A Cemetery for the Elite

It’s clear that Stonehenge was closely associated with the dead — the collection of Neolithic cremated human remains discovered at the site is the largest in Britain. In 2013, archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson and his team excavated more than 50,000 bone fragments from 63 individuals buried at Stonehenge. Certain high-status artifacts found at the site, such as a mace head and what may have been an incense bowl, suggest that the people buried there were significant religious and political leaders, along with their families. The researchers also suspect that the burial ground could have been used by a single royal family over many generations. 

A Healing Center 

In 2008, two of Britain’s leading archaeologists and world-renowned Stonehenge experts, Timothy Darvill and Geoff Wainwright, proposed a slightly controversial yet compelling new theory: Stonehenge was a site of healing, like a prehistoric Lourdes. The key to their theory is the presence of bluestones at the site — the smaller stones that form the inner circle of Stonehenge. These stones came from the Preseli Hills in Wales, more than 150 miles away, where they were associated with healing springs believed to be imbued with mystical properties. It was because of their healing properties, Darvill and Wainwright argue, that people went to such great lengths to drag the stones all the way to Salisbury Plain. 

To support their claim, they point toward the large amount of bluestone chips scattered around Stonehenge, suggesting people had broken off pieces to heal themselves. They highlight one specific case, that of the “Amesbury Archer,” whose tomb was discovered near Stonehenge. Analysis revealed that the archer came from central Europe and suffered from a knee injury and infected jaw. He died around 2300 BCE, the same time the bluestones arrived at Stonehenge. Wainwright and Darvill speculate that he came to Stonehenge in search of healing. 

A Monument of Unity

The idea of Stonehenge as a place of worship has been around for centuries (albeit erroneously connected with Druids). Recent research, however, suggests that the site may have been a sacred gathering place of far greater significance than previously thought. 

In 2024, new analysis revealed a truly astounding discovery: The central, 13,200-pound bluestone at Stonehenge was not brought from Wales, but was dragged (or perhaps floated) to the site from the far northeast of Scotland, a distance of at least 466 miles. With this in mind, researchers at University College London and Aberystwyth University, led by archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson, proposed a new theory: Stonehenge may have been built to unite early British agricultural communities. 

Parker Pearson suggests that the large altar stone may have been brought all the way from a distant Scottish monument as a gift, or perhaps as a marker of political alliance or allegiance. If true, this would make Stonehenge a political monument as much as a religious one — a physical embodiment of unity among Britain’s diverse Neolithic communities.

While the full truth about Stonehenge may be lost to history, archaeologists continue to unearth tantalizing details about the monument’s purpose. And it now seems that Stonehenge was not limited to one specific role, but may have served a number of overlapping purposes, both practical and symbolic.

Advanced Plumbing and Sewage Systems

Perhaps the most impressive features of Indus Valley cities are the pioneering indoor plumbing and waste management systems that helped curb the spread of diseases. Virtually every home had an indoor washroom and latrine, with brick pavement floors packed tightly to prevent leaking and sloped to ensure proper drainage. Waste traveled through terra-cotta pipes that were routed to covered drain ditches that ran along city avenues and into an underground sewage system that flowed out of the city. Screens were installed at various areas for the collection of solid waste, while other points along the sewage network had holes and removable stones that allowed for inspection.

A millennium later, Rome also had an extensive underground sewer system, as well as a dedicated waste-management labor force and even a collection of public toilets for its citizens. However, the indoor plumbing structure that was enjoyed by just about every Indus Valley city-dweller was a luxury that was available only in Rome’s more expensive neighborhoods. 

A Society of Equals?

One of the major mysteries of the Indus Valley civilization is the dearth of surviving structures pointing to a clear ruling authority, such as a palace or royal tomb for a monarch, or a temple for a dominant religious organization.

The lack of such grand edifices matches up with other architectural features of Indus Valley cities: Homes, while differing in size, were not so drastically misproportioned as to highlight major discrepancies in wealth between residents. What’s more, public buildings such as the Great Bath were located in easily accessible areas that underscored the idea of communal sharing.

This has prompted some historians to posit that Indus Valley communities were organized by the principles of a heterarchy, with contributions coming from different groups of people, as opposed to the top-down demands of a hierarchy. And that could well have fostered a system of social equality that would have been unheard of in Rome, with its aristocratic class of patricians holding control in the early days of the republic, before power concentrated in the hands of an emperor in the imperial era.  

