History
Laundry existed long before anyone knew what soap actually was. Clothes still got clean, or at least clean enough, through habit rather than theory.…
6 min read
History
Gladiatrices, or Female gladiators occupy a strange, uncomfortable corner of Roman history. They are not a myth, yet they are never allowed to feel…
6 min read
History
Confucius is usually imagined as a finished statue: calm face, flowing robes, hands folded in eternal wisdom. He looks like someone who never hurried,…
6 min read
History
Boiling your own clothes sounds like a punishment invented by an especially vengeful appliance manufacturer. Yet for most of the nineteenth century, it was…
6 min read
Britain
Summer in London can be rather lovely. Parks brimming with picnickers, the Thames glittering in the sunshine, perhaps a cold pint by the river.…
9 min read
History
Roman funerary lions have a habit of staring straight through you. They sit stiff-backed on tombs, crouch beside inscriptions, or loom above burial chambers…
7 min read
Britain
When London burned to the ground in September 1666, nobody could have predicted the horror show that would follow. Certainly, the Great Fire was…
7 min read
History
Herodotus arrived in the world around 484 BCE, in the city of Halicarnassus, on the south-western edge of what is now Turkey. At the…
6 min read
History
The Tartaria theory often begins with a map and a raised eyebrow. Someone notices the words “Great Tartary” sprawled across a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century…
7 min read
Culture
Stand face-to-face with a lamassu, and you’ll understand why ancient Mesopotamians believed these creatures could ward off evil. Towering four metres tall, carved from…
7 min read
