A magical night at Delphi, one of the most important sacred sites of the ancient world.

According to ancient Greek mythology, Zeus released two eagles from opposite ends of the world. The place where they met, at Delphi, was believed to mark the center of the world, known as the “Navel of the Earth” (Omphalos).

For centuries, Delphi served as a major religious and spiritual center of the ancient Greek world. At the famous Oracle of Apollo, the Pythia delivered prophecies to individuals, rulers, and representatives of city-states seeking guidance on important decisions, from personal matters to wars and the founding of colonies.

More than two thousand years later, the ancient monuments still stand beneath the same moon, reminding us of a world where mythology, religion, and history were deeply intertwined.

📷 Original photograph taken by me during the August 2025 full moon at Delphi, Greece.

Archaeologists have identified previously unknown buildings, fortifications, tombs, and water systems at the ancient city of Butrint in southern Albania.

A new laser survey has revealed structures concealed by dense vegetation, including a possible public building near the Roman Forum and a church with three apses. One of the Mediterranean’s most extensively studied ancient cities has yielded a series of unexpected discoveries.

At Butrint, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southern Albania, archaeologists have identified monumental structures that had escaped documentation for decades, including a large building that may have stood alongside the city’s Roman Forum.

The discoveries suggest that significant parts of Butrint’s ancient urban landscape remain unexplored, even a century after modern archaeological investigations began.

The findings were announced on October 26 by the University of Bologna, whose archaeological mission works in partnership with the Archaeological Institute of Tirana. Using drone-mounted laser technology and ground surveys, the team identified previously unknown buildings, defensive walls, water installations and burials both within the archaeological park and in the surrounding hills.

I hope you like this post, my sincere regards from Egypt ...

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This list presents the pharaohs and queens of Ancient Egypt as preserved in medieval Arabian and Coptic literature. It is a composite of Manetho transmitted through Christian chronographers, Qur’anic and Biblical sacred history, Coptic folklore, and popular legend.

It reflects a long chain of translation and linguistic mediation: from ancient Egyptian into Greek, then into Coptic during Greco-Roman period in Egypt, and finally into Arabic in the medieval period.

The list does not claim complete historical authenticity; it is just an attempt to show how ancient Egyptian rulers were transformed into legendary and religious names in Coptic Arabic memory.

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Arabian sources:

1. Futuh Misr wa al-Maghrib (The Conquest of Egypt and the Maghreb)

— Ibn Abd al-Hakam (c. 801–871 CE)

1. Muruj al-Dhahab wa Kitab Al-Tarikh (Meadows of Gold and Book of History)

— Al-Masudi (Herodotus of Arabs) (c. 896–956 CE)

1. Mujam al-Buldan (Lexicon of Countries)

— Yaqut al-Hamawi (c. 1179–1229 CE)

1. Al-Nujum al-Zahira fi Muluk Misr wa al-Qahira (The Shining Stars Concerning the Kings of Egypt and Cairo)

— Ibn Taghribirdi (c. 1411–1470 CE)

1. Husn al-Muhadara fi Tarikh Misr wa al-Qahira (The Agreeable Discussion of the History of Egypt and Cairo)

— Al-Suyuti (c. 1445–1505 CE)

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The Arabic name Misr - Masr (مصر)

Misr is an ancient Semitic name, not originally Egyptian: it appears in Akkadian as Musur and Hebrew as Mizraim or Mitsrayim, likely meaning "settled land" or "protected borderland." Pre-Islamic Arabs used it, and it became the standard Arabic name for Egypt, while the ancient Egyptians called their land Kemet ("Black Land"). In religious tradition, the name is linked to Misrayim, son of Ham son of Noah, the biblical ancestor of the Egyptians.

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The Antediluvian Pyramid Builders (Before biblical flood)

Khaslim (خصليم)

Khaslim is an early legendary king of Egypt credited with building a Nilometer. He placed two bronze eagles—male and female—at the site. Priests read incantations; if the male eagle whistled, the Nile flood would be good and high, but if the female whistled, the flood would be disastrous and drought would follow.

Etymology and reasoning: The name Khaslim may be an alteration of Khasekhemwy (Egyptian Ḫʿsḫmwy). The reasoning is phonetic but weak: the consonantal skeleton kh-s-kh-m could be reduced and reshaped in Coptic/Arabic transmission as kh-s-l-m, with l replacing the second kh. The identification is supported mainly by narrative structure: Khasekhemwy was an early Memphite ruler associated with unification and control of the Nile, and Arabic tradition assigns Nilometers and waterworks to early kings.

