Was the Trojan Horse Real?

Trojan Horse procession — Credit: Heritage Images/ Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images

Author Cynthia Barnes

March 27, 2024

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The myths and history handed down from the ancient Greeks still permeate our culture today, from idioms such as “the Midas touch” and “Achilles’ heel” to the name of the world’s largest online retailer. Many of the legends recount the actions of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer’s epic poems the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” It’s believed these stories originated as oral performances and were committed to parchment in the eighth or mid-seventh century BCE. But there’s much that remains mysterious about Homer’s epics (including the very existence of Homer himself). One of the most iconic stories of the “Iliad” is that of the Trojan Horse, a tale so well known that the term is still used today to describe clever trickery that breaches defenses. Yet the question remains: Did the incident ever really happen?

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We Now Know the City of Troy Was Real

Homer’s “Iliad” richly details the story of a decade-long siege against the city of Troy and its king, Priam, led by Menelaus, king of Sparta, and Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. In the story, the conflict is fought over Menelaus’ wife, Helen (famously described by poet Christopher Marlowe as having a “face that launch’d a thousand ships”), who was given to Priam’s son Paris by the goddess Aphrodite.

Ancient scholars, including Herodotus, the fifth-century BCE Greek historian often called the “father of history,” firmly believed that the Trojan War had occurred some 800 years before classical Greece. But over the years, the common belief became that both the war and the city of Troy itself were the stuff of fiction. That skepticism was finally put to rest in the 19th century, after German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered a late Bronze Age mound now known as Hisarlik, in the northwest corner of modern-day Turkey. Excavations uncovered fortifications, pottery, and treasures from the site, which is now generally accepted to be the location of ancient Troy, putting the mythical city back on the map.

The existence of Troy raises the question: What else in Homer’s myth is real? Did the Trojan War actually happen? While proof of that great siege is more difficult to come by, there is evidence to suggest the Trojan War, which is said to have taken place around the 12th century BCE, was also a real conflict. Cuneiform tablets from the Hittite civilization reference a war with details that follow the rough outline of Homer’s battling empires. What’s more, charred arrowheads and unburied skeletons found in later archaeological excavations suggest that a large and violent conflict took place within the city’s walls, though there’s no knowing for certain if it was the 10-year Trojan War described in Homer’s epic.

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What Is the Story of the Trojan Horse?

According to accounts by Homer in the “Odyssey” — later expanded on by the Roman poet Virgil in the “Aeneid” — the siege against Troy had been grinding on for nearly 10 years when Odysseus hatched a scheme to construct a giant wooden horse on wheels (the horse being a symbol of Troy) to sneak Greek soldiers behind the city walls. According to the plan, the Greek army would appear to flee, abandoning the equine structure as a peace offering and a symbol of surrender. The hollow structure, however — described in Virgil’s “Aeneid” as “a horse of mountainous size” — would conceal soldiers hidden inside — as Virgil put it, to “secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot, there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge cavernous insides with armed warriors.” This trickery would allow Odysseus’ soldiers to get past the gates and sack the fortress, finally defeating their Trojan foes. The ruse worked, according to the legend. The city of Troy fell, and Odysseus sailed away to begin his long journey home.

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So Was the Trojan Horse Real?

The tale of the Trojan Horse has been recounted countless times — including with a giant rabbit in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail — and a wooden replica used in the 2004 film Troy now stands in Çanakkale, Turkey, near the site of ancient Troy. The timely legend even sparked the saying, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” Yet historians still aren’t certain whether the story is factual or, more likely, an elaborate myth with some roots in reality. Some have theorized that the horse was a metaphor for whatever did destroy the city of Troy, such as a natural disaster or an enemy ship. But the prevailing theory is that the clever structure may have been based on ancient siege engines, such as battering rams, which were often covered with wet horse hides. The damp hides helped protect the wooden siege engines (and the soldiers using them) from flaming arrows, which may have been the inspiration for the legendary ruse.

5 Bizarre Customs in Ancient Greece and Rome

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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

March 27, 2024

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It would be an understatement to say that life was very different a couple thousand years ago, be it food or housing or hygiene. In many cases, that was due to a lack of scientific understanding — such as how the human body works, or how to build an oven in a house without setting it on fire. Social norms in ancient times were also a sharp contrast to modern ones, particularly where modesty is concerned. Many of the customs practiced by ancient Greeks and Romans would be considered unusual or even gross today, such as purchasing sweat from famous athletes or washing clothes in urine. Here are five strange ancient habits we’re happy to leave in the past.

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Drinking Gladiator Blood

In Roman gladiatorial combat, athletes were forced to fight in front of a live audience, sometimes to the death. Yet the public’s thirst for blood didn’t stop there. The blood of defeated gladiators was considered a powerful medicine, and was used to treat everything from epilepsy to impotence. Patients were even encouraged to drink directly from the fallen gladiator on the battlefield. Roman scholar Pliny the Elder wrote that “these persons, forsooth, consider it a most effectual cure for their disease, to quaff the warm, breathing, blood from man himself, and, as they apply their mouth to the wound, to draw forth his very life.” Livers from fallen gladiators were also a supposed cure for various ailments, and Roman physician Scribonius Largus wrote of spectators who would “snatch a piece of liver from a gladiator lying gutted in the dust.” Gladiators often died young, powerful, and healthy, which is likely why their blood was so sought-after.

Going to the Bathroom in Close Quarters

Public restrooms in ancient Rome were not for the shy. Some toilet holes were cut close together in long benches with no dividers between them, so people doing their business had very little wiggle room. Togas offered this setup a surprising amount of privacy, however, since the draped garments obscured pretty much everything. Still, the upper classes rarely used these public toilets, understandably preferring their own personal latrines. Even being connected to the same sewer system was considered too close for some wealthy Romans.

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Exercising and Competing Nude

The word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek word gymnasion, meaning “school for naked exercise.” That’s because ancient Greek athletes largely eschewed clothing, instead covering themselves in oil and dust. The first recorded nude athlete was Orsippus of Megara, who competed in the 15th Olympic Games in 720 BCE. According to some ancient scholars, his loincloth fell off during the race and he ran on to victory. A rival story paints a different picture, claiming Orsippus actually tripped over his loincloth and died. Either way, competing nude in the Olympics and other athletic events became a common custom in ancient Greece. At the end of the sixth century BCE, athletes in Athens briefly tried wearing loincloths again, but soon abandoned them and returned to full nudity.

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Literally Scraping Sweat Off the Skin

Ancient Greeks and Romans took cleaning themselves pretty seriously, but they couldn’t exactly hop into the shower and build up a lather. Rather, some people used a hook-shaped instrument called a strigil to wipe moisture off of their skin. Strigils were commonly used by athletes, who would slather their bodies in oil before exercising, sometimes adding sand to increase grip. Afterward, they’d apply fresh oil, scrape all the sweat, oil, and dirt off the skin, and finish with water and a sponge. Fans would sometimes purchase what the strigil left behind. The cleaning instruments were prized possessions, and ancient Romans sometimes paired them with a decorated oil vessel called a balsamarium.

