“For most Romans, nightlife consisted of drinking and gambling in the local tavern. But for members of the elite, it could be an epic progress from mansion to mansion and party to party, sometimes with a few dive bars between.” A Told In Stone video by Garrett Ryan.
More:
“Trump Angrily Orders Pence to Return All Classified Documents to Mar-a-Lago,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
After 300 years of hunting a mythical El Dorado in the Americas, archaeologists looked more closely at Amazonia’s forest floor, working with the remaining Indigenous people and excavated long ditches and mounds. Mapping them, they found the markings of large settlements; walls, moats, plazas, and roads connected to even more settlements, all over the Amazon. A Vox video by Sam Ellis.
More:
“‘Mind blowing’ ancient settlements uncovered in the Amazon,” Freda Kreier, Nature
From the 2nd century BC on, concrete (opus caementicium) was everywhere in the Roman Empire, in breakwaters of artificial harbors, soaring vaults of great public baths, the Colosseum, and the dome of the Pantheon. But during late antiquity, concrete all but vanished, and would not be used again until the twentieth century. Garrett Ryan explains.
Uber-evangelical Mr. Green runs a $5 billion, 932-store retail chain which claims to be “Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.” He was caught buying 11,500 looted artifacts (“Thou Shalt Not Steal”), and smuggling them into the country with forged invoices (“Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness”) because he really, really wanted them for his Museum of the Bible (“Thou Shalt Not Covet”). Money paid for many of Iraq’s looted antiquities was used to fund terrorism (“Thou Shalt Not Kill”).
Hobby Lobby closes on Sundays, so that sabbath-observing thing is covered, anyway.
After Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, he needed to keep the peace and rule over vast distances and peoples of different cultures, languages and faiths. Neil MacGregor explains how a clay cylinder helped achieve that.
The Comune di Craco is a village in the Province of Matera, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. It became a ghost town, partly due to it’s own success, partly because of natural processes. A Science Channel video.
Archaeologist Konstantinos Sismanidis believes he has discovered the 2400 year-old tomb of Aristotle (384-322 BC) on a hilltop in Stagira, in the Greek region of Macedonia. Stagira was the hometown of Aristotle, the ancient philosopher who tutored Alexander the Great, so it would be especially fitting if the domed tomb was built to honor his ashes. There’s no real physical proof backing up the claim, and some classicists are skeptical. In any case, it’s a great looking structure:
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