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Surid ibn Salhuq (سوريد بن سلهوق)

In Arabian literature, Surid is the great antediluvian king of Egypt who foresaw the Flood in a dream and ordered the building of the Pyramids of Giza to preserve knowledge and serve as his tomb. He is often linked with Idris/Enoch or Hermes Trismegistus.

Historical identification: Khufu (Cheops), builder of the Great Pyramid.

Etymology and reasoning: The identification is phonetic. Surid maybe was derived from Souphis, which is the name the Egyptian historan Manetho gave for Khufu.

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Hujib (هوجيب)

In the same tradition, Hujib is the brother of Surid and is said to be buried in the second, western pyramid at Giza.

Historical identification: Khafre (Chephren), builder of the second pyramid.

Etymology and reasoning: The identification rests mainly on structural mapping. Arabic tradition assigns the three Giza pyramids to a father/brother/son sequence.

Historically, the second pyramid belongs to Khafre, a son of Khufu. The name Hujib is maybe altered from Hotep, but its narrative role as second pyramid builder and royal relative fixes the identification with Khafre.

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Karuras (كروراس)

In Arabian literature, Karuras is the son of Hujib and is buried in the third, smaller pyramid at Giza, often called the “Colored Pyramid.”

Historical identification: Menkaure (Mycerinus), builder of the third pyramid at Giza.

Etymology and reasoning: The structural reason is decisive: Arabic tradition makes the third pyramid belong to the son of the second pyramid’s builder. Historically, the third pyramid belongs to Menkaure, son of Khafre (Hujib) and grandson of Khufu (Surid).

Manetho’s form was Menkheres. In the long oral and written transmission, the initial Men- was lost or weakened, and the remaining consonants (kheres / kherres) were reshaped in Arabic as Karuras.

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After the Flood

Tutis (طوطيس)

The first of the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Pharaoh of Abraham. He tried to seduce Sarah, Abraham's wife; his hand withered when he reached for her, and after repenting he returned her and gave her Hagar as a maidservant who bore him Ishmael, the father of Arabs. Some versions say he embraced Abraham's faith.

Historical identification: Proposed candidates include Sanakht (Third Dynasty) and Nebkaure Khety IV (Tenth Dynasty), but he appears in no ancient Egyptian king-list.

Etymology and reasoning: The name has been linked to the Egyptian Taautos or Tet/Teta, and to a suggested Semitic root meaning "to light" or "set on fire." The reasoning is phonetic and comparative, not a direct derivation. The tradition also explains the title "Pharaoh" itself: Ṭūṭīs was the first called Pharaoh because he was cruel and bloody. 

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Joryaq (جورياق)

According to Arab historian al-Maqrizi, Joryaq was the daughter of the first Pharaoh, Tutis, and seized the throne after killing her father Tutis. She is described as a powerful ruler who promoted priests and magicians. Joryaq ruled Egypt after her father Toutis, and in her reign, the Amalekite king of Syria sent an army against Egypt led by Jirun, but in the (alternative) version, it is more likely that the Amalekite "Al-Walid bin Dum'a" was the one who invaded Egypt.

Historical identification: No single historical counterpart. She may be a legendary composite drawing on memory of figures such as Nitocris or Sobekneferu.

Etymology and reasoning: The name does not correspond to any known Egyptian queen’s name and appears to be a literary invention within the Arabic legendary cycle.

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The Amalekite / Hyksos Dynasty

Al-Walid ibn Duma' (الوليد بن دومع)

In Arabic chronicles, al-Walid ibn Duma' is the first of five Amalekite kings who ruled Egypt after its native rulers weakened. He is described as a Syrian conqueror who ruled for about a hundred years before being killed by a wild beast.

Historical identification: No direct Egyptian counterpart. He is best understood as a legendary refraction of the Hyksos period, when foreign rulers from the Levant controlled Egypt.

Etymology and reasoning: The name Duma' has no Egyptian etymological root. Arabic tradition remembers a Syrian conqueror founding a foreign dynasty, which mirrors the Hyksos takeover. The name itself is likely derived from a real Hyksos pharaoh name. especially since Arabs thought that Amalekites were the Hyksos and thought of them as one of the "The Extinct Arabs". So it is not strange that he got an Arabic name

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Al-Rayyan ibn al-Walid (الريان بن الوليد) sometimes called Nahraus (نهراوس)

Al-Rayyan succeeds his father and is remembered as the Pharaoh of Joseph. He is presented as a just ruler who appointed Joseph over the granaries and eventually embraced his monotheistic faith.

