Rituals and Traditions

The finely crafted, decorative ceramics

Archaeologists Unearth 3,000-Year-Old Wishing Well in Germany

The Bronze Age well was full of decorative ceramics, jewelry and other items likely used for ritual purposes

The researchers' facial reconstruction shows a bearded, brown-eyed man in his 30s or 40s.

See the Face of a Neolithic Man Who Lived in Jericho 9,500 Years Ago

Prehistoric people modified a skull to create a rudimentary likeness of its owner. Now, scholars have produced a more accurate facial reconstruction

Egyptian officials with the ancient sarcophagus on January 2, 2023

U.S. Returns Looted Sarcophagus to Egypt

The "Green Coffin" had been at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences since 2013

Soup joumou is a savory, orange-tinted soup that typically consists of calabaza squash, beef, noodles, carrots, cabbage, various other vegetables and fresh herbs and spices.

Haiti's Beloved Soup Joumou Serves Up 'Freedom in Every Bowl'

Every year, Haitians around the globe eat the pumpkin dish on January 1 to commemorate the liberation of the world’s first free Black republic

Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl (Chief Earl Stephens) of the Nisga’a Nation with the Ni’isjoohl memorial pole

Inside the Nisga'a Nation's Fight to Get a 36-Foot Totem Pole Back From Scotland

National Museums Scotland agreed to repatriate the object, which was stolen in 1929, following an in-person appeal by an Indigenous delegation

A tableau of sculptures or living beings, the Nativity scene (as well as the closely related Adoration of the Magi) traces its origins back some 1,500 years.

What Nativity Scenes Tell Us About the Evolution of Christianity

From ancient mosaics to Saint Francis of Assisi, depictions of Jesus's birth reflect the changing conventions of the world's largest religion

Christmas market in Goslar, Germany, at dusk

A Brief History of Christmas Markets

Now a global phenomenon, the holiday tradition traces its roots to medieval Europe

Pilgrims queue to get inside of the Basilica of Guadalupe on December 11, 2022.

Millions of Pilgrims Gathered to Celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City

After two years of pandemic closures, the annual tradition is back in full force

Signed copies of the thriller Reykjavik, co-written by Iceland's Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Icelandic author Ragnar Jonasson, one of the most popular crime writers in the world, are pictured during the official release of the book in Reykjavik, Iceland, on October 25, 2022.

Iceland's Christmas Book Flood Is a Force of Nature

The nation’s seasonal publishing and gifting tradition nourishes its unique literary culture

The French baguette has officially been given UNESCO protection.

As Traditional Bakeries Disappear, the French Baguette Receives UNESCO Protection

The agency adds the “artisanal know-how and culture of baguette bread” to its intangible heritage list

Richard Nixon and his daughter Tricia on her wedding day in June 1971

A Brief History of White House Weddings

Naomi Biden's nuptials will mark the 19th wedding held at the presidential seat of power

If Yonatan Adler's theory proves correct, then Judaism is, at best, Christianity’s elder sibling and a younger cousin to the religions of ancient Greece and Rome.

Is Judaism a Younger Religion Than Previously Thought?

A new book by an Israeli archaeologist makes the stunning claim that common Jewish practices emerged only a century or so before Jesus

Magic was just another tool in a medieval animal healer's toolbox.

The Veterinary Magic of the Middle Ages

Medieval healers treated animals' ailments with a mix of faith, tradition and science

The centuries-old tradition involves sorting these woolly creatures after a summer of free-grazing on mountain grasses and berries in the highlands.

Iceland's Annual Tradition of Counting Sheep Is Far From Sleepy

Every fall, across the country, farmers and their friends and family gather to sort the ewes and rams that spent the summer free-grazing

Artist's rendering of John Canoe (Jan Kwaw), the Ahanta king who likely inspired the Bahamas' Junkanoo festival

The Gold Coast King Who Fought the Might of Europe's Slave Traders

New research reveals links between the 18th-century Ahanta leader John Canoe and the Caribbean festival Junkanoo

A close-up of Stonehenge in Salisbury, England

What Do Stonehenge and Japanese Stone Circles Have in Common?

A new exhibition explores the surprising parallels between British and Japanese traditions

Ruins of Tikal, where researchers found high concentrations of mercury 

Ancient Maya Cities Were Polluted With High Levels of Mercury

The concentrations at some dig sites could be hazardous for today's archaeologists

On October 21, some 60,000 pilgrims descend on the town of Portobelo, Panama, to celebrate the Festival del Cristo Negro.

Panama's Black Christ Festival Stirs Up Sorrow and a Sense of Survival

For Afro-Panamanians, October offers a chance to celebrate Catholicism and their Blackness

Some of the 14th-century B.C.E. vessels found at the Tel Yehud burial site

Archaeologists Discover Evidence of Earliest Known Opium Use

At a burial site in Israel, pottery from the 14th century B.C.E. contained traces of the drug

Detail of the Chief Johnson totem pole

The World's Largest Collection of Standing Totem Poles Keeps Getting Bigger

Eighty sculptures in and around Ketchikan, Alaska, tell the ancestral stories of Indigenous clans

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