See more of Alexis Prescott’s research on this topic:

• Pen & Sword: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/blog/the-romans-and-the-halloween-style-witch

• And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7KYoMYP5q4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itzBwrR9xvg

I wanted to share another Substack on a topic I have always been fascinated by. It is called Occultis Libris:

Occultis Libris

A newsletter and podcast dedicated to the occult, exploring everything from the spiritual world and witchcraft to esoteric traditions, symbolism, and beyond. We share legends, ghost stories, and all things unknown.

By Petros Koutoupis

Occultis Libris is a new newsletter and podcast focuses on themes related to the occult and esoteric. It explores a broad range of topics from spiritual and supernatural phenomena to witchcraft, symbolism, and mystical traditions. The content often delves into legends, ghost stories, and unexplained aspects of reality, blending folklore with spiritual inquiry. The newsletter aims to engage readers interested in the unknown and hidden aspects of culture and belief systems, offering reflections and insights on occult subjects. Through both written posts and audio episodes, it seeks to provide an entry point into deeper discussions about esoteric knowledge and mystical practice. Overall, Occultis Libris serves as a space for curious readers to explore mystery, spirituality, and occult lore.

I know what you are thinking. Yes, Digging Up The Past will continue. I know I have been slow with the podcast episodes and general updates lately. It has been difficult scheduling guests and work has also been time consuming.

Anyway, if the occult and paranormal are something that you are interested in, be sure to subscribe to Occultis Libris and follow along!

Occultis Libris

A newsletter and podcast dedicated to the occult, exploring everything from the spiritual world and witchcraft to esoteric traditions, symbolism, and beyond. We share legends, ghost stories, and all things unknown.

By Petros Koutoupis

When Theseus departed for Crete to slay the Minotaur, his father left him with one message. Upon his return to Athens, he must raise the white sails of victory to signal his survival. Day after day, Aegeus waited, watching the waters from the cape. Alas, he spotted his son’s ship, and his heart soared until he noticed its sails remained a cheerless black. On board, Theseus was so taken by celebration that he neglected to raise the sails his father desperately needed to see. Aegeus did not wait for the ship’s return; he leapt from his high rock and plummeted to the sea. Theseus would go on to name the cerulean sea surrounding Greece, the Aegean, after his cherished earthly father and king of Athens.

What lies in the vast Aegean beyond Greece is a myriad of islands. Crete had gained fame for its exceptionality, its mythical monster, and its vibrant culture. Yet, for others, more than 200, their history is shrouded by the influence of their successors. These are the Cycladic islands, a society of wanderers. They were rich in metal and stone, clever and resourceful on islands that may have supported little more than rock, shrub, and sand, and courageous, leaving their mainland homes behind to start anew. While much about Cycladic culture remains a mystery, what endures reveals a people forged by their own resilience and creativity, inhabiting a ring of islands that inspired even the gods themselves.

Allure of the Islands

As early as 5000 BCE, inhabitants of Asia Minor began migrating to the Cyclades. They likely brought with them seeds and livestock, resources needed that the islands could not offer. However, the islands did have something else to offer, something far more prosperous. Many of the Cycladic islands were abundant in copper, obsidian, lead, silver, and marble. Archaeological evidence suggests that the obsidian used by Neolithic mainland Greeks had been foraged in Melos prior to its inhabitation. As such, the islands were an alluring prospect, but not ideally hospitable. Still, they came anyway, with their animals, family, and whatever else their simple ships could carry, and began building. Early settlements would have been small, comprising farmers and fishermen, who were the primary means of sustaining life.

