Library

Hecate holding twin torches at a three-way crossroads at night in ancient Greece

Hecate: The Goddess Even Zeus Left Alone

She was a Titan, and the Olympians did not touch her. When Zeus overthrew the old gods and carved up the cosmos between himself and his brothers, Hecate kept everything...

Hecate: The Goddess Even Zeus Left Alone

She was a Titan, and the Olympians did not touch her. When Zeus overthrew the old gods and carved up the cosmos between himself and his brothers, Hecate kept everything...

Eris, Greek goddess of discord, throwing the golden apple at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Eris: The Goddess Who Started the Trojan War

Eris, the Greek goddess of discord, threw a single golden apple at a wedding she was not invited to and triggered the Trojan War. But the ancient poets knew her...

Eris: The Goddess Who Started the Trojan War

Eris, the Greek goddess of discord, threw a single golden apple at a wedding she was not invited to and triggered the Trojan War. But the ancient poets knew her...

Ancient copper-zinc alloy ingot glowing in warm lamplight

Orichalcum: The Lost Metal

Orichalcum appears exactly twice in Plato's writings, both times describing the walls of a temple in a city that almost certainly never existed. That has not stopped two thousand years...

Orichalcum: The Lost Metal

Orichalcum appears exactly twice in Plato's writings, both times describing the walls of a temple in a city that almost certainly never existed. That has not stopped two thousand years...

Ancient metalworkers pouring molten bronze into a stone mould in a workshop

Ancient Metalworking: How Copper, Bronze, and I...

The history of metalworking is the history of civilisation. Every empire, every army, every trade route traces back to the moment someone discovered that certain rocks, heated to the right...

Ancient Metalworking: How Copper, Bronze, and I...

The history of metalworking is the history of civilisation. Every empire, every army, every trade route traces back to the moment someone discovered that certain rocks, heated to the right...

Bronze smith pouring molten metal from a crucible into a sword mould in a Late Bronze Age workshop

Bronze: The Alloy That Named an Era

Bronze changed everything. A simple alloy of copper and tin created the first long-distance trade networks, the first specialist artisan classes, and the first international arms races in human history....

Bronze: The Alloy That Named an Era

Bronze changed everything. A simple alloy of copper and tin created the first long-distance trade networks, the first specialist artisan classes, and the first international arms races in human history....

Lycurgus: The Spartan Lawgiver Who Might Have Been A Myth AD/BC

Lycurgus: The Spartan Lawgiver Who Might Have B...

Lycurgus supposedly created every institution that made Sparta Sparta. The agoge, the common messes, the land redistribution, the ban on gold and silver. The Delphic Oracle endorsed his laws as...

Lycurgus: The Spartan Lawgiver Who Might Have B...

Lycurgus supposedly created every institution that made Sparta Sparta. The agoge, the common messes, the land redistribution, the ban on gold and silver. The Delphic Oracle endorsed his laws as...