Historical identification: Apepi (Apophis) or Khyan, a Hyksos kings.

Etymology and reasoning: The name al-Rayyan has a strong, monumentally attested phonetic link to the name Ra-i-a-n associated with the Hyksos king Apepi. The alternative name Nahraus has been linked, on phonetic grounds, to the Hyksos king Khyan according to the modern Egyptian scholar Ahmad Kamal. Kamal read the cartouche of the Hyksos king Khyan as Ne Re Ous and argued this is the origin of Arabic Nahraus.

The Hyksos-era setting also fits the prophet Joseph story.

The Wadi Al-Rayyan nature reserve in Fayoum is said to be named after Al-Rayyan ibn al-Walid, based on a legend where the king and his army sat down there to rest.

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Darim ibn al-Rayyan (دارم بن الريان)

Darim succeeds his father al-Rayyan. Arabic sources say prophet Joseph died during his reign.

Historical identification: No direct historical counterpart (Maybe unknown Hyksos king)

Etymology and reasoning: The name Darim has no known Egyptian royal root. It appears to be a literary/genealogical invention bridging Pharaoh al-Rayyan and the later Pharaoh of Moses.

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Kaimis ibn Ma'dan (كامس بن معدان)

Kaimis is the fourth Amalekite king in this sequence, ruling after Darim and before the Pharaoh of Moses.

Historical identification: No direct historical counterpart.

Etymology and reasoning: Like Darim, the name has no Egyptian etymological root. It functions as a narrative placeholder in the Arabic king-list.

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Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab (الوليد بن مصعب)

This is the name most commonly given to the Pharaoh of Moses, the archetypal tyrant who opposed prophets Moses and Aaron, and oppressed the Israelites and was drowned in the Red Sea during his chasing of them with his counselors and army.

Historical identification: Most widespread identification is Ramesses II, though Merneptah and Thutmose III are also mentioned. But some say that the Pharaoh of Moses was a Hyksos or Amalekite.

Etymology and reasoning: The reasoning is not etymological, since the name is Arabic. It rests on narrative convergence: Arabic tradition places the Exodus in a period of monumental building and imperial power, matching the Ramesside era. The Qur’anic phrase "dhu al-awtad" (“possessor of the stakes”) has been linked by some to obelisks and massive constructions of Ramesses II. also in the Bible in Exodus 1:11, which states: "So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh."

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Queen Figures Around the Exodus

Assiya (آسية)

Assiya in Islamic tradition is the righteous wife of Pharaoh who secretly believes in God, rescues the infant Moses from the Nile, and is venerated as one of the four perfect women. She is a figure of faith and moral resistance within Pharaoh’s household.

Historical identification: She is a theological and literary archetype, not a specific historical queen.

Etymology and reasoning: The name Asiya is Arabic and serves a moral and salvific purpose in the Qur’anic story. No etymological link to a historical Egyptian queen is intended.

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Daluka (دلوكة)

Daluka is a legendary warrior-queen who rules Egypt after the drowning of the Pharaoh of Moses. She is credited with building a massive wall around Egypt, the “Wall of the Old Woman,” and with constructing the Lighthouse of Alexandria and a Nilometer at Memphis.

Historical identification: Tausret (Tawosret), last ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

Etymology and reasoning: The reasoning is literary preservation of memory. Tausret’s reign was remembered into the tenth century CE in Egyptian tradition, and in Arabic chronicles she appears as Daluqa. The name Daluka is a transformation of Tausret through oral and written transmission. The legendary elaboration is secondary; the core identification rests on continuity of a female royal memory from the New Kingdom into Islamic-era literature.

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Al-Maqrizi’s Later Dynastic List

Al-Maqrizi preserves twenty-seven “Coptic kings” said to have reigned after Daluka. Their names are altered transmissions of Manetho’s list. Examples include Sumanas (possibly Sneferu), Sesunakhosis (Senusret), and Uafris (Apries).

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The End ...

The Sahara Savannah

Five thousand years ago, the Sahara was a lush green landscape. It hosted flowing rivers, deep lakes, and vast savannahs capable of supporting prodigious animal populations. Today, it is an arid wasteland. The acute shift between these two climatic extremes completely reshaped human history across North Africa.

