and consciousness of the French Republic: The...

When the Phoenicians arrived on the Iberian peninsula, probably at the end of the ninth century B.C., they came into contact with an indigenous people called the Tartessians... The structure at Cancho Roano... was not a palace at all; it was simply a Tartessian sanctuary, which over time became influenced by Phoenician culture. Scholars have only recently begun to separate Tartessian history from myth. When the Greeks reached the Iberian peninsula a few centuries after the Phoenicians, they called the land Tartessos... According to the fifth-century B.C. historian Herodotus, Tartessian civilization was discovered accidentally by a Greek named Kolaios, who...

Sacred Precincts: A Tartessian Sanctuary in Ancient Spain Sebastián Celestino and Carolina López-Ruiz When the Phoenicians arrived on the Iberian peninsula, probably at the end of the ninth century B.C., they came into contact with an indigenous people called the Tartessians. The two cultures soon fused. The hybrid culture produced by this fusion of peoples is evident in a mysterious structure at Cancho Roano, deep in the heart of south-central Spain. The structure at Cancho Roano is sometimes called a “palace-sanctuary” because of its monumentality. But it was not a palace at all; it was simply a Tartessian sanctuary, which...

The Internet Classics Archive | General Help May I reproduce works found on this site?Yes! To the best of our knowledge all works on the site are in the public domain. You are free to reproduce and distribute them at no cost. Why are there more Greek than Latin authors?The first batch of works in the Internet Classics Archive came from the Eric Project at Virginia Tech ( see sources help), and were about evenly mixed between Greek and Latin texts. The second set of works, roughly the same size as the first, came from the Perseus Project, and consisted...

Floods Swept Ancient Nile Cities Away, Expert Says By Hillary Mayell for National Geographic News October 17, 2001 Two cities that lay at the edge of the Mediterranean more than 1,200 years ago, Herakleion and Eastern Canopus, disappeared suddenly, swallowed by the sea. Now, an international team of scientists may have figured out the mystery of why it happened. The researchers have concluded that the two cities collapsed when the land they were built on suddenly liquefied. The cities of Herakleion and Eastern Canopus lay at the edge of the Mediterranean more than 1,200 years ago, but disappeared suddenly when ...

Amazon Warrior WomenThis painting on a Greek vase depicts an Amazon woman warrior on horseback engaged in battle.Amazons in myth: History's first mention of a race of warrior women comes in Homer's ILIAD, an account of the Trojan War, probably written in the 8th to the 7th century B.C. Homer's Amazons, a race of fierce women who mated with vanquished male foes and kept only the female children they bore, were believed to occupy the area around the Black Sea. Amazon women also crop up in other Greek myths. One of the labors of Hercules, for example, required him to...

According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Cambyses II, the oldest son of Cyrus the Great, sent his army to destroy the Oracle of Amun at Siwa Oasis. 50,000 warriors entered the Egypt’s western desert near Luxor. Somewhere in the middle of the desert the army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm and destroyed. Although many scientists regard the story as a myth, amateur as well as professional archaeologists have searched for the remains of the Persian soldiers for many decades. Prof Kaper never believed this story. “Some expect to find an entire army, fully equipped. However, experience has long shown that...

INSPIRED by the legend of a Persian king and his lost army, Stefano Miglietti, an Italian adventurer, completed a 340-mile hike through the most isolated and arid part of the western Sahara yesterday. The route that Signor Miglietti followed through the so-called Great Sand Sea — from the Farafra oasis in southern Egypt to the Siwa oasis in the north — has always been considered impossible for a man carrying his own food and water. According to legend, Cambyses II, the Persian king, foolishly tried to take the same route in 523 BC, setting off with a 50,000-strong army. Herodotus,...

Feb. 12, 2004 — Tourists traversing Egypt's desert may solve a mystery that has puzzled archaeologists for centuries: what happened to the 50,000-man Persian army of King Cambyses. Set up by tourist operator Aqua Sun Desert, the Cambyses project will comb the desert sands using four-wheel-drive vehicles packed with paying tourists eager to find the remains of the lost army swallowed in a sandstorm in 524 B.C., according to the account of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. "The project is approved by the Ministry of Tourism after the agreement of Ministry of Antiquities. Any evidence will have to be reported...

Gods.Resolved by the Boule and the People.Themistocles son of Neocles of Phrearrhioi made the motion. The city shall be entrusted to Athena, Athens' protectress, and to the other gods, all of them, for protection and defense against the Barbarian on behalf of the country. The Athenians in their entirety and the aliens who live in Athens shall place their children and their women in Troezen, [to be entrusted to Theseus ?] the founder of the land. The elderly and movable property shall for safety be deposited at Salamis. The treasurers and the priestesses are to remain on the Acropolis and...

The city of Heracleion was engulfed underwater 1500 years ago. This grand city had been mentioned by the Greek writer Herodotus, the 5th-century BC historian. He had told a wonderful tale of Helen of Troy, who traveled to Heracleion, then a port of 'great wealth', with her Trojan lover, Paris. When French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio stumbled upon some relics, it led them to one of the greatest finds of the 21st century; a city underwater. The discovery took place when Goddio had been in search of Napoleon’s warships from the 1798 Battle of the Nile, when he had been...