The archaeological timeline of the Cyclades is split into three periods, taking place during the Early Bronze Age and into the Middle Bronze Age, based on pottery style, graves, and figurines: Early Cycladic I (3200-2800 BCE), Early Cycladic II (2800-2300 BCE), and Early Cycladic III (2300-2000 BCE). Historically, Cycladic culture began with graves of marble slabs on Melos and Naxos. Small communities eventually sprawled into larger urban areas. Unbaked clay structures sat atop stone foundations. Wheat, barley, olives, and grapes were thriving against all odds. Sheep, pigs, cattle, deer, and fish like tuna and perch filled their hungry bellies. They wove textiles to clothe their bodies, adorned with jewels of silver and copper, and crafted darkened, burnished vessels decorated with incised spirals and ships or, later, painted white. Copious amounts of marble created jars, bowls, beakers, and pans for cooking, quite similar in style to those of the mainland Greeks and Anatolia. Tools were shaped from bone, shells, and obsidian. Marble slabs used for the burial of inhabitants also fortified their land. As a seafaring society, they frequently relied on trade. Geographically advantageous, Cycladic islanders were able to move about the Aegean freely, trading with Mycenae, Crete, and Anatolia.

It is through the burgeoning of trade that the Cyclades prospered. Mineral-rich resources and stone allowed them to barter in a way that no other could. Transformations of multicultural beginnings additionally contributed to their memorable and unique style of craftsmanship. They were skilled metallurgists, artisans, and administrators. Most notable was their specialized use of white marble to fashion highly stylized figurines of an almost ethereal composition that glimmered in the sunlight.

The earliest Cycladic figurines were Neolithic robust female figures, not so different from the Paleolithic Venus figure. Though stylistic, Cycladic figures display widened hips and arms that rest on the chest. Early Cycladic I figurines were violin-shaped with elongated heads, small protrusions as arms, and no legs, quite similar to other figurines located around the Mediterranean. Figurines in Cyprus, during the Early and Middle Bronze Age, also had this unusual style of portraying the female body, something evidently widespread for a considerable amount of time, including on the Greek mainland.

At the beginning of the Early Cycladic II period, figurines start to transition to a slightly more naturalistic style. Facial features remain mostly schematic, while body postures become noticeably expressive. Seated figures play the harp or clutched ceremonial cups; figures are layered atop one another in familial embrace; hunters, warriors, and various species of animals were vibrantly colored, used and repaired several times, eventually retiring to their eternal homes alongside their deceased owners.

Distinctly Cycladic, these figurines are paramount in understanding Aegean culture. Since formal writing is lacking, reconstructing the society relies heavily on archaeological discoveries like these, found in specific contexts, along with their trade histories and future influences. As such, the figurines suggest some measure of hierarchy and personal significance, as many were found amongst graves of the wealthy and served a lifetime purpose. More importantly, however, they shed light on lively communal and ceremonial activities as well as a likely religion.

Spirituality and the Female Figure

When considering common themes found throughout the ancient world, female figures accentuating the belly or breast usually indicate the presence of a mother goddess, a symbol of life, abundance, and fertility. In some cases, figurines can represent elders or ritual specialists, but this does not necessarily fit with the Cycladic figures found. Speculation points to figures found in graves as concubines or slaves sacrificed for service in the afterlife, comparable to the ushabti figurines of ancient Egypt, meant to serve as servants and laborers to the deceased. Or perhaps, they were merely playthings for children; yet, this, too, does not explain why they were repaired and repainted numerous times and buried with adults.

It is more likely, then, that these figurines, plentiful in female form early on, represented something similar to the female-centered religions of other societies. Keeping in mind that these people would have migrated from Anatolia and the Greek mainland, evident in similarities in wares and attested to by ancient historians. Both Herodotus and Thucydides referred to them as Carians, purported to have migrated from Anatolia, and settled in the Aegean. As such, they would have retained some of their native traditions, building upon them.

Early female-centered religions can be found in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and, as expected, Minoan society. As life-bearing goddesses, they were connected to nature and the endless cycles of life, death, and agriculture. Intrinsically, therefore, the role of midwife would have been of the utmost importance, having abilities akin to the goddess herself, aiding the community through life’s transitions. It is possible that the figurines could be representative of the midwife. Even so, there would naturally need to be a link between the midwife role and something divine, as there would be with ritual specialists and elders. Thus, through the understanding of ancient societies and their principal gods, who often wove the threads of human fate, the cosmos, and demanded offerings and prayer, the purpose of the figurines may be realized.