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Stamping Bread

Just before putting bread in the oven, ancient Roman bakers would often place a bronze stamp on top of the dough, which would leave an indent as it baked. The symbol it left behind would identify the baker behind the loaf, similar to a maker’s mark on fine ceramics. Bakers at the time typically shared ovens — in-home ovens were a fire hazard — so using a stamp helped bakers keep track of their products and pick up the right loaf once the bread was done. It was important to keep track of your bread not just for professional reputation, but for legal reasons, too. Bread was strictly regulated in ancient Rome, and government officials would inspect the weight, size, and cost of the finished products to prevent fraud.

The Most Intriguing Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Author Mark DeJoy

March 7, 2024

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Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics have long captured the imaginations of scholars and casual observers alike, and efforts to translate them date back to the ninth century CE. Yet hieroglyphics remained mostly indecipherable until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799. Early progress was made by English polymath Thomas Young in the 1810s, and French linguist Jean-François Champollion completed a breakthrough translation that he presented in Paris on September 27, 1822.

The accuracy of Champollion’s translation was a watershed moment that enabled a greater understanding of hieroglyphs, leading to deeper and wider-ranging study. In 1927, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner published the reference work Egyptian Grammar, which included an appendix compiling the major hieroglyphs and their meanings, known as Gardiner’s Sign List, a reference standard still used today.

You don’t need to have a complete understanding of exactly how hieroglyphs function amid the rules of grammar in order to find them fascinating, though. Many symbols represent items that in turn provide glimpses into life in ancient Egypt and its advanced state as a civilization. The following hieroglyphs do just that — and we’ll use the names and reference points from Gardiner’s list to help illuminate them.

Y6: Board Game Piece

The hieroglyph numbered Y6 in Gardiner’s Sign List is a simple pointed oblong shape that isn’t especially visually compelling. But it represents a board game piece (in Gardiner’s text, a “draughtman” for a “draught board”), and there’s something undeniably intriguing about a hieroglyph that proves board games existed thousands of years ago. The piece depicted in this hieroglyph was either for a game called senet net hab (usually referred to as senet), or for a game called twenty squares.

Senet was a spiritually significant game, as “senet net hab” translates to “game of passing through.” The game is thought to represent the progression from life to the afterlife. Queen Nefertari’s tomb contains a painting depicting her playing senet against an invisible opponent; King Tutankhamun was buried with at least five senet boards.

U37: Razor

Shaving may not be an activity you’d immediately associate with ancient Egypt, but hieroglyph U37 depicts exactly that: a razor used for grooming. Depictions of shaving indicate that it was primarily undertaken by the upper class, while lower classes wore their hair untrimmed. The razors themselves were not very sharp; they were most commonly made of flint for a majority of ancient Egyptian history.

A59: Man Threatening With a Stick

An illustration of threat and potential violence, hieroglyph A59 is usually defined contextually as “to drive away.” Along with the more militaristic hieroglyphs A10-15, this glyph is reminiscent of ancient Egypt’s tendency toward corporal punishment and intimidation, a relatively little-discussed aspect of the civilization. While we know that Egypt was a punitive society, and its laws were decreed by the pharaoh, we do not know what the actual Egyptian code of law was: Artifacts have been found documenting legal transactions, but no documents describing an overarching legal code remain in existence.

A36: Man Kneading and Straining Into a Vessel

A somewhat cryptic-looking hieroglyph at first glance, the figure leaning over a pot represents a brewer straining beer into a vessel. Beer was an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture, both as a part of the everyday diet, and as a celebratory indulgence during religious festivals. It was also important sustenance for workers — builders of the pyramids of Giza were rationed 1.3 gallons of beer each day, which equates to approximately 10 pints. There’s even clear evidence that beer in ancient Egypt was brewed to industrial-level scale. In 2021, the excavation of a roughly 5,000-year-old brewery was completed, revealing a compound that scientists estimate could produce around 20,000 liters per batch.

The beer of ancient Egypt was much sweeter than we’re accustomed to today. It was made without hops (which didn’t become a standard ingredient until the Middle Ages) and flavored with fruits such as dates, as well as a mix of herbs and spices that seem closely approximated by the modern za'atar spice mix. Of course, flavor is subjective, but those who have attempted to recreate the Egyptian beer have reported that it tastes surprisingly good.

D35: Arms in Gesture of Negation

This is an example of a hieroglyph that can have several different meanings, depending on the context. It can function as a negative modifier in a sentence, or as a preposition. It can also express concepts of unknowingness, such as forgetfulness or ignorance. But in some instances, it can function as a representation of a very specific thing: the spleen. This usage is the most intriguing for its indication that the ancient Egyptians had an advanced understanding of internal anatomy.

The Egyptians, in fact, had an advanced understanding of medicine overall. We know that they practiced surgery, diagnosed and treated diseases (even cancer), and used various plants and minerals for therapeutic measures. As this hieroglyph suggests, they also documented their medical practices, and compiled various disease remedies and findings in a number of different papyrus collections, the most famous of which is known as the Ebers papyrus. Though there was also a distinct element of folk magic mixed in, the legacy of Egyptian medicine lives in modern medical practices.

D64: Hand With Palm Down

There is some disagreement around the interpretation of hieroglyph D64. Some interpret it as simply a hand with the palm down, while others have a more gruesome take: a severed hand. There is evidence that it was an ancient Egyptian war custom to take the hands of vanquished enemy combatants as trophies to present to the pharaoh. This practice served a dual purpose of tallying defeated foes and, on a more spiritual level, preventing them from “raising their hands” against Egypt again in the afterlife.

U13: Plough

The plough hieroglyph also means “seed,” and the overarching symbolism points toward farming. Ancient Egyptians were among the earliest practitioners of agriculture, and there is evidence that suggests farming in the region may have occurred as early as 7,000 years ago. Villages in the Nile valley were raising pigs, sheep, and goats, and cultivating crops such as emmer wheat, barley, cotton, and flax. The ancient Egyptians used the emmer wheat to bake breads that were primarily shaped like flatbreads, or rolled into a conical shape (depicted by hieroglyph X8).

The Oldest Written Languages in the World

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Author Bennett Kleinman

February 13, 2024

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Linguists estimate that human speech sounds first developed tens of thousands of years ago. MIT linguistics professor Shigeru Miyagawa proposes that verbal language may have been used in social situations around 100,000 years ago, while linguist George Poulos, author of On the Origins of Human Speech and Language, suggests human speech developed around 70,000 years ago. But these early languages were likely never recorded by hand, and it was only around 5,000 years ago that the first known written languages first began to take shape.

Ancient civilizations in regions around the world began to develop complex written language systems starting at least as early as 3200 BCE. While it’s difficult to pin down the exact origin of these languages given the limited archaeological evidence available, historians generally agree on a few early cultures that pioneered the use of written communication.

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Sumerian

From roughly 4100 BCE to 1750 BCE, the ancient Sumerian civilization thrived across southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). The Sumerians developed the world’s oldest known writing system, cuneiform, which consisted of wedge-shaped characters carved into stone tablets. The script was later used to denote the spoken Sumerian language, in lieu of any sort of alphabet. The language started as an entirely logographic script, and evolved into a phonetic syllabic system to convey more conversational thought. The oldest known example of Sumerian writing first appeared in a group of administrative and educational texts dating to around 3200 BCE. Around 2500 BCE, the Sumerians produced the first known literature from any ancient civilization: religious works such as the Kesh Temple Hymn that focused less on real-world issues and more on mythological concepts.

