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Researcher Valeria Piano employs two different technological methods to decipher a carbonized scroll from Herculaneum. First, she uses a microscope to examine the texts, and then she studies images of the scrolls produced with infrared light. Her work has brought to light a history of Rome written by Seneca the Elder, long thought to have been lost forever. The Discovery of Seneca the Elder's Lost Roman History | 3:08 Secrets of the Dead PBS | 12.7K subscribers | 3,726 views | February 13, 2026 YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows.

AbstractThe Homeric epics are among the greatest masterpieces of literature, but when they were produced is not known with certainty. Here we apply evolutionary-linguistic phylogenetic statistical methods to differences in Homeric, Modern Greek and ancient Hittite vocabulary items to estimate a date of approximately 710-760 BCE for these great works. Our analysis compared a common set of vocabulary items among the three pairs of languages, recording for each item whether the words in the two languages were cognate - derived from a shared ancestral word - or not. We then used a likelihood-based Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to estimate...

Eight emperors are shown on the coins. However, three of the coins featured an unexpected ruler -- Eugenius, who only ruled the Western Roman Empire from 392 to 394 CE. Eugenius came to power partially due to the support of a powerful general Arbogast. Arbogast was a Frank -- the Germanic-speaking peoples who invaded the Western Roman Empire during the Fifth Century.When Christianity was becoming increasingly dominant in the Roman Empire, Eugenius attempted to restore pagan practices and traditions. His brief reign was marked by conflict and political instability. Eugenius primary opponent -- Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I -- eventually...

In 2003, metal detectorist Brian Malin found the Chalgrove Hoard near Chalgrove, around 10 miles from Oxford. Inside a huge jar were nearly 5,000 late Roman coins, mostly copper-alloy radiates with that familiar "silvered" look that is really just debased coinage from the Crisis of the Third Century. After numismatists worked through the hoard coin by coin, one piece stood out. It looks ordinary, but the legend names an emperor who should not exist: Domitianus.The new Roman emperor discovered from a coin - Domitianus | 16:19TopRomanFacts | 37.2K subscribers | 25,111 views | January 9, 2026YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai...

Church and government officials in Italy have launched an investigation into claims that the face of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was painted on an angel during the restoration of a fresco in Rome. Italy's culture ministry has sent officers to inspect the artwork in a chapel of the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina, while the Diocese of Rome expressed its "disappointment" and said it would determine who had been responsible. The artist, Bruno Valentinetti, said he had simply restored the fresco he painted in 2000 and denied modelling the angel after the prime minister. Meloni responded in a post...

Ahram Online reports that more than half of the sun temple of the pharaoh Niuserre, who ruled from about 2420 to 2389 B.C. during the 5th Dynasty, has been uncovered in the Abusir necropolis. The monumental temple complex once covered more than 10,000 square feet, according to Massimiliano Nuzzolo of the University of Turin and Rossana Perilli of the University of Naples. This year, the excavation has revealed the entrance to the temple, the building's original floor, the base of a limestone column, parts of a granite column thought to have been part of the entrance portico, and granite doorframes...

The papyrus describes encounters with the Shosu people, said to stand 'four cubits or five cubits' tall, up to eight feet in height. Supporters of the theory say the text provides rare non-biblical corroboration of Old Testament accounts of giants, which appear repeatedly beyond the familiar story of David and Goliath. An Egyptian cubit measured roughly 20 inches, meaning the Shosu would have towered over most people of the era. The papyrus takes the form of a letter written during a time of war, detailing hostile terrain and military challenges.

For millennia, hundreds of vivid bas-reliefs adorned the walls of the Nineveh palace of the legendary eighth-century BCE Assyrian king Sennacherib, depicting daring conquests richly described in Assyrian sources and the Hebrew Bible. In 2016, Islamic State terrorists entered the palace, in modern-day Mosul, Iraq, and systematically smashed the artifacts. The long-surviving sculptures had enabled modern scholars to compare biblical information on Sennacherib with historical sources and archaeological findings since the 19th century. Had they not been destroyed, they would have likely had more to offer. Among the treasures broken in the terror group’s campaign of destruction was a slab...

William Shakespeare was a 'black Jewish woman', a new book has claimed. The real playwright is identified as the historical figure Emilia Bassano in The Real Shakespeare, by an LSE graduate and feminist historian. She was a poet with connections to the Tudor court and wrote the Shakespearean canon of plays using the pen-name 'Shakespeare', according to the book. But her work is said to have been stolen from an uneducated interloper - William Shakespeare - from Stratford-upon-Avon. The book's author Irene Coslet argues that the idea of a 'white' genius was preferred to Bassano's identity as a black female...