During the Early Cycladic II period, particularly on the islands of Keros and Syros, life-sized marble figures bore the same resemblance to the miniatures found throughout the islands. The location where these giant figures had been found on Kavos, Keros, shows clear evidence of ritual activity, deemed a sanctuary. What is interesting about this site is that it appears to be a dumping ground of sorts, with scattered remains of various small figures, some of which appeared to have been methodically cut at the neck, chest, waist, knees, and so on. The fragments were then placed with the deceased for unknown reasons. It has been speculated that the supposed wounds of the figure were to replicate the wounds of the dead.

As for other remains found on the site, they may have been sacred charms or included in ritual or festival activities. All the more compelling is the Dhaskalio pyramid. Shaped by wind and waves, the naturally occurring pyramid-shaped promontory had been altered into a step pyramid, an ingenious monument to still rather mysterious religious rites. Whatever occurred on Kavos would have been grand in every sense of the word. Nonetheless, it’s vital to bridge beyond the female figure, because during the whole of the second period of the early Cycladic, figures of small and large stature were male and female, fluid in their portrayals, like the harp player and the hunter.

What these figures reveal in the context in which they are found is a religion that possibly evolved to polytheism. As such, several aspects stand out: the female mother goddess, the hunter, the bard, and the ambiguously gendered. The ambiguously gendered figures, displaying male and female characteristics, may be indicative of ritual specialists or beliefs and practices that expressed themselves in both masculine and feminine ways; in other words, they were seen as male and female, but neither female nor male as defined, a third gender. This concept would later be found in the Greek Hermaphroditus, whose father was Hermes, a god known as an intermediary between worlds. It is also found in ancient Mesopotamia, through the ambiguously gendered gala that served the goddess of war, love, and fertility, Inanna (Ishtar).

Further, the musician as well as the hunter may be embodiments of festival activities, which historically involve deities and the expression of a shared cultural identity. Some have speculated that these prominent figures, specifically the female, were early counterparts to Artemis of Ephesus, Anatolia, revered as a mother goddess of fertility. The similarities between early conceptions of Artemis and even Apollo are compelling, but so little is certain about the people of the Cyclades. Additionally, as time went on into the later part of the Middle Bronze Age and throughout the Late Bronze Age, the islands became increasingly like their influential neighbors, the Minoans, in culture and religion, blurring the lines between the two. Though there is still much to be said when considering the world around them and what evolved thereafter.

The Birthplace of Gods and Lovers

During the Early Cycladic III Period, which encompassed the greater part of the Middle Bronze Age, Cycladic society began increasing in size and relative sophistication. On larger islands, populations moved to fortified harbors. Building projects expanded, as well as trade opportunities. Pottery displayed new designs, abstract motifs painted white with geometric, floral, or spiral designs. Life-size figures glowed against the sun in sanctuaries and shrines. It was inevitable that the Aegean cultures would merge.

The majority of the islands, mainly to the south, adopted Minoan culture, while some of the northeastern islands adopted some but not transformational aspects of western Anatolian culture and technology. According to Thucydides, King Minos had conquered, expelled what he referred to as barbaric and piratical Carian malefactors, and colonized the islands. Herodotus claimed that the islanders served as part of Minos’s navy, then called Legeles, until some were expelled and others assimilated into Minoan culture. Though, it remains unclear if any of this really occurred or to what extent, the Minoans did appear to have ample sway in redefining the Cyclades. This does suggest that there was a degree of colonization, but perhaps it was more to do with migration, trade, and the introduction of beneficial technologies. In any case, by the Late Bronze Age, the cultures were virtually indistinguishable and often seen as a whole.

When Thera erupted between 1650 and 1550 BCE, it caused widespread destruction and instability, opening the region to new sovereigns, the Mycenaeans. By 1400 BCE, they completely dominated the Aegean, but the victory was short lived. By 1200 BCE, their influence diminished along with the security of the Mediterranean world. The Bronze Age collapse left settlements of the islands abandoned, destroyed, and overrun with piratical groups for several hundred years. Between 800 and 700 BCE, the Archaic Greeks salvaged the vestiges of a once brilliant society. The pirates would continue to be a problem or an advantage to those who could utilize them. Be that as it may, several islands were given new life. Myths and deities sprang from their beaches, bestowing bounties of divinity and devotion, reimagining old and forgotten traditions.