The now-extinct Sumerian language consisted of four vowel sounds (a, i, e, u) as well as 16 consonant sounds (b, d, g, ŋ, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, ś, š, t, z), and was one of the first known uses of grammatical concepts such as prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. By the year 2000 BCE, the language had faded to the point where it was no longer spoken, as new civilizations and languages emerged throughout the region. It enjoyed a brief resurgence for literary and liturgical purposes between 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE, but was mainly studied by scribes thereafter.

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Egyptian

The earliest written language in Egypt dates back to roughly 3200 BCE, when the ancient hieroglyphic script was developed. This symbol-based writing system contained three types of signs: logograms denoting words, phonograms representing sounds, and determinatives to help clarify the meaning of a word. When the system was first created, there were more than a thousand hieroglyphs in use, though that number eventually shrank to roughly 700 symbols. Hieroglyphs were often carved into the walls of burial chambers, etched into clay pottery, or written on papyrus, an early predecessor to paper.

The earliest hieroglyphs lacked any sort of obvious grammar or complex sentence structure, but that changed with the emergence of the Old Egyptian language sometime before 3000 BCE.As the verbal language became more complex, the hieroglyphic script evolved to incorporate symbols for individual letters (though Old Egyptian lacked any sort of obvious, traditional written alphabet).

Writers began producing fascinating works such as the Pyramid Texts, a collection of funerary hymns and prayers that date to around 2500 BCE and are the oldest known example of Egyptian literature. In 2000 BCE, a new stage of the language known as Middle Egyptian emerged, introducing a script called “hieratic” that was essentially a collection of cursive versions of hieroglyphs that could be written more quickly and were used in less formal settings.

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Akkadian

Akkadian is a now-extinct language that was spoken by the Babylonians and Assyrians of Mesopotamia (in parts of modern-day Iraq and Syria) from roughly 2800 BCE until 500 CE. Around 2350 BCE, Akkadian speakers adapted a cuneiform writing script from the neighboring Sumerian language, borrowing many Sumerian words and logograms. This written Akkadian script was used for a wide variety of matters ranging from legal documents to personal correspondence. The writing system contained roughly 600 word and syllable signs, and also included 28 sounds that were broken down into 20 consonants and eight vowels. Nouns were segmented into masculine and feminine genders, making Akkadian one of the first languages to use this grammatical construct..

What makes Akkadian particularly special is that it was the language used to compose two important historical texts. The first of these is the Code of Hammurabi, a series of 282 rules that established laws and punishments for members of Babylonian society, and served as a pioneering text in the world of criminal justice. The Epic of Gilgamesh was also written in Akkadian; this early work of literature describes the great hero Gilgamesh, and was inscribed into 12 incomplete tablets that were uncovered in the mid-19th century.

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Tamil

Tamil is a member of the Dravidian language family, which includes several languages spoken throughout India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Tamil is the oldest of the bunch, though its exact date of origin is widely disputed. There’s a debate among researchers over a Tamil literary work known as the Tolkāppiyam, which some experts believe is up to 7,000 years old. This text mentions several gods that are identified as Hindu deities, and contains thousands of poems spread out across eight anthologies. However, others view the text to be much more recent, and archaeologists can only confidently date Tamil to the fifth century BCE, despite the possibility of a much earlier origin.

Tamil is unique for a number of linguistic reasons. To start, there are a variety of ways to speak it, depending on if you’re communicating colloquially or formally. This system didn’t emerge overnight, however, and likely wasn’t the case when Tamil was initially developed. When it comes to the Tamil alphabet, many consonant sounds are made by curling the tip of the tongue toward the roof of the mouth, producing a tone that’s quite unique to Tamil. While many other ancient languages have since died off, Tamil remains spoken by nearly 90 million people today, and is an official language of both Sri Lanka and Singapore.

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Eblaite

In 1964, cuneiform tablets were uncovered near Aleppo, Syria, that provided substantial documentation of a language known as Eblaite. This language is believed to have originated in the ancient city of Ebla (in modern-day Syria) sometime between 2500 BCE and 2250 BCE. Its time as a popular language was rather brief, as the language waned in the wake of the destruction of the Eblaite kingdom around 2240 BCE. But during that short time, the Eblaite language spread far and wide, and was spoken by people as far north as the Hittite Empire (modern-day Turkey) and all the way down to Egypt.

There remains an ongoing debate among scholars as to whether Eblaite was similar to East Semitic languages such as Akkadian, or West Semitic languages such as ancient Aramaic and modern Hebrew. What we do know is that Eblaite speakers used a cuneiform writing system that incorporated many Sumerian-inspired logograms. Researchers believe that Eblaite was largely spoken by government officials and highly educated citizens of Ebla.

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Pama-Nyungan

Pama-Nyungan isn’t a single language, but rather a grouping of 306 individual languages spoken by Aboriginal peoples in Australia. There’s some archaeological evidence to suggest that Pama-Nyungan first developed around 6,000 years ago in the region that includes the modern Australian state of Queensland. Initially, researchers were baffled by how the language group came to dominate the entire continent, though some theories suggest that Pama-Nyungan spread rapidly during the mid-Holocene — a warming era that occurred after the most recent ice age (around 120,000 to 11,500 years ago). Only around 20 to 50 Pama-Nyungan languages are still spoken today, as many went extinct after Europeans arrived on the continent in the 17th century.

Despite the large number of Pama-Nyungan subdivisions, many share similar linguistic characteristics. Generally, the Pama-Nyungan languages feature words that begin with a single consonant and end in a vowel (either i, a, or u), though there are exceptions. Over time, the languages became significantly more complex than their basic hunter-gatherer origins. Pama-Nyungan languages developed verbs that were altered depending on their tense, nouns adjusted for case, and other grammatical features seen in modern-day Aboriginal languages such as Tiwi, Walmatjari, and Warlpiri.

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Elamite

Elamite is an extinct language that was spoken in the kingdom of Elam between 2600 BCE and 330 BCE. Elam was located in modern-day Iran, and its language was largely unrelated to those spoken in nearby civilizations. The oldest evidence of the Elamite language is a treaty between the King Hita of Elam and the King Naram-Sin of the Akkadian Empire, dating to somewhere between 2275 and 2250 BCE. This historical text is considered to be among the first known treaties signed between two separate kingdoms.

The Elamite language maintained its popularity for more than two millennia, though its use began to wane around the fifth century BCE. Elam was conquered in the sixth century BCE, becoming part of the Achaemenid (later Persian) Empire, and the language evolved rapidly to incorporate elements from Old Persian. Many Old Persian loanwords were adopted by Elamite speakers, and nouns were divided into two categories for the first time: animate and inanimate. Elamite faded into extinction shortly thereafter, as Persian influence grew stronger throughout the region.