During the African Humid Period, pastoral communities thrived across this bounteous landscape. Their wealth walked on four legs. Anthropologists refer to this phenomenon as the "Cattle Complex" (a cultural system where livestock dictates social status, economic power, and daily survival). Rock art at sites like Tassili n'Ajjer depict sprawling, healthy herds moving freely across the continent. The Holocene aridification abruptly changed this reality. As the global climate shifted, the monsoon rains failed and the Sahara began to dry around 3000 BCE. The transition from a green savannah to the desert we know today took a mere thousand years, or 40 to 50 generations.

Oued Beht and the Iberian Connection

Before the Maghreb (the coastal strip encompassing modern Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) became a demographic trap, it was a dynamic agricultural powerhouse. Long before the dolmens of Roknia were built, the coastal strip of North Africa was deeply connected to the European mainland.

The proof lies on a limestone ridge overlooking the Oued Beht river in Morocco. Occupied between 3400 and 2900 BCE, Oued Beht is the earliest and largest agricultural mega-site in Africa outside the Nile corridor (Broodbank et al., 2024). Stretching across ten hectares, this settlement was contemporaneous with the great Copper Age bastions of southern Iberia, such as Los Millares.

The two coastlines were not strangers; they were active trading partners. The inhabitants of Oued Beht farmed the same domesticated package of wheat, barley, sheep, and pigs as their Iberian neighbours. They produced dark-on-light painted pottery that perfectly matches styles found in southern Spain. Genetic analysis from Iberian graves reveals the presence of Saharan pastoralists, proving that people, as well as goods, were crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.

Oued Beht solves a major archaeological puzzle from the Iberian Peninsula. When the elites at Valencina de la Concepción buried their 'Ivory Lady' with African ivory and ostrich eggshells, those exotica were flowing through Maghrebian hubs exactly like Oued Beht.

The Silos of Oued Beht

Even at this early date, we see the first whispers of the "Architecture of Anxiety." Oued Beht is defined by its pits. Archaeologists have uncovered a massive concentration of deep, subterranean silos carved into the site, mirroring the 'silo culture' that stretched from Portugal to western Andalucia.

These were not casual storage bins. As the African Humid Period began to wane and the rains became less reliable, the farmers of Oued Beht engaged in large-scale food hoarding. They used heavy polished stone axes to clear land and huge grinding stones to process their harvest, safeguarding the surplus in the bedrock.

This prosperity could not outlast the climate. As the 3rd millennium BCE progressed, the Saharan aridification accelerated. The great agricultural exchange network between Morocco and Iberia fractured. Farming mega-sites like Oued Beht were eventually abandoned, leaving the Maghreb to the nomadic pastoralists fleeing the expanding desert.

The Northern Bottleneck

The pastoralists faced a new, bleak reality. Sand replaced grass, and the herds began to starve, forcing entire populations to move to survive. They pushed north toward the Mediterranean coast. This was not a conscious migration. The herders and their cattle were simply staying within their ecological niche zone as the zone itself moved north.

The Maghreb offered a temporary refuge. Sheltered by the Atlas Mountains, this region retained enough moisture to support grass. The geography quickly created a demographic trap. The shrinking habitable zone confined thousands of migrating herders into a tight coastal corridor, and competition for grazing land skyrocketed.

Roknia and the Architecture of Paranoia

The necropolis of Roknia sits in northeastern Algeria, presenting a bizarre archaeological anomaly. The site contains over 7,000 dolmens spread across a barren rocky plateau barely two square kilometres in area. These structures lack the architectural grandeur of the Iberian or Sardinian megaliths. While built in the classic dolmen style, upright standing stones supporting a heavy capstone above ground, they are drastically scaled down. Averaging barely a metre in length, they are small, brutalist, utilitarian stone boxes. These were not individual graves but collective clan vaults, designed to be reopened generation after generation to receive new bodies.

The builders were not wealthy maritime traders hoarding copper or obsidian. They were cattle herders inhabiting a dying environment. The staggering concentration of tombs at Roknia reveals a landscape saturated with territorial tension. The archaeological record here shows a distinct pattern of behaviour. Whilst thousands of monuments crowd a single plateau, the builders positioned the tombs on prominent ridges overlooking the valleys. The dolmens required minimal engineering, prioritising speed and volume over monumental scale.

