Identity Crises of the Sirens: Wise Women, Murderesses or Singing Prostitutes?
Ancient cultures around the world saw the sea as a dangerous place, filled with beings who preyed upon people - especially men. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, whose Natural History Read More
Pure Luck: The Role of Chance in History
Luck is a way of understanding or judging how chance events affect our lives. Chance may be a mixed bag of marshmallows and razor blades, a flowing river of good and bad experiences; positive, negative, or improbable events. Throughout history,...
Was Alexander the Great Responsible for Creating Shangri-La in the Hunza Valley in Pakistan?
In his book Lost Horizon (1933) James Hilton created the legend of Shangri-La, a peaceful Himalayan valley of long-lived people. Where the northern border of the Gilgit-Ba...
The Ides of March, Celebration of Roman Goddess Anna Perenna
The assassination of Julius Caesar on the 15th of March 44 BC was a turning point in Roman history. Centuries later, the expression ‘Beware the Ides of March’ was found in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in 1601 in the soothsayer's message to Ju...
Unveiling the Secret Behind the Rosslyn Chapel’s and Dornoch Cathedral’s Green Men’s Missing Teeth
Scotland’s Rosslyn Chapel came under the world spotlight in 2003 after Dan Brown featured it in his bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. A hitherto unseen correspondence between this legendary chapel in southern Scotland and the magnificent ...
Where on Earth is Hell, Or Is It in Our Minds?
One of the most common fears shared by most humans at some time in their lives, is what will happen to them after they die? Many parents freeze when their children ask this question and avoiding the finality of the cold truth ‘we d...
Immortality Lies within the Legend: Is Gilgamesh Alive and Well?
In 1853, Hormuzad Rassam discovered fragments of an ancient Sumerian text which is now considered to be the first great work of literature our civilization ever produced. After its translation it was published in 1870 by George Smith. Although re...
Stairway to Heaven: Ancient Concepts About Heaven and the Afterlife
We recognize heaven as a place to which we will go after our deaths if we have led a good or virtuous life. It is a paradise accessible by earthly beings depending on their standards of faith or goodness. On the other hand, hell is home to evil, ...
Once Upon A Time: Concepts of Afterlife and Altered Consciousness Concealed in Faerie Folklore
Once upon a Time, they all lived happily ever-after. In the 1891 publication The Science of Fairy Tales, the folklorist Edwin Sidney Hartland devoted three chapters to ponder over ‘The Supernatural Lapse of Time in Fairyland.’ He mak...
Arth Vawr and the Pendragon: Astronomical Link Between the Great Bear and Draco Constellations and the Arthurian Legend?
From Mystery Hill and the spot dubbed Calendar Hill in New England to the venerable Stonehenge, from Incan Pyramids to the Australian outback, from the windswept northern Islands of Great Britain to sun-washed Egyptian ruins, the findings all are...