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Myth

The ruins of Akrotiri, a Bronze Age settlement on what is now the Greek island of Santorini

Greece Has Its Own Pompeii, and the Ruins Tell a Captivating Story of a Sophisticated, Seafaring Bronze Age Society

The Thera volcano, on modern-day Santorini, buried Akrotiri in ash in the 17th or 16th century B.C.E. The eruption was one of the largest in recorded history

Artist Elliot Walker created a sculpture using color-changing glass developed by University of Sheffield researcher Lisa Hollands.

New Research

Romans Made Color-Changing Glass With Ancient Nanotechnology. Scientists Just Discovered How to Replicate the 1,600-Year-Old Marvel

Researchers were inspired by Lycurgus Cup, a chalice from the fourth century C.E. that appears opaque green under reflected light but wine red when lit directly. “To me, it’s magic,” the lead researcher says

Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, 1653

Rembrandt Turned Ancient Myths Into ‘Supremely Human’ Works of Art. An Upcoming Exhibition Traces the Inspiration He Took From Antiquity

“Rembrandt and the Ancients” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will unpack an “underexplored but vital” part of the Dutch master’s career, putting his paintings and drawings in conversation with the antecedents that inspired them

A coin bearing the likeness of the fourth-century C.E. Western Roman emperor Magnus Maximus, overlaid atop a page from a medieval manuscript of the Mabinogion

Cool Finds

Legend Has It That This Roman Emperor Established a Camp in Wales. A Newly Discovered Fort May Offer Proof That It Really Existed

An archaeologist has uncovered an ancient fortification linked to Magnus Maximus, a fourth-century ruler who is immortalized in the medieval “Mabinogion” stories as Macsen Wledig

Archaeologists have been digging at the Kapersburg fort for many years.

Cool Finds

Just Inches Below the Forest Floor, Archaeologists in Germany Unearthed a Roman Temple Likely Dedicated to Mars, the God of War

Researchers found the structure’s remains, as well as fragments of statues, while excavating near the Kapersburg fort, an ancient Roman military fortification on the outskirts of modern-day Frankfurt

On Scotland's uninhabited island of Staffa, Fingal’s Cave is formed from tall basalt columns created by ancient volcanic activity.

Seven Places in Europe That Legends Say Were Built by Giants, Devils or Dragons

Bridges, mountains, caves and rock formations that seem impossible to explain become magnets for folklore

The 2,500-year-old temple, photographed in 2009

New Research

Centuries Ago, an Architect Characterized the Parthenon’s Curves as a Clever Optical Illusion. Now, a Mathematician Begs to Differ

In the first century B.C.E., Vitruvius wrote that the Acropolis’ largest temple was horizontally bowed so that it didn’t seem to sag, and that explanation persisted for millennia. New research suggests a different reason

An archaeologist holds the triangular padlock found around the Polish woman's left big toe.

Why Was This 17th-Century Polish Woman Buried With a Padlock on Her Toe and an Iron Sickle Across Her Neck?

New research suggests that the people who buried the young woman took precautionary measures to stop her from coming back to life and exacting revenge on them

An illustration of Merlin's Cave, an attraction commissioned by Queen Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach

This 18th-Century British Queen Turned King Arthur Into a P.R. Strategy, Drawing on Myth to Promote Her Dynasty’s Claim to the Throne

In 1735, Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach commissioned a cottage called Merlin’s Cave, which linked the German House of Hanover to both Britain’s ancient heritage and its future success

Archaeologists created a curved support structure that mimics the ceiling’s original shape.

Cool Finds

See a Rare Ceiling Fresco From Pompeii That Archaeologists Are Carefully Reassembling, Piece by Piece, Like an Ancient Puzzle

Located in the banquet hall of a home with an adjoining bakery, the fresco shows the mythological romance of Dionysus, the god of revelry and wine, and Ariadne, the Cretan princess

Known as Yowjab to Indigenous Australians, the inshore reef covers about 100,000 acres.

For Three Hours Every Day, Open Ocean Transforms Into Australia’s ‘Ghost’ Reef

An isolated wonder some 1,200 miles from the nearest city, Montgomery Reef disappears as quickly as it appears, mirroring the supposed vanishing of its original owners, a tribe of Indigenous giants

Odysseus and Polyphemus, Arnold Böcklin, 1896

Was There Ever an Original Version of ‘The Odyssey,’ and Do We Need to Worry About What Homer Would Think?

The earliest surviving fragments of the epic poem—the subject of Christopher Nolan’s latest Hollywood blockbuster—date back more than 2,000 years. But oral storytelling about a hero named Odysseus is much older

This ancient Greek coin is now on view in Berlin.

Cool Finds

A 13-Year-Old Boy Found This Bronze Coin in a Field. It Turned Out to Be the First Ancient Greek Artifact Discovered in Berlin

Minted in Troy in the third century B.C.E., the object might have been buried as a gift to the dead. Archaeologists don’t know exactly how it ended up in modern-day Germany

Archaeologists in a barrow, or prehistoric burial mound, in Norfolk, England

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Didn’t Expect to Find Anything at This Site in England. Then, They Stumbled Upon a Roman Villa and a Bronze Artifact Dubbed ‘Norfolk Nessie’

Ahead of wind farm development on Britain’s eastern coast, excavations along an underground cable route uncovered the ruins of an ancient farming estate that boasted its own bathhouse

President William Howard Taft boards the Mayflower in 1909, the year that he supposedly got stuck in a bathtub on board the Oleander steamship.

Popular Lore Claims That William Howard Taft Got Stuck in a Bathtub. New Research Sheds Light on the Legend’s Forgotten Origins

A long-overlooked 1929 account contains the earliest known reference to the anecdote, suggesting that the 27th president found himself trapped in a tub during a Mississippi River voyage

Three large screens in the Rijksmuseum's "Metamorphoses" exhibition depict artist Juul Kraijer as Medusa.

See How Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ Inspired Centuries of Artists—From Caravaggio to René Magritte

A show at the Rijksmuseum brings together paintings, sculptures, film and other artworks that reinterpret the ancient Roman poet’s tales of transformation

Panel one of the Ketton mosaic, which was discovered in 2020 by a farmer's son

New Research

Historians Say This Rare Mosaic Found on a British Farm Depicts Scenes From a Long-Lost Account of the Trojan War

New research suggests that the illustrations may have been based on “Phrygians,” a tragedy by the Athenian playwright Aeschylus, rather than the “Iliad”

A savanna in western Maharashtra, India

Ancient Literature Suggests India’s Savannas Are Much Older Than Previously Thought

Plant species mentioned in texts from the past 800 years hint the wooded grasslands of western India have been there since ancient times, pushing back on the narrative that they are remnants of long-gone forests

The ˁAin Samiya goblet, pictured here as a replica, is currently held by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The real artifact is damaged, with some of the picture missing.

Scholars Thought This Ancient Silver Goblet Told One Myth for 50 Years. Is It Actually Telling Another Story?

A new study asserts that the Bronze Age goblet may be one of the earliest known depictions of cosmology, featuring gods creating celestial order from chaos

A romanticized depiction of the execution of Nathan Hale on September 22, 1776

America's 250th Anniversary

Nathan Hale, the Doomed Patriot Spy, Probably Never Said ‘I Only Regret That I Have but One Life to Lose for My Country’ Before His Execution

The young Connecticut schoolmaster’s intelligence-gathering mission was ill-fated from the start. But after he was hanged by the British in September 1776, his story became the stuff of legend

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