Staking Claims in a Shrinking World

The dolmens of Roknia represent the frantic staking of grazing rights. In a world where pastureland meant the difference between life and death, territorial ambiguity was a fatal flaw. The pastoralists used stone to anchor their claims (Savage, 2001).

The first dolmens appeared just as the Saharan aridification reached its climax and stabilised into a hyper-arid desert around 2000 BCE. The populations, now fully confined within the Maghreb bottleneck, began asserting their land rights. Archaeologically, the necropolis was in use for over a millennium, with the bulk of the construction generally dated from the early 2nd millennium BCE through to the 1st millennium BCE (roughly 2000 - 1500 BCE down into the Iron Age and Numidian periods). The necropolis is the result of centuries of continuous, generational land-staking by competing pastoral clans trapped in a shrunken world.

Burying the dead in visible, permanent monuments transformed a transient pastoral group into a rooted, land-holding entity. A dolmen sent a clear message to rival tribes pushing up from the drying south. Our ancestors rest in this rock, and this valley belongs to us.

Isolation in a Shrinking World

The megalithic builders of Iberia, Sardinia, and Sicily were plugged into an extensive maritime exchange network. The pastoralists of the Maghreb were entirely cut off. The initial grave goods at Roknia reflect this isolation. Excavators opening the earliest dolmens did not find imported Alpine greenstone or international Bell Beaker ceramics. They found the material culture of desert survival. The early tombs yield handmade, unpainted pottery, simple bone tools, and beads crafted from ostrich eggshells.

This creates a historical irony. During the Iberian Copper Age zenith (c. 3000–2500 BCE), nomadic ancestors of these African herders likely harvested ostrich eggs. They fed coastal trade networks bound for Spain. By the time the Maghreb herders began building dolmens around 2000 BCE, great Iberian strongholds like Los Millares were already abandoned. The 4.2-kiloyear BP climate shock had completely rewired Mediterranean trade.

This absolute isolation defines their specific strain of anxiety. The Iberian elites built bastions to defend against prestige-hungry rivals. The pastoralists of Roknia built to survive a dying ecology. Yet, despite being disconnected from the coastal cabotage (short-range maritime trade) that linked the Mediterranean islands, these African herders arrived at the exact same architectural solution. When faced with existential stress, human beings instinctively use heavy stone to anchor themselves to the earth.

Only as centuries passed did this closed loop begin to open. Later burials within the Roknia necropolis reveal a subtle material shift. Archaeologists recover tiny quantities of imported metal, specifically small copper rings, bracelets, and fibulae (clothing clasps). Because the Maghreb lacks the rich copper deposits that fuelled the Iberian economy, these trinkets represent the first tentative tendrils of reestablished outside contact. The herders, after a millennium of isolation, were reconnecting with the broader Mediterranean exchange networks, acquiring easily portable metal items rather than massive prestige goods.

Roknia is not an isolated case. Across the eastern Maghreb, sites like Bou Nouara in Algeria, and Djebel Gorra and Ellès in Tunisia, echo this exact phenomenon. Separated by vast distances, independent pastoral clans arrived at the identical architectural solution. They built vast necropolises of miniature dolmens to claim shrinking grazing territories.

The Tyranny of Distance: Divided Destinies

A profound silence exists between the isolated dolmens of Roknia and the coastal settlements of the west. The Maghreb is vast. Over a thousand kilometres of unforgiving terrain, including the jagged peaks of the Rif and the sprawling Atlas Mountains, separate northeastern Algeria from the Strait of Gibraltar.

During the Bronze Age, merchants lacked the ultimate desert transport: the camel. Moving bulk goods laterally across this landscape was economically unviable. The herders of Roknia fought a local war for survival, moving only at the speed of grazing cattle from one shrinking patch of grass to the next. The coastal farmers faced the sea. For them, the Strait of Gibraltar acted as a frictionless maritime highway. Geography dictated their distinct destinies. The sea linked the coast to the Mediterranean network, while the mountains and the expanding desert locked the interior into a closed, terrestrial loop. It is important to realise that within this closed loop, the herders maintained lateral mobility. While trapped latitudinally between the sand and the sea, they moved longitudinally across thousands of kilometres. Pastoral clans from western Algeria to Tunisia intermarried and traded cattle along this horizontal corridor. This lateral exchange kept their populations genetically viable, even as their ecological world shrank.