For all their achievements, the Indus people couldn’t stave off the demise that felled Rome and the other great cultures of antiquity; the civilization began to decline around 1700 BCE due to a combination of factors including climate change and dwindling trade. Nevertheless, this often-overlooked culture has received its belated due for being far ahead of its time, a testament to the impressive records it left behind even as more remain to be revealed.

Medieval Hair Care

Contrary to the perception that personal hygiene was lacking in the Middle Ages, people didn’t actually ignore their hair. Most medieval Europeans simply rinsed with water, while well-off households often made their hair cleansers out of ashes, egg whites, and herbs or flowers for fragrance. Combs were important for more than keeping up appearances: In a time of minimal hair-washing, they were trusty tools for removing dirt buildup and lice. 

Colonial Soaps

As Europeans arrived in the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, they brought their hygiene habits with them. Combs helped keep hair relatively clean and critter-free, but hair-washing was infrequent. When hair was washed, it was typically with water or homemade soap. Soap mixtures hadn’t strayed much from ancient formulations — animal fat and ashes — but by this time the soaps were boiled and set into cleansing bars. Enslaved people in early America adapted to the limited resources they had, using cornmeal and oils to clean the hair and scalp.

Throughout the 1800s, hair-washing practices evolved. In 1814, Indian-born entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomed opened a spa in Brighton, England, offering Eastern-inspired treatments such as oil-based head massages. The popular service eventually became known as “shampoo,” an English take on the Hindi word champo. Mahomed’s treatments became beloved by clientele such as King George IV and King William IV, and he is often credited with introducing the idea of hair-washing as a dedicated ritual to the U.K.

Soapmaking continued to improve, and by the late 1800s, the brands Cuticura and Ivory were being sold not only for washing the body but also as shampoos for the hair. The turn of the 20th century saw a major leap in hair care when German chemist Hans Schwarzkopf invented a dissolvible powder shampoo in 1903. It didn’t take off in the U.S. right away; in 1908, an instructional article titled “How To Shampoo the Hair” ran in The New York Times.

Shampooing began to find popularity in America in 1909 with the launch of Canthrox shampoo, a powder that was dissolved in water, but it wasn’t until the 1920s that regular hair-washing became commonplace with the advent of liquid shampoos.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator

Debate surrounding the gesture did not end there — to this day, historians argue about the meaning of the thumb sign in gladiatorial contests. In recent years, for example, Anthony Corbeill, a professor of classics at the University of Virginia, told Time that the commonly held belief about the thumbs-up gesture is incorrect. According to Corbeill, “Sparing [a gladiator] is pressing the thumb to the top of the fist and death is a thumbs-up. In other words, it’s the opposite of what we think.”

But widely held notions can be hard to shift, especially when Hollywood puts its full weight behind something. Ridley Scott’s hugely successful historical epic Gladiator cemented in the public consciousness the idea that the thumbs-up we use today came from ancient Rome. Gladiator was itself inspired by Gérôme’s “Pollice Verso”painting, which was shown to the director to convince him to make the movie. Scott in turn took some ideas from the painting, including the use of the thumb gesture, despite a lack of historical evidence for it. In the same way that “Pollice Verso” shaped public opinion regarding the thumbs-up sign in the 19th century, Gladiator reinforced the idea through the power of the modern-day blockbuster.  

A Wartime Gesture

Despite the persistent Roman gladiator narrative, the modern positive meaning of the thumbs-up gesture likely developed through different cultural channels over many centuries. Though the exact origins are unknown, historians believe the gesture gained widespread recognition during the 20th century, particularly in English-speaking countries. And the reason for its spread might be found in war. 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the first recorded instances of the thumbs-up gesture used to indicate approval occurs in the 1917 book Over the Top by Arthur Guy Empey, an American who served in the British army in World War I. In the book, he explains the thumbs-up sign as being “Tommy’s expression which means ‘everything is fine with me’” (“Tommy” being a slang term for a British soldier).

Another theory suggests the gesture was used by pilots to communicate with the person starting a propeller in early preflight checks. The gesture then became common among fighter pilots during World War II, who used it to indicate to the crew that everything was good and they were ready to take off. So, while the modern thumbs-up sign might not have come from the gladiatorial arena, it was likely popularized during the two largest conflicts of the modern age.