There are many other ancient languages that developed throughout the world thousands of years ago, though archaeologists don’t know the exact time frame due to a lack of surviving texts. For instance, many modern Germanic languages — such as German, Dutch, English, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish — descended from a Proto-Indo-European language that’s believed to have been spoken as far back as 4500 BCE. Several modern Chinese languages also emerged from a single linguistic ancestor known as Archaic Chinese, archaeological evidence of which dates back to around 1250 BCE. Italic is another ancient language group, first spoken on the Italian Peninsula during the first millennium BCE; it eventually evolved into modern Romantic languages such as Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

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The Difference Between St. Valentine and Cupid

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Author Nicole Villeneuve

February 8, 2024

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Each year on February 14, romantic partners exchange affectionate cards and sugary-sweet chocolates, all in the name of St. Valentine — and all while the iconic image of Cupid takes center stage. But who are these figures, and how did they converge for this sentimental holiday? From Cupid’s roots in Greek mythology to St. Valentine’s Christian symbolism, here’s how these two figures became the unlikely faces of love and Valentine’s Day.

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Who Is St. Valentine?

The exact origin of the saintly namesake of Valentine’s Day is murky. According to one belief, St. Valentine was a third-century Roman priest who defied the Roman Empire’s stance against men marrying at a young age (it was thought that they should instead serve as soldiers). Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret, leading to his execution on February 14. Another belief portrays St. Valentine as a compassionate man who helped free persecuted Christians in ancient Rome. According to legend, he healed the local jailer’s blind daughter and, before his death, sent her a note signed, “from your Valentine.” Whether these were two separate figures or just one isn’t entirely clear, nor is whether they were actually historical characters and events or just myths. In records from the medieval era, for instance, there is no connection between St. Valentine and love or marriage. But regardless of how the figure became linked with romance, the association between St. Valentine and love has remained strong.

Who Is Cupid?

Today, we think of Cupid as a surreal cherubic figure, adorned with wings and armed with a bow and arrows. This iconic imagery is rooted in depictions of Eros, the Greek god of love. Initially depicted as a handsome youth, Eros underwent a transformation during the Hellenistic period (around 323 BCE to 31 BCE), evolving into the cherubic, winged child we recognize today. When the Romans adopted the deity, he became Cupid, a name derived from the Latin word for “desire.” The new likeness remained, as did Eros’ mischievous use of his arrows to arouse love or extreme passion in whomever happened to be struck by one.

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How Did Valentine’s Day Start?

While there is no single backstory for our modern celebration of Valentine’s Day, the holiday is often linked to the ancient Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia, which took place on February 15 and dates back to the sixth century BCE. In the fifth century CE, Pope Gelasius I abolished the pagan observance of Lupercalia and instead declared February 14 as a commemorative day for the martyrdom of St. Valentine — with no explicit mention of love, however. In fact, it wasn’t until several centuries later that Valentine’s Day’s romantic connotations emerged, sometime in the late 1300s, when English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about the mating rituals of birds in his epic poem "Parlement of Foules." He wrote of “Seynt Valentynes day” as the day “whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make” — or when birds choose their mates.

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How Did Cupid Become the Face of a Day for St. Valentine?

Chaucer’s prose is believed to be the first mention of Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday; from there, the association gained more traction. In the 1470s, an English woman named Margery Brews wrote to her fiancé John Paston and referred to him as “My right well-beloved Valentine” — a letter believed to be the oldest English-language valentine. The concept of Valentine's as a day for love was helped along not only by Chaucer, but by William Shakespeare, whose use of both Valentine’s Day and Cupid as romantic symbols further bolstered the idea in Britain. Shakespeare also considered Valentine’s Day a day for lovers, and associated Cupid with love. By the 16th century, Valentine’s Day and Cupid were established cultural symbols of love, and they eventually coalesced on greeting cards. At this time, cards were enormously popular across Europe, Valentine’s cards chief among them. By the mid-1800s, many Valentine’s Day cards featured imagery not far off from Chaucer’s whimsical vision of the day — birds and flowers in springtime — as well as frequent portrayals of the familiar winged, curly-haired Cupid.

6 Little-Known Facts About Greek Mythology

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Author Paul Chang

September 13, 2023

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From Theseus’ battle with the minotaur to the epic siege of Troy, tales from Greek mythology have gripped humanity’s imagination for millennia. Likely originating with the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete (around 3000 to 1100 BCE), these stories portray the adventures and foibles of gods and heroes. The ancient Greeks looked to these myths — which were passed down orally for centuries before being transcribed — to explain everything from earthquakes to the creation of the universe. Though our scientific understanding of the world has progressed since ancient times, Greek mythology continues to shape and inspire many aspects of our culture to this day, from business to entertainment to sports. For a quick look at the history of this fascinating body of stories, here are six facts about Greek mythology.

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The Amazons Were Based on the Real Warrior Women of the Steppe

The Greek myth of the Amazons — a race of warrior women descended from Ares, the god of war — has inspired countless works of art, including the character of Wonder Woman. According to the myths, these warriors lived in a city called Themiskyra composed entirely of women, located on the Black Sea. Until recently, scholars believed that the Amazons were the stuff of fiction — but a growing body of evidence suggests that the stories were inspired by real-life female warriors who roamed the grasslands of the Eurasian Steppe on horseback and wielded bows and arrows. While these women differed from the Amazons of legend in some specifics (for example, they lived alongside men), leading experts now believe that ancient Greek encounters with these warriors gave rise to the legend that spread across the world.

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Greek Mythology’s Most Famous Author May Have Never Existed

Credited as the author of theIliadand theOdyssey — two of Greek mythology’s most important texts — Homer has been viewed as a towering literary figure for much of history. Traditionally, he was thought to have lived in the eighth or ninth century BCE, and was described as being blind and, by some accounts, illiterate (dictating his poems to a literate assistant for transcription). However, since the 18th century, scholars have questioned whether Homer even existed. Some academics, such as the American classicist Milman Parry, have suggested that Homer’s epic poems were the result of oral stories told by various poets and folk singers being compiled into singular texts. Other scholars have questioned historical inconsistencies throughout the poems that could imply parts of the text were written in different time periods. This debate has inspired an entire field of study around Homer’s identity, known as the “Homeric Question.” While Homer’s existence is uncertain, one thing is for sure: The Iliad and the Odyssey continue to transfix and entertain readers to this day.

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The Myth of Demeter and Persephone Gave Rise to a Secretive Cult

According to Greek myth, Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, had a daughter named Persephone who was kidnapped by Hades and brought to the underworld, leaving a heartbroken Demeter to roam the earth looking for her. Persephone was eventually released by Hades, but forced to return to the underworld for four months out of every year, during which Demeter, in her grief, would cause crops to wither and die — thus explaining the winter season.

The “Eleusinian Mysteries” were secret religious rituals practiced in the ancient Greek city of Eleusis from 1600 BCE to 392 CE that celebrated the myth of Demeter and Persephone. These rituals promised to remove initiates’ fear of death, and despite virtually every important thinker in antiquity — including Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, and Cicero — participating, what actually happened during the ceremony remains a mystery. And for good reason: Initiates were sworn to secrecy on pain of death. While some have speculated that the rituals may have involved a symbolic reenactment of the myth of Demeter and Persephone, and that hallucinogens may have been involved, we may never know the truth of what happened at Eleusis.