The Coastal Exception: Mzoura and Kach Kouch

Just 50 kilometres south of Tangier lies the Cromlech of Mzoura. Here, the architecture scales up dramatically. Mzoura is a massive stone circle consisting of 167 monoliths enclosing a central burial mound. The tallest standing stone stands over five metres high. Erecting a monolith of this size requires a hierarchical society possessing the agricultural surplus to feed a massive, organized labour force. Unlike the desperate inland herders, the builders of Mzoura operated within a dynamic maritime zone, projecting power and controlling trade along the Atlantic coast.

While the pastoralists of Roknia were trapped on their rocky inland plateaus, the extreme northwestern coast of the Maghreb tells a different story. The Strait of Gibraltar never completely slammed shut. The recent excavations at Kach Kouch, perched on a limestone outcrop overlooking the Oued Laou Valley in Morocco, prove that the Mediterranean flank of North Africa was not a terra nullius (an empty, unclaimed land) waiting passively for Eastern Mediterranean explorers.

Occupation at Kach Kouch began around 2200 BCE, at the same time as the 4.2-kiloyear BP climate shock was devastating the Iberian mainland and forcing the Saharan herders to build their dolmens. Because Kach Kouch sat at the head of a navigable paleo-estuary, its inhabitants were insulated from total isolation. They maintained a steady, if reduced, maritime lifeline to the Iberian Peninsula.

This coastal connectivity is echoed nearby in the fertile Gharb plain, where archaeologists have found Bell Beaker ceramics, and around Tangier, where Early Bronze Age cist cemeteries (stone-lined graves) mirror those of southern Spain. The Maghreb coast remained part of the shared western Mediterranean cultural vocabulary.

By the time Kach Kouch reached its second phase (1300–900 BCE), it was a stable, prosperous agricultural community living in wattle-and-daub houses. They grew wheat and barley and raised livestock, proving definitively that a settled Bronze Age society thrived here long before the first Phoenician ships appeared on the horizon.

The Eastern Horizon and Local Agency

When those Levantine sailors finally did arrive after 900 BCE, they did not discover a cultural vacuum. They encountered an active, adaptable local population.

The final phase of Kach Kouch (800–600 BCE) captures this hybridisation perfectly. The local inhabitants began importing Eastern Mediterranean technologies. They adopted wheel-thrown pottery like amphorae (large storage jugs) to replace their handmade wares. They acquired iron tools and began planting new cash crops like grapes and olives. They even upgraded their traditional wattle-and-daub architecture by adding Phoenician-style stone plinths (foundations).

This was not a replacement of the local culture, it was a dynamic fusion. The inhabitants of Kach Kouch were not passive recipients of foreign superiority; they were active Mediterranean brokers choosing to upgrade their technology. When the site was peacefully abandoned around 600 BCE, its people likely folded into the booming new coastal cities, such as Carthage, taking their ancient, resilient agricultural heritage with them.

The Maghreb, therefore, offers a dual narrative of prehistoric anxiety and endurance. In the dying interior, the shifting climate forced pastoralists to anchor their claims with thousands of stone dolmens. But on the coast, resilient farming communities leveraged the geography of the Strait of Gibraltar to keep the African frontier connected to the wider world.

References and Further Reading

Broodbank, C., Lucarini, G., Bokbot, Y., et al. (2024). 'Oued Beht, Morocco: a complex early farming society in north-west Africa and its implications for western Mediterranean interaction during later prehistory'. Antiquity, pp. 1-20.

Savage, E. (2001). The Deserted Village: Landscape and History in the Central Sahara. Oxford University Press.

Archaeologists once considered Caracol a minor site barely worth their time, but its remoteness turned out to be an asset. Other Maya strongholds like Tikal in Guatemala and Chichén Itzá in Mexico were first encountered by European colonists in the 19th century. Caracol, hidden in dense tropical forest, had barely been excavated when the Chases arrived in the 1980s.

Over the following decades their painstaking work exploded a number of misleading myths about the Maya. For centuries, most scholarly assumptions about this ancient civilization came from the writings of Friar Diego de Landa, a 16th-century Spaniard who lived as a missionary among the Maya communities in the Yucatán.

By his own account, de Landa burned most of the Maya’s hieroglyphic codices. “These people also used certain characters or letters, with which they wrote in their books about the antiquities and their sciences,” de Landa wrote in Yucatán Before and After the Conquest.

“We found a great number of books in these letters, and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the devil, we burned them all, which they took most grievously, and which gave them great pain.”

As American scholar William Gates wrote, introducing his English translation of de Landa’s writings, the bishop “burned 99 times as much knowledge of Maya history and sciences as he has given us.”