The Case for Khafre

Most archaeologists believe the Sphinx was built around 4,500 years ago during Egypt’s Old Kingdom, under the reign of King Khafre (also called Chephren). Khafre ruled from about 2558 to 2532 BCE and is credited with building the second of the three pyramids at Giza.

Why do many experts suspect the Sphinx was commissioned by Khafre? For starters, the monument is part of a complex that includes Khafre’s pyramid and temples. And a life-size statue of Khafre, carved from volcanic rock and found in an adjacent temple, bears some resemblance to the face of the Sphinx. A stone ceremonial pathway within the complex also suggests a connection, as it links the temple next to the Sphinx to a mortuary temple next to Khafre’s pyramid.

Additionally, an inscription known as the Dream Stela, placed between the Sphinx’s paws by Pharaoh Thutmose IV more than a thousand years after Khafre’s time, asks the people of Egypt to worship the “resting place or sanctuary of … Khaef,” a name that has been interpreted as Khafre. While not conclusive proof, this has strengthened the Khafre theory in the eyes of many scholars.

Could Khufu Have Been the Builder?

Yet not everyone agrees that Khafre was the mastermind behind the Sphinx. Some researchers argue that it was actually Khafre’s father, King Khufu — the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza — who commissioned the statue.

This theory draws on geological and archaeological clues. The Sphinx was carved from a limestone outcrop that may have been quarried during Khufu’s construction projects. Also, some archaeologists suggest that Khafre’s causeway and temples appear to be designed around the already-existing Sphinx, indicating the statue predated his reign.

Stylistic comparisons fuel the Khufu hypothesis as well. The broad, square features of the Sphinx’s face don’t match well with Khafre’s statues. Instead, some experts see a closer resemblance to known images of Khufu.

Alternative Theories

Other candidates have been proposed, though with less evidence. Khafre’s brother Djedefre and son Menkaure have both been suggested as possible builders. Djedefre in particular is thought to have commissioned smaller sphinxes at his own pyramid complex.

An even more radical theory proposes that the Sphinx is much older than the Old Kingdom — perhaps dating back to 7000 BCE — based on interpretations of erosion patterns. However, this idea is largely dismissed by mainstream Egyptologists.

Some have also argued that certain features of the Sphinx’s headdress resemble those seen during the reign of Amenemhat II, about six centuries after Khafre. Yet this view remains on the fringes of academic debate.

A Statue by Any Other Name

Interestingly, the name “Sphinx” comes not from ancient Egypt, but from the ancient Greeks, who visited the site more than 2,000 years after the statue was built. They likely named it for its resemblance to their mythical sphinx — a creature with a woman’s head, a lion’s body, and an eagle’s wings.

The ancient Egyptians, by contrast, may have called the statue Horemakhet, meaning “Horus of the horizon,” linking it to the sky god Horus and reinforcing its role as a symbol of divine kingship and protection.

While the debate over who built the Sphinx continues, the monument’s grandeur and significance are undisputed. Whether the work of Khafre, Khufu, or another long-ago ruler, the Sphinx remains a powerful symbol of ancient Egypt’s ingenuity, artistry, and fascination with the afterlife. We can only hope it will endure for another 4,000 years.

Healing and Transformation

For many ancient people, especially those in the Greco-Roman world, dreams were not only forecasts but also instructions for therapy. The prominent Greek physician Galen reported that he had performed surgery based on instructions received in a dream. (In fact, Galen owed his entire career to a dream his father had.)

In Roman times, the orator Aelius Aristides kept extensive dream journals detailing his interactions with the god Asclepius, the god of healing. In his first such dream, the deity directed him to walk barefoot in cold weather. Aristides also wrote of being instructed to plunge into a freezing river in winter. Despite the bitter cold, he followed the divine command and emerged feeling renewed, with a “certain inexplicable contentment” that lasted through the day and night.

The temple of Asclepius in Pergamum, where Aristides spent years undergoing dream-based treatments, was a center of “incubation” — a practice in which patients slept in the temple in hopes of receiving a healing dream, or simply being healed by the god while they slept. Aristides believed his ailments were not only healed through these dreams, but that the dreams themselves revealed a deeper layer of his identity.

