luke on The Ancient World

In this poem by Lord Byron, the poet re-imagines the ancient battle of Salamis, in which Xerxes, king of Persia was defeated by a Greek coalition in 480 B.C. The poem highlights how quickly the fortun...

Do you remember seeing the golden sarcophagus of the pharaoh Tutankhamun ? What has he got in his hands? If you remembered that he was holding a shepherd’s crook, you’re right (he is also holding a...

I don’t have the nerve to stand up on Christmas Eve and preach about the choreography of childbirth, but I wish I did. I wish I had the nerve to preach about Mary’s increased estrogen production, a...

One could not live in any village in lower Galilee and escape the effects and ramifications of urbanization.” Life here was urbanized and urbane as anywhere else in the Empire. Did these urban influen...

In the ancient world, a place where the veil between the earthly and spiritual was easily pierced, rumors and gossip about great leaders being born of the gods, especially amongst royals, was somewhat...

Two thousand years ago, triumphal processions were massively popular. It was, in all likelihood, the only chance most people would have to see the leaders and heroes of the day. For the Romans they t...

Up until the twentieth century, traditional cultures (and this is still true of most cultures in the world) always believed that too high a view of yourself was the root cause of all the evil in the w...