De Landa falsely portrayed the Maya as largely an impoverished rural peasantry lorded over by a ruthless aristocracy who dwelled in monumental cities. “The Spanish imposed their worldview on everything over here,” Arlen said.

“And if you look back at Spain in the 1500s, what are you dealing with? You had knights and nobles in castles, and everyone else was scattered throughout the countryside. The Spaniards slapped that two-class model onto the Maya.” 

By the time Arlen and Diane were in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s, more was known about the ancient culture—for instance, that the Maya had designed one of the world’s most sophisticated calendars and held a deep understanding of astronomy, mathematics and architecture.

But most scholars saw the Maya as peaceful stargazers so absorbed by gauzy ceremonial pursuits that they neglected certain practical concerns.

Hello, I apologise if this is the wrong sub for this question. If so, please let me know and point me to the right direction. If I'm in the right place, I thank you in advance for any answers.

I have been thinking about the various roles of ritual [temple] offerings and sacrifices in ancient civilisations; it appears to me that one elemental purpose in many civilisations (Vedic, Mesopotamian, Greek, etc) was appeasement, i.e. offerings/sacrifices to avert or alleviate divine wrath and punishment (a theme continues in Abrahamic religions). Similarly, there is the element of substitute sacrifices and/or sacrifice of personally precious items (or even persons), for example weapons in ancient Germanic culture.

In addition, as per ancient Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian mythology, humans were solely created to take the workload of the gods so to speak and to serve them. In ancient Greek civilisation human hubris was the greatest affront to the gods and met with unbridled wrath.

This seems to stand in contrast to ancient Egyptian and other ancient African civilisations, where the purpose of offerings was to strengthen the gods to uphold ma'at, which gods and humans are supposed to uphold together.

It appears that the element of offerings and sacrifices as appeasement and averting divine punishment is missing here; as well as showing a different relationship between divinities and humans.

Am I missing or misreading anything? Also, I wonder, if correct in my assessment, where this difference stems from?

A gold medallion minted under the Roman emperor Diocletian around 290 AD in Ticinum (Pavia, Italy). He is known for many things including splitting the empire in east and west with the Tetrarchy (2 emperors and 2 junior colleagues), various battles including sacking the capital of Persia: Ctesiphon (near modern day Baghdad, Iraq), price edict (to stop inflation by listing maximum prices for goods and services), having the Baths of Diocletian in Rome built and retiring after his abdication to his palace in what is modern day Split, Croatia.

This obverse side shows a magnificent portrait of him with the legend IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIANVS P F AVG while the reverse (which one doesn't see in the museum) shows Jupiter on a throne with a lightning bolt in his hand. It weighs 26.55 g and is on display in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria.

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Η Βεργίνα, στη βόρεια Ελλάδα, βρίσκεται στη θέση των αρχαίων Αιγών, της πρώτης πρωτεύουσας του μακεδονικού βασιλείου. Ο αρχαιολογικός χώρος, γνωστός για τους βασιλικούς τάφους και το ανάκτορο του Φιλίππου Β΄, αποτελεί Μνημείο Παγκόσμιας Κληρονομιάς της UNESCO.

Κατά την επίσκεψή μου τον Νοέμβριο του 2024, φωτογράφισα μια ενδιαφέρουσα παρουσίαση που συνδέει την αρχιτεκτονική του ανακτόρου με τα μαθηματικά του Πλάτωνα.

Στον διάλογο Τίμαιος, ο Πλάτων περιγράφει την Ψυχή του Κόσμου μέσα από τη μαθηματική ακολουθία:

1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27

Σύμφωνα με την αρχαιολόγο Αγγελική Κοτταρίδη, μια γεωμετρική διάταξη τετραγώνων και δωδεκαγώνων μέσα σε επτά ομόκεντρους κύκλους παρουσιάζει αντιστοιχίες με την κάτοψη του ανακτόρου. Ο έβδομος κύκλος συνδέεται με τη θέση της ορχήστρας του γειτονικού αρχαίου θεάτρου.

Θα μπορούσε λοιπόν το ανάκτορο του Φιλίππου Β΄, που κατασκευάστηκε τον 4ο αιώνα π.Χ., να έχει σχεδιαστεί με βάση φιλοσοφικές και μαθηματικές αρχές του Πλάτωνα;

Πρόκειται για μια ενδιαφέρουσα αρχαιολογική ερμηνεία, χωρίς όμως να έχει αποδειχθεί ότι ο αρχαίος αρχιτέκτονας εφάρμοσε συνειδητά αυτές τις αρχές.