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The Ancient City of Troy Actually Existed

Homer’s Iliad tells the story of the 10-year siege of Troy, and centers on the mythical hero Achilles. Until the 19th century, it was widely believed that, like the gods and heroes that inhabit the Iliad, the city of Troy itself was a piece of fiction. But archaeological excavation has revealed that Troy was a real city located in modern-day Turkey at a site called Hisarlik. To date, 10 archaeological layers of Troy have been discovered, spanning at least 4,000 years. However, while modern scholars agree that Troy did exist, the size, population, and stature of the ancient city continue to be a source of debate.

The Olympic Games Have Roots in Greek Mythology

Historians agree that the ancient Olympic Games began in 776 BCE, as part of a religious festival in honor of Zeus. But the ancient Greeks believed that the Games themselves had mythological origins. According to one myth, Zeus created the Games to celebrate his victory over Cronus in their struggle for the throne. More than a thousand years later, the same mythology led to the ancient Olympics’ demise. In 393 CE, the Roman Emperor Theodosius (Greece lost its independence to Rome in the second century BCE) abolished the Games due to their association with the pagan worship of Zeus. The Olympics remained inactive until a French educator named Pierre de Coubertin launched a plan to revive the tournament in 1894, leading to the first Games of the modern era in 1896.

The Most Famous Temple to Athena Exploded in the 17th Century

Every year, tourists from around the world flock to see the Parthenon, an ancient Greek temple to the goddess Athena. Built in the fifth century BCE and located atop the Acropolis in Athens, the Parthenon once housed a 40-foot statue of Athena made of ivory and gold, as well as stunning sculptures depicting scenes from Greek mythology. It stood intact until the 17th century, during which Athens was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, which was at war with several European countries. As part of the war effort, the Turks used the Parthenon to store gunpowder. During a Venetian attack on Athens in 1687, the Parthenon was struck by a mortar shell, causing a massive explosion that blew up the center of the building. Thankfully, parts of the Parthenon remained standing, and modern efforts to restore and preserve the architectural marvel continue today.

5 Myths About the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra

Author Kristina Wright

August 3, 2023

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Though she’s one of the most famous leaders of the ancient world, Cleopatra’s life is still shrouded in mystery. Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator ruled Egypt for 22 years as a powerful queen, and while her legacy is filled with tales of a goddess incarnate who seduced men to get what she wanted and had no problem killing anyone who got in her way (even her own siblings), much of this image is thanks to Hollywood and other pop culture depictions of the Egyptian queen. Actress Elizabeth Taylor famously played her in the big-budget 1963 film Cleopatra, and there have been numerous other portrayals of this enigmatic leader in art, fiction, and film — most of them filled with anachronisms and exaggerations and lacking in historical accuracy.

What historians do know is that when Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, died in 51 BCE, 18-year-old Cleopatra was named his successor. Over the course of her reign, she ruled alongside two of her brothers and her oldest son. She envisioned herself as the sole ruler of Egypt, however, and formed alliances with two of Rome’s most powerful generals in order to protect and maintain her power. In 47 BCE, she bore a son by Julius Caesar, nicknaming him Caesarion, or “little Caesar,” despite his illegitimacy. A few years later, in 44 BCE, Cleopatra’s relationship with Caesar came to an abrupt end when the Roman leader was assassinated, forcing her to develop new strategic alliances to secure her reign.

The Egyptian queen found a new political and romantic partner in Caesar’s friend and ally Mark Antony. With Antony, Cleopatra continued her political alliance with Rome, and they had three children together. However, Caesar’s adopted son Octavian declared war on the pair, leading to their untimely deaths. Cleopatra died in 30 BCE at age 39, as the last Egyptian queen and next-to-last Egyptian pharaoh. (Octavian had the last pharaoh, Cleopatra and Caesar’s 17-year-old son Caesarion, put to death just days later.) Octavian went on to become the first Roman emperor, dubbed Augustus Caesar, embracing his role as Caesar’s heir and ending the Ptolemaic kingdom.

It has been over 2,000 years since Cleopatra’s death, but her fascinating life still captures the imagination. Here are five popular myths about the Egyptian queen that separate the truth from the legend.

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Myth: Cleopatra Was Ethnically Egyptian

Cleopatra is one of the best-known figures in Egypt’s history , but she wasn’t ethnically Egyptian. Though she was born in Alexandria, Egypt, around 69 BCE, Cleopatra’s lineage is traced to Macedonian Greece. She was the daughter of Ptolemy XII, a descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian general who served under Alexander the Great and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled in Egypt. Historians aren’t certain about the identity of Cleopatra’s mother, but theories suggest Cleopatra was the daughter of either Ptolemy’s first wife, Cleopatra V; his second wife, whose name is unknown; or a concubine.

Myth: Cleopatra Wasn’t Prepared to Be Queen

Little is known about Cleopatra’s life before she became queen, but as a member of Ptolemaic royalty, she was highly educated and received a well-rounded Hellenistic education that included rhetoric, philosophy, astronomy, music, and Greek literature. She spoke around nine languages (Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Arabic, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Persian, and Aramaic) and was the first of the Ptolemaic line to learn the Egyptian language. Praised for her intellect, she was knowledgeable in a wide variety of subjects, including economics, military strategy, law, and linguistics.

Myth: Cleopatra Was Known for Her Beauty

Accounts of Cleopatra’s life often suggest she was a beautiful seductress, a myth likely started by Octavian to justify his ongoing rivalry with Mark Antony. Few ancient historians characterized Cleopatra as beautiful and the existing artifacts bearing her likeness are inconsistent in their portrayal of the Egyptian queen. Some coins, for instance, show Cleopatra having more masculine features, such as a strong jaw, sloped forehead, and aquiline nose, perhaps as a way of emphasizing her leadership strength. Other artifacts present her with a more conventionally feminine appearance, accentuating rounded cheeks, stylishly curled hair, and a small chin. While legend attributed Cleopatra’s power to her beauty, it was her intellect and charisma that garnered her the devotion of others. In his 75 CE biography, Life of Antony, Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch wrote of Cleopatra, “For her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her… but the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible.”

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Myth: Cleopatra Wasn’t a Good Leader

Born into royalty, Cleopatra was the wealthiest woman in the world during her lifetime and is still one of the wealthiest people in all of history, with an assigned net worth of tens of billions in today’s currency. She identified as the living manifestation of the goddess Isis, adorning herself in beautiful fabrics and priceless jewels, and enjoying an extravagant and decadent lifestyle. But far from being a mere figurehead, Cleopatra was a savvy public relations expert, skilled at both political and military tactics. She took an active role in leading Egypt, using her intelligence and charisma to build valuable strategic alliances in order to protect Egypt’s independence from the Roman Empire. By establishing trade with Eastern nations, she grew Egypt’s economy and solidified its position as a world power.

Myth: A Brokenhearted Cleopatra Died By Snakebite

In 31 BCE, Antony and Cleopatra were overwhelmed by Octavian’s formidable forces and lost the Battle of Actium, forcing the pair to retreat to Alexandria. As the war raged on, the lovers made a pact to take their own lives rather than risk capture by Octavian. When Octavian’s forces entered Alexandria in 30 BCE, Antony, believing Cleopatra was already dead, fell on his own sword. Cleopatra, however, was still alive and barricaded in the seaside mausoleum she was constructing for herself.