Symbol and Allegory

Not all dreams in the ancient world were seen as straightforward. Some were symbolic puzzles requiring interpretation. The second-century dream theorist Artemidorus, in his book Oneirocritica (or The Interpretation of Dreams), distinguished between direct (“theorematic”) and allegorical dreams. The former might show you exactly what was coming (for instance, dreaming of a shipwreck and waking up to discover it coming true), but the latter cloaked meaning in metaphor.

In symbolic dreams, one thing signified another — an eagle could mean a king; a journey, an impending change; a flood, internal unrest. Interestingly, interpretation relied not on fixed meanings but on context, such as who the dreamer was as well as their emotional state, social status, health, and personal concerns.

Dreams and Literature

Dreams also fed ancient literature and drama. The playwright Aristarchus of Tegea reportedly wrote a tragedy at the command of the god Asclepius, who appeared in a dream after the playwright’s recovery from illness.

Homer’s famous epics are also infused with dream logic and imagery. In the Iliad Book 2, Zeus sends a deceitful dream to Agamemnon in the form of a person urging him to attack Troy. It’s an example of dreams as political tools used by gods to shape human affairs.

The Importance of Ancient Dreams

Of course, not everyone in the ancient world took dreams so seriously. In the fourth century CE, the philosopher Diogenes the Cynic had this to say about people who got worked up about dreams: “They did not regard what they do while they are awake, but make a great fuss about what they fancy they see while they are asleep.”

Yet as with most things, Diogenes was an outlier. For many in the ancient world, dreams were seen as legitimate and often essential tools for navigating illness, ethics, and divine will. Ancient people dreamed of gods and ghosts, rivers and birds, death and healing, fear and redemption. And whether interpreted as prophecy, therapy, or metaphor, those dreams were treated with reverence and awe.

That said, the smells reported in the study didn’t just come from the original mummification materials. The analysis also found aromatic traces coming from plant oils used for more recent conservation; synthetic pesticides (some of which smelled a lot like original mummification materials); and microbiological deterioration products such as mold. Some of the aromatic molecules even came from items such as the sarcophaguses and mummification fabric. That means these mummies might smell somewhat different today than they did when first preserved.

The techniques used to embalm Egyptian mummies changed over time, the study noted, and also varied by region and socioeconomic status. While mummification in Predynastic Egypt (around 5000 BCE) was largely a natural process accomplished by hot, dry desert sand, the Old Kingdom (roughly 2700 to 2200 BCE) saw the use of natron salts, plant resins, gums, and the removal of internal organs. Mummification quality peaked during the New Kingdom (around 1570 to 1069 BCE) and declined during the Ptolemaic and Greco-Roman periods (332 BCE to 395 CE). After the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 CE, mummification was no longer practiced in the region. Yet it’s fair to say that while the ritual was practiced, it probably produced scents somewhat similar to those noted by the study.

The researchers didn’t just study mummy scents as a curiosity, though. They hope a more detailed understanding of the scents will help preserve the relics, by expanding our understanding of embalming methods and improving conservation techniques that could help protect the mummies from further damage.

Although the study claims to be the first to systematically study the smells of a collection of mummies, one previous study looked at the residues in 3,500-year-old canopic jars (vessels used to store mummified organs) from the tomb of an Egyptian noblewoman named Senetnay. The scientists who scraped the residues from the now-empty jars, found in 1900 by Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings, identified traces of beeswax, plant oil, fats, bitumen, and resins from various trees, including pine and cedar.

But this time, the researchers didn’t just present their findings — they actually attempted to recreate them. The scientists who worked on the project, including German archaeologist Barbara Huber, worked with French perfumer Carole Calvez and “sensory museologist” Sofia Collette Ehrich to recreate the scent of the embalming materials found in the jars. Speaking about the results of their recreation, Huber told CBC radio, “The dominant aroma is definitely a woody kind of pine-like scent, but it also has a hint of bitumen, a little bit of beeswax, something sweet, and you might even be able to pick up a fresh, citrusy note of pistachio.”

The aromatic creation was dubbed “Scent of Eternity,” and while it wasn’t for sale, it became part of “an immersive, multisensory experience” at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark in October 2023. The exhibit, “Ancient Egypt–Obsessed With Life,” used the scent to help tell the story of Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife and the mummification process. It’s part of a recent trend of incorporating scent in museum exhibits and other ways of experiencing history. After all, our ancestors used all five of their senses, and so we should, too.