Richard Covington

Richard Covington is a Paris-based author who covers a wide range of cultural and historical subjects and has contributed to Smithsonian, The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, among other publications.

The Solúcar facility's acres of heliostats, or mirrors, focus the sun's rays to create temperatures of 570 degrees, generating energy but not harmful emissions.

A Spanish Breakthrough in Harnessing Solar Power

Solar technologies being pioneered in Spain show even greater promise for the United States

Renoir's home in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in the South of France, was a source of inspiration (The Farm at Les Collettes, 1914).

Renoir's Controversial Second Act

Late in life, the French impressionist's career took an unexpected turn. A new exhibition showcases his radical move toward tradition

Crown from the Tillya Tepe, Tomb VI, 1st century BC - 1st century AD. Crown is gold and imitation turquoise

Lost & Found

Ancient gold artifacts from Afghanistan, hidden for more than a decade, dazzle in a new exhibition

Acropolis Museum in Athens

Acropolis Now

A modern museum of ancient Greece rises near the Parthenon

Marie-Antoinette, her children, and Madame de Tourzel face the mob at the Tuleries on June 20th, 1792.

Marie Antoinette

The teenage queen was embraced by France in 1770. Twenty-three years later, she lost her head to the guillotine. (But she never said, "Let them eat cake")

Tut's head, scanned in .62-millimeter slices to register its intricate structures, takes on eerie detail in the resulting image. With Tut's entire body similarly recorded, a team of specialists in radiology, forensics, and anatomy began to probe the secrets that the winged goddess of a gilded burial shrine protected for so long.

King Tut: The Pharaoh Returns!

An exhibition featuring the first CT scans of the boy king's mummy tells us more about Tutankhamun than ever before

"Palermo," says Princess Alliata (in her 15th-century palazzo there), is not like Rome, Venice or Florence, where everything is displayed like goods in a shop window. It's a very secret city."

Sicily Resurgent

Across the island, activists, archaeologists and historians are joining forces to preserve a cultural legacy that has endured for 3,000 years

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Rescuing Angkor

An unprecedented effort to reclaim the ancient temples from the Cambodian jungle is racing against a tourist onslaught

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Mesopotamian Masterpieces

Exquisite art and artifacts from the world's earliest civilization are dazzling visitors to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art

International conservators have been concerned about Pagan's restorations since 1996, when Burma's ruling junta began cutting corners by whitewashing interior walls , using concrete as mortar and constructing temples, some from the ground up, with new pink brick .

Sacred and Profaned

Misguided restorations of the exquisite Buddhist shrines of Pagan in Burma may do more harm than good

The 14th-century Medersa Bou Inania, Fés.

Dreams in the Desert

The allure of Morocco, with its unpredictable mix of exuberance and artistry, has seduced adventurous travelers for decades

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Yo-Yo Ma's Other Passion

In celebrating the cultures of the ancient Silk Road, renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma has found a second calling

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Forever Young

The recently renovated Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, where the gifted teenager hid from the Nazis, celebrates her legacy

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Dear Smitty

Our authors write Smitty, our travel editor, about their journeys

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The Leaning Tower Straightens Up

In Pisa the tilted one is back in business after an 11-year effort to keep it from collapsing

A Swoopy, Funky Fun House of Rock

Seattle's new Experience Music Project is a $100 million, technology-enhanced repository of American pop music where anyone can be a rock star

Beirut city skyline in the early 2000s

Beirut Rises from the Ashes

After surviving a civil war, the city is once again a mecca for artists, a landscape covered with architecture and a wonderland of discoveries

Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi

An Act of Faith and the Restorer's Art

Just two years after a devastating earthquake, the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi reopens its doors

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The Incredible Lightness of Being Renzo Piano

The maverick Genoese architect has built an international reputation with daring projects that span the globe

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The Rebirth of Shakespeare's Globe

It took an American actor to champion the rebuilding of a British cultural symbol

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