Εσείς τι πιστεύετε;

Πηγή: Αγγελική Κοτταρίδη, επεξηγηματική παρουσίαση στον αρχαιολογικό χώρο των Αιγών.

From central Peru. I won’t mind wearing it this coming Halloween.

I ran across a section in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (Book 7, section 64) that absolutely floored me. He claims that contact with menstrual blood could tarnish steel blades, turn new wine sour, and kill crops. He also says mirrors get clouded, and dogs go completely insane if they taste the fluid.

Obviously, it’s nonsense. But Pliny put this directly into what was supposed to be a massive reference work of human knowledge. In his preface, he notes that he compiled the encyclopedia using roughly 2,000 volumes written by previous authors, so he was pulling from a long literary tradition rather than inventing it himself.

I’m trying to get a sense of how seriously the average Roman took this. I looked at a 2022 paper by Sophie Chavarria on Roman views of menstruation, and she points out that some medical writers like Galen distance themselves from the more magical claims, but no ancient author flatly denies the powers.

Were writers like Pliny just repeating over-the-top folklore for the sake of filling an encyclopedia, or did the average person on the street genuinely believe it?

Archaeologists digging through an ancient burial complex on Peru’s desert coast stumbled upon a dog mummy that looked almost too well preserved to be ancient. Its skeleton was nearly complete, and even its skin was still intact. They initially thought this was a relatively recent burial, perhaps dating to the looting that had ravaged the site some 50 years earlier.

But radiocarbon analysis showed that dog hadn’t been buried 50 years ago. It had been dead for roughly 1,200 years.

The animal had lived sometime between 688 and 870 CE, when the Wari Empire ruled much of what is now Peru, centuries before the rise of the Incas.

Archaeologists have excavated and dated one of the Sahara's stone "antenna" tombs. The burial inside is between 4,100 and 4,400 years old and holds a young adult laid to rest with four ostrich eggshell beads. On a gravel plain in northern Western Sahara, with no shade for miles, there is a heap of stones 54.5 meters (179 feet) long.

Two rows of stone slabs run out from it like the arms of a V that never quite closes. Archaeologists call these rows “antennae”, and the monuments antennae tumuli (a tumulus is simply a mound of piled earth or stone).

They are common in Western Sahara and well beyond it, from the Atlantic coast to the heart of the Sahara.

Almost nobody had excavated one, though, so two basic questions had no answer: what were they for, and when were they built?

A study published on 20 October 2026 in African Archaeological Review answers both. Its authors are Joaquim Soler, Helena Ventura, Isaac Rufí, Neus Coromina, Jordi Revelles, Maria Saña, Laura Moll and Narcís Soler, who work at the Catalan Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, the University of Girona, the University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Institute for Catalan Studies.

The monument they dug turned out to be a tomb. Two radiocarbon dates, the first ever obtained for this type of monument in the Atlantic Sahara, show it was built between 4,100 and 4,400 years ago.

Les archéologues de la Ville de Paris et de l’Inrap ont mis au jour cet été un mur de vingt mètres en pierre et en bois sous l’Hôtel-Dieu, sur l’île de la Cité. Les datations au carbone 14 le situent entre 200 et 10 avant notre ère.

Si l’hypothèse se confirme, ce serait le rempart de la Lutèce des Parisii, la cité décrite par César en 52 av. J.-C. Jusqu’ici, les spécialistes situaient cette Lutèce plutôt du côté de Nanterre. Des traces d’incendie sur les ruines correspondent au récit de César, qui raconte que les Parisii avaient brûlé leur propre ville avant l’arrivée des légions.

Ce qui est fascinant, c’est qu’il a fallu attendre 2026 pour trouver la première preuve physique reliant directement la Lutèce gauloise au Paris que l’on connaît. Ça montre à quel point on sous-estime ce qui se trouve encore sous nos pieds.

Article complet : https://www.paris.fr/pages/cette-decouverte-archeologique-exceptionnelle-pourrait-changer-l-histoire-de-paris-36514

A Roman hand (with some of its silver plating still attached) of Sabazios, which would have been used in ritual worship. It dates to 15-9 BC and was found in the Roman military camp of Dangstetten, Germany. It is now on display in the Colombischlössle in Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany.