The first Bible to feature a map of the Holy Land was published 500 years ago in 1525. The map was initially printed the wrong way round – showing the Mediterranean to the East – but its inclusion set a precedent which continues to shape our understanding of state borders today, a new Cambridge study...
Mesopotamians, the ancient inhabitants of the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, are credited for many firsts in human history, including writing, urbanism and the state. Among these inventions, cylinder seals are perhaps the most distinctive but least known. Seals as artifacts Thousands of these tiny objects – often no bigger than 2 inches...
The October 7th massacre and the unprecedented war in Gaza compel Israel to rethink its conception of security. It cannot afford to do so without including a gender-based analysis. After two years of missiles, hostages, and the catastrophic toll of hunger and mass casualties of civilians in Gaza, Israel’s society is exhausted. After the war...
When Napoleon embarked upon a military expedition into Egypt in 1798, he brought with him a team of scholars, scientists and artists. Together, they produced the monumental “Description de l’Égypte,” a massive, multivolume work about Egyptian geography, history and culture. At the time, the United States was a young nation with big aspirations, and Americans...
Amid a shifting cityscape, artists, cultural workers, and the Continent’s oldest art fair have forged an inspiring path forward Johannesburg’s art scene is a picture of paradox. It is gritty and resilient, but also filled with energy and excitement. It has continuously thrived in the absence of institutional support and infrastructure. While facing the same...
Today a desert – as far as the eye can see. However, anyone looking more closely will discover hundreds of images carved into the rock. This ancient Egyptian graffiti attests to the fact that a new claim to sovereignty emerged here on the periphery over 5,000 years ago. One of these kings was known as...
Reflections on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on its 80th anniversary. Eighty years ago today, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people were immediately killed, and tens of thousands more died in the months and years that followed. The bomb virtually wiped Hiroshima from existence. Paul Tibbets,...
A review of Emilie A. Caspar, “Just Following Orders: Atrocities and the Brain Science of Obedience” (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Why do individuals obey commands to inflict terrible pain or even kill other people, sometimes people they may know personally? Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram’s famous—and controversial—studies in the 1960s suggested the answer lay in “agentic...
Pivotal Find Caps Four Decades of Discovery for the Team of Arlen and Diane Chase Archaeologists from the University of Houston working at Caracol in Belize, Central America have uncovered the tomb of Te K’ab Chaak, the first ruler of this ancient Maya city and the founder of its royal dynasty. Now in ruins, this...
Today, all non-Africans are known to have descended from a small group of people that ventured into Eurasia after around 50 thousand years ago. However, fossil evidence shows that there were numerous failed dispersals before this time that left no detectable traces in living people. In a paper published in Nature this week, new evidence for the...