Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy. The journey of Aeneas from Troy (with help from Aphrodite), which led to the founding of the city Ro...

When Schliemann, excavated a Mycenaean grave shaft, he discovered this mask and thought he had "gazed upon the face of Agamemnon," the great king from The Iliad. Although the Mycenaeans flourished around 1500 or 1600 BCE, earlier than the s...

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and...

The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, centered along the Nile Valley in what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. The region of Nubia was an early cradle of civilization, producing several complex societies that engag...

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 763,800 residents. The city has a history that goes back to the 4th millennium BCE, making it one of the oldest cities in the world. J...

The zodiac is an area of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The paths of the Moon a...

The Torah is the Hebrew name for the five books of Moses—the Law of Moses or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. The Torah is believed by Orthodox Jews to have been handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai and transmitted by him to...

The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata. It depicts th...

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa. Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandavas, the Mahabh...

Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy, residing between the Apennines and the River Tiber, whom the ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci. As distinguished by...

According to historical records, the first ancient Olympic Games can be traced back to 776 BC. They were dedicated to the Olympian gods and were staged on the ancient plains of Olympia. They continued for nearly 12 centuries, until Emperor...

Rome's history spans more than two and a half thousand years, since its legendary founding in 753 BC. Rome is one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe. It is referred to as "The Eternal City" (Latin: Roma Aeterna), a central...

Laozi (also Lao-Tzu or Lao-Tze, literally "Old Master") was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is known as the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, the founder of philosophical Taoism, and a deity in religious Taoism and tradition...

Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great and also called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, e...

Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the eastern part of ancien...