Categories
In The News

Why Brazil Is Excavating An Infamous Torture Center 40 Years Later

As the country gears up for a politically-charged run-off election, a team of archaeologists, historians and forensics experts are set to excavate the grounds and buildings of one of the worst torture centers in São Paulo, trying to recover the country’s painful history of torture during the military regime.

Categories
Dottoré!

Naples Wasn’t Built In A Day

“Do you realize that this changes everything for me?”

Categories
In The News

Under The Turkish Sun

To beat the gloominess of a rainy winter afternoon, I put aside my book and went through my sunny slides of Turkey. This one shows the road leading to the Library of Celsus in Ephesus.

Categories
In The News

The Anti-Disneyland, A French Castle Built On Authenticity

Guédelon, an attraction in Burgundy, recreates the Middle Ages in a way that aims to make visitors smarter while they’re having fun.

Categories
In The News

Obama’s Journey In Times Of Trump

As he embarks today on what is expected be his last major trip abroad as president — with stops in Greece, Germany and Peru — Barack Obama might find himself thinking back to that remarkable visit he made to Germany in August 2008 as Democratic nominee. It was an unprecedented event that included a jam-packed […]

Categories
blog

Dental Work

The Mayan site of Copán was hard to reach. But when we did get there, we were rewarded with remarkable examples of Mayan sculpture — some with very peculiar dentition.

Categories
blog

Iranian Soft Power? A Post-Sanctions Cultural Strategy

During its years of international isolation, Iran saw “culture” solely as a way to promote its Shia Islamic heritage. Yet Iranian officials recently have begun to take an interest in questions of national identity, heritage and Iranian civilization that are unrelated to the Islamic clerical regime and its values. As the country prepares to move […]

Categories
blog

Navels Of The World

This is no ordinary stone. For the Ancient Greeks, the omphalos represented the navel of the world, determined by Zeus when he sent his two eagles across the world to meet at its center. The eagles may have gotten lost along the way, as there are several such stones around the Mediterranean Sea, Delphi merely […]

Categories
Society

Antiquity Troves In China, When The State Owns Your Backyard

BEIJING — Like others, as a child I used to daydream about taking a shovel and hunting through our yard for priceless treasure buried from ancient times. What I never would have imagined is that such an act can get you into serious trouble — even if it’s done on your own property. It’s a […]

Categories
blog

Stone Giant In Sun Door

At equinoxes, the sun shines on the Pre-Columbian Ponce monolith through the Kalasasaya main door. In what is today western Bolivia, the effect no doubt left quite an impression on inhabitants of the Tiwanaku settlement near Lake Titicaca, then on Spanish conquistadors — then on French tourists.

Categories
Geopolitics

One Cairo Street: Extraordinary Scenes, Everyday Life In A Time Of Revolution

Gang fights, clandestine excavations, a thriving black market for cigarettes. In post-Mubarak, post-Morsi Egypt, life and violence go on for the people of Bab El Bahr Street.

Categories
Society

X Marks The Spot: Archaeologists Dig For Exact Place Where Jesus Died

On November 1, under the nave of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, an archeological park called “Durch die Zeiten” (Through Time) opened. It provides the answer to a question that has long eluded researchers: just where Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, is really located. Planned and built […]

Exit mobile version