Month: March 2012

Japanese archaeologists have uncovered more than six terracotta figures dating from c. 400 CE in city of Matsue in Chogoku region of Japan. The figures include warriors, sumo wrestlers, and finely crafted horses. The clay figures or “haniwa,” in Japanese, were used for burial rites and as funerary pieces. This particular discovery has caused quite…

The free-to-play browsergame Remanum has launched in English. In this massively multiplayer game the player takes the role of a Roman merchant who accumulates wealth and power, with the goal of becoming Roman Emperor. The game features a simulation of supply and demand in 20 historically important cities around the Mediterranean. Jan van der Crabben…

The Taíno were the first people in the Americas to greet Christopher Columbus and yet, within only two generations, they all but disappeared from Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Cuba, and the Bahamas. Or did they? New evidence has emerged suggesting that the Taíno survived the Spanish conquest and maintained a sophisticated and…

Last Fall, Smithsonian Magazine featured this article on the Incan civilization of Pre-Columbian South America. Although the Incas inhabited one of the harshest and most unpredictable climes in the world, they proved to be not only masterful architects–their roads and cities still exist–but exceptionally adroit in matters pertaining to agriculture: complicated canal systems; terraced farming;…

Should you find yourself in Washington D.C., in the United States, be sure not to miss “Feast Your Eyes: A Taste for Luxury in Ancient Iran,” at the Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler Museum of Asian Art. Exhibiting the wealth and splendor of ancient Persian metalworking from the Achaemenid period (550-330 BCE) to the Islamic conquests of the…

Fancy a trip to Rome c. 320 CE? In 3D? Scientists and scholars from Rome Reborn enable you to just do that. Please click here to read an article from thestar.com about the project and be sure to check out the accompanying video. We promise that you won’t regret it!

The New York Times has published an article about recent discoveries on the cultures of ancient nomads in the Eurasian steppes. The recent findings show that nomadic societies were no less developed than their sedentary counterparts, and that they simply developed a different und no less successful strategy for survival. Also, there is an exhibition…

The British Museum (London) is hosting the lecture Anglo-Saxon Art: Tradition and Transformation by Leslie Webster on Fri 20 Apr 2012 at 18:30. The lecture will trace this fascinating era of art and its recurring ideas and themes, as it changed from 5th-century metalwork to the magnificient illuminated manuscripts, ivories and sculpure of the 7th…

An ancient Greek road has just been uncovered outside the city of Thessaloniki, in northeast Greece. Archaeologists and scholars date the marble road–“Via Egnatia”–from c. 300 BCE. Curiously, Roman tombs, containing jewels and tablets were also uncovered very close to the road. Please click here to read about this surprising “double discovery” from the South…

Shankari Patel, an anthropology graduate student at the University of California–Riverside, is causing quite a stir amongst her fellow Mayanists. In a recent, provocative paper, Patel claims to show that ancient Mayan women held multifaceted and important roles within Mayan civilization. Women, Patel contends, were not only wives and domestic workers, but also warriors and…