Author: Jan van der Crabben

Google has just sent me an email to let me know that Ancient History Encyclopedia is now a featured education app in the Chrome Web Store! For all those Chrome users who haven’t got our app yet, go ahead and install our app, to always have it easily accessible in your browser! And for those…

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 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…

The BBC reports that the popular belief of eight hours of sleep being optimal is a development of the 19th century, and that people have had a very different pattern of sleep before. In previous times humans usually had a first period of sleep of several hours, followed by a night-time awake phase, which in…

LONDON. Ever wondered how the Celts warded off evil spirits? Come along to this event and find out more about the Celts. The British Museum is hosting an event of Celtic art and mythological stories for children and adults alike. The event costs GBP 12 and takes place on Sunday 04 March at the British…

The Costa Concordia, a cruise liner than recently sunk off the Italian island of Giglio, nearly landed on an ancient Roman shipwreck. The modern ship sunk only a ship’s length away from the ancient wreck. The waters around Giglio are in fact an ancient ship graveyard, as many vessels have sunk there before. Even the…

Russian biologists have managed to regrow flowers from seeds that were frozen for about 30.000 years. The seeds of prehistoric Silene stenophylla were extracted from plant seeds found in the Russian permafrost soil. They were probably dug in by Ice Age squirrels and never defrosted since. The flowers show significant differences from their modern counterparts:…

Analyzing Caesar’s Motivations and Emotions on the Banks the Rubicon By Michael Sweet Published Online, 2006 Introduction: Gaius Julius Caesar is among the most famous men in human history. His cognomen… [continue reading]

From War Elephants to Circus Elephants: Humanity’s Abuse of  Elephants By Mike Jaynes Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume 7, Issue 1 (2009) Abstract: This paper examines the historical human… [continue reading]