The most well-known legend about Cleopatra’s death features a grief-stricken queen coaxing a venomous viper or cobra to bite her. It is generally accepted that Cleopatra died by suicide, but the details of how it was executed may never be known. It seems unlikely that she would have used an imprecise method such as a snakebite, and many historians believe she may have drunk poison or used a toxic ointment instead. While Cleopatra might have grieved the loss of Antony in the days following his death, it was more likely the threat of being paraded through the streets as Octavian’s prisoner that motivated her to end her life.

The Most Popular Things Traded on the Silk Road

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Author Sarah Anne Lloyd

August 3, 2023

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Though it’s often thought of as a single trail, the Silk Road was actually a vast network of trade routes spanning multiple centuries and continents, connecting cultures as far as 6,000 miles away from each other. The network started around 138 BCE, when Han dynasty China sent out an envoy to make trading connections with other Asian countries. Over the next two centuries, trade routes extended westward through the Indian subcontinent, the Syrian desert, and the Arabian Peninsula, all the way to Greece and Rome. Some of these connections were made over land, but many were made by sea, too. This vibrant network lasted around 1,500 years, ending in 1453 CE when the Ottoman Empire closed off trade with the West — but not before the global exchange of goods and ideas changed the course of history. Here are seven of the most influential and sought-after things that were traded on the Silk Road.

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Silk and Other Textiles

Craftspeople in China had been raising silkworms and working with silk for thousands of years before the luxurious textile became a valuable commodity. Silk was so prized in ancient Rome that one 19th-century German geographer named the Silk Road after the coveted material. Silk reached India in the second century BCE, and in the third century CE, Persia became a major silk-trading hub that connected Europe to East Asia. The trade route spread the popular textile around the world, paving the way for the complex woven patterns of Byzantium and Iran. Silk production, however, remained a closely guarded secret in Asia even after Byzantine Emperor Justinian I had silkworms smuggled over in bamboo tubes.

Silk wasn’t the only fiber that changed hands along the Silk Road, however. Hemp, cotton, and wool were all popular items as well. The cultural exchange also included finished fabric and weaving techniques. Different types of clothing traveled between nations, too; trousers, which made horseback riding easier, originated in Mongolia, and various sorts of woven belts evolved throughout the era.

Paper

It’s easy to take paper for granted now, but in the early days of the Silk Road, it was a new technology for many cultures. Early writing appeared on clay, bone, wax, and parchment, which was made from animal skins and was labor-intensive to create. The first known paper, made from mulberry fibers and other discarded materials, appeared in China during the Han dynasty (25 to 220 CE). Buddhist monks started sharing religious writing on paper because it was durable and easy to transport. It spread through religious communities first and eventually hit trade routes.

Paper was extraordinarily useful — merchants both sold it and used it themselves for recordkeeping — so it spread quickly. It was a popular item in its own right, as well as a means to convey other valuable commodities, such as scientific ideas and literature. Many regions set up their own paper industries; Baghdad, for example, became known for producing stationery. Paper production eventually reached Europe via Sicily and Spain, but Chinese paper remained a valuable export because it was considered higher quality.

Gunpowder

Gunpowder is a carefully measured mix of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur, designed to burn quickly and trap enough gas to propel an object, be it a firework or a cannonball. It was a later addition to Silk Road trade routes, and its exact history is unclear, though it’s believed to have originated in China, where it was in use by the 10th century CE — and possibly a few centuries earlier — for signaling and fireworks. Its use in weaponry originated in China, too, starting between the 10th and 12th centuries CE, with a precursor to a gun made out of a bamboo reed. Full-fledged guns evolved by the end of the 13th century, and soon moved westward. Guns and gunpowder reached the Middle East by 1304 CE, and were introduced to Europe, including England and France, by the end of the 14th century CE.

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Spices and Tea

Spices are among the oldest goods to make their way along the Silk Road; cinnamon was being traded throughout Asia as early as 2000 BCE. Many plants had limited distribution at that time, so specific seasonings became especially prized — nutmeg and cloves, for example, grew only in the Moluccas, a small group of Indonesian islands known at the time as the Spice Islands. Traders often made up dazzling stories about the origins of spices to drive up their intrigue and value. Spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger were so prized that the word “spice” is even derived from the Latin word for “special wares.” Around the turn of the second century CE, Alexandria, Egypt, then under Roman rule, became an important spice-trading hub, and soon the tasty goods spread northward to Greece. Spices reached northern Europe via Genoa and Venice starting around the 11th century.

The Silk Road saw a robust tea trade, too. Camellia sinensis, the plant that grows tea leaves, originated in Southeast Asia (roughly where China, India, and Myanmar meet today) and has been part of Chinese culture since at least as far back as the 10th century BCE. Its first trips on the Silk Road were eastward to Japan and Korea, where the plant began to be cultivated. Over the next several centuries, these East Asian nations developed a culture and ritual around both brewing and drinking tea. Associated pottery, such as teapots, followed tea as it spread to India, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.

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Glass and Porcelain

If you’ve ever heard porcelain goods referred to as “china” — as in “china dolls” or “fine china” — it’s because porcelain was a distinctly Chinese art for many years. Sculpted from a special clay only available in a certain region of China at the time of the Silk Road, porcelain stood out from other ceramics for both its durability and its translucent white color. The form that became best known in the West was developed during the Yuan dynasty, which spanned the 13th and 14th centuries CE. The classic blue-and-white wares became prized collector’s items, especially in the Islamic world, and inspired similarly styled ceramics in other regions.

Glassware, meanwhile, traveled in the other direction. Glassblowing techniques, particularly with soda-lime glass, developed in the Mediterranean and Middle East starting around 3500 BCE, and examples of that work dating back to the first millennium BCE have been found in East Asia. Roman glass, such as purple glass mosaic bowls, was especially prevalent — Romans loved silk, so they may have swapped the glass for Chinese silk. While Chinese craftspeople produced glass beads in the first few centuries BCE, it was chemically distinct from Western imports. Romans worked with soda-lime glass, the most commonly made type of glass today, which isn’t particularly durable. Imagine keeping it intact for 5,000 miles!

Horses

Horses, originally traded by Mongolian nomadic peoples, were a boon along the Silk Road, enabling traders to expand their networks, even over difficult terrain. They were also, conveniently, both a practical and luxury good, showing both high status and military might, and if you were trading them, they literally transported themselves. Horses were very much in demand in China — they were often traded for silk — and “heavenly horses,” a large breed of horse from a region in Central Asia, were particularly culturally significant. A Han dynasty expedition to acquire these horses even opened up an eastern stretch of the Silk Road between 200 BCE and 200 CE.

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Knowledge

The global exchange of ideas was just as impactful as the exchange of physical goods along the Silk Road. Astronomy, used for navigation, spread from India and ancient Iran. The Islamic Golden Age from the eighth century through the 13th century CE marked innovations in mathematics that we take for granted today — including the base 10 number system and decimal fractions — and it drew heavily from Greek and Indian knowledge. Science scholarship in Baghdad and Cairo also led to major advancements in medicine, enabled by knowledge, materials, and traditions from other civilizations. Alchemy was a spiritual precursor to some very real modern science, and led to discoveries in chemistry that eventually spread westward to Europe from scholars in the Middle East and India.