The AD/CE system we use to date the year was introduced - more or less by accident - during the Middle Ages. Before its invention, the classical world used a wide range of dating systems. How did the Greeks and Romans count Years? | 7:52 toldinstone | 615K subscribers | 435,313 views | December 31, 2021

More than 7,000 artifacts, including clay seal impressions, clay tokens, figurines, and cylinder seals, have been uncovered at Tapeh Tyalineh, a 5,000-year-old site on the Mereg River in western Iran, according to The Greek Reporter. The objects were found in the remnants of mudbrick structures and in trash pits. Shokouh Khosravi of the University of Kurdistan said that the artifacts would have been used to mark jars, seal doors, and keep track of goods such as grain, oil, and possibly wine. The more than 200 designs on the artifacts are similar to those seen on seal impressions from other Early...

A stone fragment bearing ancient carvings in Hittite style and one of the world’s earliest writing systems, cuneiform, has been uncovered in a cave deep in the Moravian Karst. The discovery of this mysterious ancient cuneiform script in Central Europe has puzzled archaeologists and raised questions about possible cultural links between Anatolia and prehistoric Europe.The artifact, found during a recent reanalysis of excavated sediment in Kateřinská Cave, Czech Republic, shares material and stylistic traits with earlier fragments uncovered in 2021. Experts say the thickness, composition, and carvings of all the pieces suggest they were once part of the same object....

La Brújula Verde reports that a bone stylus dated to the fifth century B.C. was unearthed in southern Sicily during an archaeological investigation conducted in advance of a construction project. The five-inch stylus was recovered from an area with a paved surface and collapsed structures that are thought to have been used as workshops in the Greek colony. The top of the stylus is carved with a man’s head, perhaps representing Dionysus as a herm or a bust in a squared stone pillar. The central part of the pillar features a carving of a phallus. Archaeologist Gianluca Calà, excavation director...

The Last Men of the American Revolution | 10:33BBC Global | 717K subscribers | 363,677 views | January 14, 2025

A group of Australian scientists have revealed how we may be able to learn to speak with aliens, and the answer is found right here on Earth. If we do make contact with extraterrestrial life, it will likely require sending messages across vast distances of interstellar space. The question for astronomers looking out for distant civilisations is how this communication would even be possible if we don't share a language. Now, scientists say we might be able to develop a 'universal language' with an unlikely inspiration: The humble honeybee. With six legs, five eyes, and a radically different social structure,...

Dogs are great at learning action commands like “sit” and “stay.” They're less good at remembering the names of things, like what their squeaky or stuffed toys are called. Only an elite group of gifted word-learner dogs can retain the names of hundreds of toys. Scientists know of about 50 such pooches, but they aren’t yet sure what's behind their wordy skills. Now, new research is pushing the limits of what the dogs can do. Scientists already knew that these extraordinary pups could learn the names of their stuffed pizza and doughnut toys from playtime with their owners. In the...

Peterson, who emphasized that his comments are personal and do not reflect the views of the university, told The Fix that “the ban on Plato” in his spring semester class came from an email from his department chair, Kristi Sweet.

In an undated post regarding admissions to graduate arts and sciences programs for the 2026–27 academic year, Boston University indicated that the history of art and architecture program was not admitting candidates, along with American studies, anthropology, religion, and romance studies programs. In November 2024, meanwhile, the school had already indicated that its department of the history of art and architecture would not accept Ph.D. students for the next academic year, according to a report from Inside Higher Education. In an email obtained by the publication, the heads of the College of Arts and Sciences, which includes the art history...

Long before submarines and modern ocean exploration, Alexander the Great embarked on an underwater expedition that blurred the line between history and legend. Beyond his military conquests, he constantly sought the unknown, from frozen northern deserts to mysterious islands, pushing himself into territories where no one else dared to venture. One story, preserved in the Pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance, recounts an extraordinary underwater odyssey, blending daring, ingenuity, and mythical creatures that seem to leap from the page. Even in the realm of myth, few tales capture the adventurous spirit of Alexander like this one. A journey in the dark: Northern deserts...

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - Another Texas A&M professor is facing scrutiny from university administration over course curriculum, being instructed to remove readings from his syllabus. Professor Martin Peterson confirmed to KBTX’s Rusty Surette that he was instructed by the philosophy department to remove readings in his “Contemporary Moral Issues” course related to race and gender - including readings by the Greek philosopher Plato - or be reassigned. “I speak for myself, not the university, when I say in my opinion, Texas A&M is not on the right track. Censorship is not a viable path to academic excellence,” said Peterson.