As goods exchanged hands, so did the knowledge of how to use and create them. Some crops, such as grapes, traveled eastward, while others, such as rice, traveled westward, along with information on how to cultivate them. Different metalworking techniques, including types of armor, spread as craftspeople traveled to sell their wares. Bakers from Central Asia opened shops in China and became part of the evolution of Chinese cuisine. And religious traditions, including Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam, and local folk traditions, spread and influenced one another as missionaries traveled the vast Silk Road.

6 Amazing Breakthroughs Made by the Ancient Greeks

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Author Darren Orf

July 19, 2023

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For more than two millennia, the ideas of the ancient Greeks have spurred some of humanity’s greatest achievements. Philosophy, drama, science, and mathematics sprung from that particular peninsula in the Mediterranean. The work of the Greek scholars propelled Muslim thinkers during the Islamic Golden Age, and the European rediscovery of their ancient texts ignited the Renaissance and sustained the Enlightenment, giving way to new scientific advancements and even new ways of living and governing. These are six amazing breakthroughs from ancient Greece, born from some of history’s greatest minds.

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Pythagoras’ Theorem Formed the Foundation of Geometry

Pythagoras of Samos is arguably the most famous mathematician from ancient Greece (and there were a lot of them), and that’s because nearly every person at some point in their educational journey is taught his eponymous theorem. Expressed as a² + b² = c², the Pythagorean theorem states that the sum of the squares of the two legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. In ancient times, this proved the existence of irrational numbers and formed the cornerstone of what became Euclidean geometry (more on Euclid later), which plays a very real role in construction and navigation today. Some of the world’s smartest minds have set out to provide proofs of the Pythagorean theorem, including Albert Einstein (he was 12 at the time), and new proofs are still being discovered to this day. Simply put, the world would be a very different place without Pythagoras’ triangular insight.

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Hippocrates Looked for a Scientific Cause of Illness

Watch any kind of medical drama, and it won’t be long before you hear the phrase “Hippocratic oath,” meaning a doctor’s sacred duty to “do no harm.” Although a bit of a myth in today’s hospitals, the oath is a lasting testament to the life and work of Hippocrates of Cos. Living in the fifth century BCE, Hippocrates was one of the world’s first physicians to explore the cause of illness beyond the usual divine explanations at the time (Zeus’ displeasure, for instance). He’s known as the “father of medicine” because he took a scientific approach to studying illness and tried devising treatments, as described in the 60 or so of his writings that survive to this day. Hippocrates influenced many future generations, but his most important student was arguably Galen of Pergamum in the second century CE, a Roman physician whose work became bedrock of European and Arabic medicine for more than a millennium, and who once claimed that all his knowledge originated with Hippocrates.

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Aristotle Devised a System for Classifying Animals

During Aristotle’s astounding life in the fourth century BCE, he wrote about a cornucopia of scientific subjects including physics, psychology, economics, ethics, government, and poetry. But what is often lost in that academic deluge is the fact that Aristotle was 2,200 years ahead of his time in the field of biology. Today, we classify animals using Latin names in a system devised by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century, but Aristotle created a classification system back in ancient Greece that was remarkably similar to our modern one. Aristotle separated animals into two groups: those with blood and those without blood (or at least red blood), and while Linnaeus didn’t use this particular distinction, it is similar to how the animal kingdom is separated into vertebrates (those with spines) and invertebrates. From there, the Greek thinker divided animals into “genera,” which were broader categories than the genus distinction we use today, and then by species. This groundbreaking foresight into ordering the natural world is why Aristotle is remembered today as the “father of zoology.”

Euclid Knew That Light Traveled in a Straight Line

Euclid, considered the “father of geometry,” was no slouch when it came to studying the nature of light and vision. Published in 300 BCE, his work Optics is considered the first time a scholar gave serious scientific thought to the nature of light. Euclid theorized that light propagated in rays and traveled in a straight line, a big departure from the Platonic idea of light as an “ethereal emanation.” The nature of light and human vision became a vast field of study, interesting Romans, Muslim astronomers, Renaissance thinkers, Enlightenment scientists, and even 20th-century minds. Albert Einstein, for example, won the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics not for his general theory of relativity (as often presumed) but for a discovery in the field of optics known as the photoelectric effect.

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Aristarchus Knew the Planets Orbited the Sun

The publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’ Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs in 1543 is a major moment in history, as the Polish scientist’s heliocentric theory directly challenged Catholic dogma proclaiming that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. In reality, Copernicus was mostly reiterating what some ancient Greeks knew nearly two thousand years before. In the third century BCE, Aristarchus of Samos (likely drawing from the work of another Greek astronomer, Philolaus of Croton) theorized that the sun was much more massive than the Earth, and he placed the planet in its rightful orbit around the star — the first heliocentric model of the solar system. Much like Copernicus’ work, Aristarchus’ theory was met with pushback (with one Stoic saying he should be indicted for “putting into motion the hearth of the universe”) and his ideas were ultimately rejected. This allowed geocentrism to flourish for far too long until Copernicus, citing both Philolaus and Aristarchus, eventually set the record straight.

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Eratosthenes Accurately Measured the Globe

Around the same time Aristarchus was configuring the solar system into its rightful arrangement, the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes of Cyrene pulled off one of the greatest calculations in world history. For nearly 300 years, the ancient Greeks had known the Earth was round — Pythagoras established as much back around 500 BCE — but understanding that the Earth was a globe and comprehending its precise proportions were two different things entirely, and Eratosthenes set out to solve the latter. On the summer equinox in 240 BCE, Eratosthenes measured a shadow cast by a stick in Alexandria, Egypt, that measured 7.12 degrees (roughly one-fiftieth of a circle). Meanwhile, in Syene (modern-day Aswan, Egypt), a particular well cast no shadow, meaning the sun was directly overhead. The mathematician then hired surveyors to measure the distance from Alexandria to Syene and came up with 5,000 stadia. This measurement enabled him to calculate the Earth’s circumference at 250,000 stadia, or somewhere between 24,000 and 29,000 miles (the exact length of a stadium is debated). Today, we know the Earth measures about 24,900 miles around the equator. In other words, even over 2,200 years ago, Eratosthenes just about got it right.

7 Facts That Reveal the Wonder of the Ancient Maya

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Author Darren Orf

July 11, 2023

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For thousands of years — beginning around 1800 BCE — the Maya flourished throughout Mexico and Central America, primarily calling modern-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador home. One of the great civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica (along with the Olmecs and Aztecs), the Maya created a sophisticated society with advanced mathematics, architecture, and writing. Today, the Maya peoples make up one of the largest Indigenous populations in the Americas. Here are seven facts that explore the complexity and wonder of this ancient culture.

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The Maya Were Skilled Mathematicians

The numerical system used by the Maya, as well as many other Mesoamerican cultures, was a vigesimal (or “base 20”) system. While our modern “base 10” system uses 1, 10, 100, 1,000, and so on, the Maya used 1, 20, 400, 8,000, etc. The Maya system was much more effective for counting than the confusing system of numerals used in the Roman Empire, and the Maya also devised the concept of zero (perhaps around the year 36 BCE), a major mathematical accomplishment. The Maya leveraged their mathematical skills to build impressive cities, chart astronomical movement (using little more than geometry and some sticks), and develop their famous calendar. Speaking of which…

The Maya Did Not Think the World Was Going to End in 2012

The Maya calendar is a complicated system — in fact, it’s three calendars in one. One of them, the Long Count calendar, which measures time in much longer stretches than the other calendars' 52-year cycle, garnered quite a bit of attention in 2012, as some doomsayers believed the ancient calendar marked December 21, 2012, as the end of the world. The Maya, however, did not believe that. The mostly U.S.-based hysteria grew from the fact that the Long Count calendar was about to reach a 13th “b’ak’tun,” which occurs around every 400 hundred years or so, and this particular b’ak’tun also completed what’s known as a Great Cycle or Grand Cycle, which lasts 5,125.366 solar years. The Maya believed that the end of the Great Cycle simply meant the beginning of a new one — not the apocalypse. But lacking any evidence to the contrary, some doomsday soothsayers in the U.S. believed that life on Earth would end with the cycle (it didn’t), or that the ancient Maya were somehow following extraterrestrial instructions (they weren’t). Instead, December 21, 2012, came and went like any other day, and a new Great Cycle began.

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The Maya Civilization Grew to Some 40 Cities at Its Peak

The first Maya cities formed in the Yucatán around 1800 BCE, around the same time as the rise of the first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs, from whom the Maya inherited parts of their calendar and writing system. The Maya civilization began to flourish around 250 CE, entering a golden age known as the classic period. Much like the ancient Greeks who thrived centuries earlier, the Maya had no central authority during this period and were instead dominated by dozens of city-states. The Maya followed “kuhul ajaw,” or holy lords, who claimed to be descendants of gods and were seen as intermediaries between the Maya people and their deities. The city-states, of which there were about 40, held populations as small as 5,000 or as large as 50,000 to 120,000. The most famous examples were Palenque, Copán, and Tikal, the largest city in the southern Maya lowlands. During the classic period, anywhere from 2 million to 10 million Maya lived in Mesoamerica.

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Many Maya Cities Were Mysteriously Abandoned Around 900 CE

Around the year 750 CE, the fortunes of the Maya began to change. Artifacts show that by the middle of the eighth century, construction in some cities had drastically declined, and by 925 CE, many of the city-states that made up the heart of this Mesoamerican power were abandoned. So what happened? Well, it’s hard to know for sure, but it’s likely that a combination of factors led to the decline of the Maya civilization. Geologic records gathered from stalagmites in Belize show prolonged drought affected the area at the time. Environmental degradation, overpopulation, shifting trade routes, and warring city-states also likely contributed to the civilization’s decline. However, these ill fortunes mostly impacted the southern lowlands (southern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and Belize), and between 900 CE and 1519 CE, cities in the northern lowlands and Guatemala’s highlands rose to prominence. (After all, the name “Maya” comes from the northern capital Mayapan.) Cites such as the highland city of Utatlán (also known as Qʼumarkaj) in modern-day Guatemala remained regional powers as late as the arrival of the Spanish in 1524.

Only Three Maya Codices Still Exist

The first evidence of Maya writing, likely adopted from the Olmecs, dates to around 300 BCE, found in the murals at San Bartolo in Guatemala. Similar to the ancient Egyptians, the Maya used ornate hieroglyphics and pictographs to express themselves and record government and calendar events. Maya writing also graces myriad monuments (known as stelae), ceramics, and other objects, but for centuries scholars had no idea what they said. That’s because when the Maya were subjugated to Spanish rule in the 16th century, a zealous inquisitor named Diego de Landa tragically set fire to dozens of Maya codices — essentially accordion-style books made from the bark of a fig tree — that likely contained detailed writings about monuments and other important historical facts about the ancient civilization. Thankfully, three codices (and possibly a fourth, though it has yet to be confirmed) survived the conflagration. These three codices, named for the cities where they’re kept today — Paris, Dresden, and Madrid — along with Landa’s own account of how the Maya writing system worked, allowed scholars to decipher the glyphs in the 1950s and revolutionized our understanding of the culture. Today, some Maya are teaching this rediscovered script to future generations in an effort to preserve the ancient writing system.

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Nearly Half of Guatemala's Modern Population Is Ethnically Maya

Today millions of Maya still inhabit the same regions of their ancestors spread throughout southern Mexico and Central America, and one of the largest populations lives in Guatemala. Out of the county’s 15 million inhabitants, some 6.5 million identify as Maya, which today comprises a rich tapestry of peoples (there are 22 Mayan languages in the country alone). Along with large populations also living in Mexico, including the Yucatecs, the Tzotzil, and the Tzeltal, the Maya are one of the largest Indigenous groups in the Americas today. Despite being the original stewards of these lands, the Maya have endured incredible hardships both past and present. In recent years, the Mexican government, for example, has apologized to the Maya for historical mistreatment, but the group is still subjected to racism, poverty, and inequality. The Maya continue to fight for civil rights, such as bilingual education for the preservation of the Mayan language. In 1992, Maya activist Rigoberta Menchú Tum even received the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime of work in promoting the rights of the Maya throughout their ancestral homeland.

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Maya Ruins Are Still Being Discovered Today

In the 1840s, American archaeologist John Lloyd Stephens began clearing the jungle undergrowth that was covering sites such as Uxmal and Palenque in Mexico, kicking off a journey of discovery that continues to this day. Because the Maya occupied dense sections of rainforest, finding ruins can be extremely complex. However, modern laser technology, satellite imaging, and ground-penetrating radar have made the job much easier, and new discoveries are still illuminating aspects of this fascinating culture. In 2018, for example, archaeologists mapped 810 square miles in northern Guatemala by using laser technology to peer through the rainforest’s dense canopy. What they discovered was 60,000 previously unknown Maya ruins — Stephen Houston, a professor of archeology and anthropology at Brown University at the time called the discovery “one of the greatest advances in over 150 years of Maya archaeology.” As recently as February 2023, a similar study revealed a “superhighway” of interconnected cities around 1000 to 350 BCE, showing just how sophisticated the ancient Maya were. As discoveries continue, it’s likely the full nature of this remarkable civilization will only become more clear over time.

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So Was the Trojan Horse Real?

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Drinking Gladiator Blood

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Going to the Bathroom in Close Quarters

Exercising and Competing Nude

Literally Scraping Sweat Off the Skin

Stamping Bread

The Most Intriguing Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Y6: Board Game Piece

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U37: Razor

A59: Man Threatening With a Stick

A36: Man Kneading and Straining Into a Vessel

D35: Arms in Gesture of Negation

D64: Hand With Palm Down

U13: Plough

The Oldest Written Languages in the World

Sumerian

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Egyptian

Akkadian

Tamil

Eblaite

Pama-Nyungan

Elamite

The Difference Between St. Valentine and Cupid

Who Is St. Valentine?

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6 Little-Known Facts About Greek Mythology

The Amazons Were Based on the Real Warrior Women of the Steppe

Greek Mythology’s Most Famous Author May Have Never Existed

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The Myth of Demeter and Persephone Gave Rise to a Secretive Cult

The Ancient City of Troy Actually Existed

The Olympic Games Have Roots in Greek Mythology

The Most Famous Temple to Athena Exploded in the 17th Century

5 Myths About the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra

Myth: Cleopatra Was Ethnically Egyptian

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