The name of the islands, as it is known today, comes from the Greek word kylos, meaning circle. It was given this name because the islands surround Delos, an island of great mythological significance; from 700 BCE onward, Delos served as a sanctuary to Apollo and Artemis. According to Hesiod and a Homeric hymn, the island gave refuge to a laboring Leto when all other places had failed her. Leto, the daughter of Coeus and Phoebe, was one of the Titanides (female Titans), a goddess of motherhood and protectress of children. As one of many of Zeus’s affairs, she was banished by Hera from giving birth; no land that sees the light of day would receive her. She wandered Greece, only to be faced with indifference. Finally, she took to the sea, encountering two floating rocks that lived beneath and above the waves, unrecognizable to gods or mortals as seeing the light of day. The rocks spoke and offered her shelter and solace.

Exhausted and nearing delivery, Leto stumbled onto Delos, steadying herself on a nearby palm tree, where she then gave birth to the god of music and prophecy, Apollo. On the other island, Ortygia, she birthed the huntress, Artemis. Such a miraculous event it was that swans began circling the island of Delos, and a gleaming light shone so bright that it brought the mightiest of gods and all the neighboring islands from their homes to bear witness. The islands remained as a protective fortress around the sacred island. Some myths claim that Artemis was born first, aiding her mother in the birth of Apollo. Other legends of the island suggest that an enraged Poseidon shattered the mountains of Greece and sent them flying into the Aegean, forming the islands, or that he transformed sea nymphs into the islands. Either way, Delos would become the center of Apollo and Artemis worship, fitting for its past.

On Naxos, there were temples to Apollo, Demeter, and Dionysus. It was believed that the god of wine and pleasure was born here amongst its flourishing vineyards. Here, his festivals were famous throughout the Greek world, and his temple was second to Thebes. It is also here that the god wed Ariadne, the unfortunate victim of fickle Theseus. As the hero headed home to Athens, he stopped by the island, where he impenitently abandoned Ariadne, who had sacrificed her home and family to help him. Despairingly, she watched as his ship sailed away into nothing more than a dot on the horizon. Her woes soon faded as the wilderness behind her began to stir, and from it emerged the beautiful and androgynous Dionysus, along with his spirited satyrs and maenads. Welcoming her into his arms, he wooed her with dazzling gifts and wine until her heart requited his love.

Another celebrated hero of legends also had ties to the islands. The princess, Danae, spent much of her youth in lonesome solitude at the hands of her father, who believed her future son would one day be his demise. This imprisonment, however, did not stop Zeus from shining down on her in a show of glittering, golden ambience. Danae attempted to hide her child with Zeus once he was born, but her father was quick in his perpetual paranoia. Heaving her and the child into a chest, he sent them adrift at sea. Floating atop tumultuous waters, Danae clung to her son until they washed up on the shores of Seriphos. The humble fisherman and king’s brother, Dictys, gave them refuge for a time. Perseus was the child’s name, and later into adulthood, the cruel king of the island, Polydectes, would send him on an impossible quest to be rid of him and take reluctant Danae as his wife. Perseus left at the will of the king to retrieve the head of the frightful Medusa. His unanticipated return left the king and his court turned to stone and his mother free from the pitiless ruler. Later, in Larissa, a stray discus thrown by Perseus during an athletic game struck and killed his unsuspecting grandfather, King Acrisius, as he watched on as a spectator, fulfilling the dreaded prophecy.

A Culture that Continues to Inspire

The Greeks, like many others, had an imaginative way of retelling their past. Histories became myths, and heroes became legends and demigods. What is known about the Minoan culture attests to their mythification. Though the Cyclades still elude archaeologists, their past predates that of Crete and the mainland Mycenaeans, and they are one of the oldest cultural sources in all of Europe. The sanctuary at Kavos was also one of the earliest in maritime history. After Greece took over the islands, its history became intertwined with the spiritual and political spheres. At times, they were nearly conquered by foreigners or forced to choose sides amidst a feuding Athens and Sparta.

By the 2^nd century BCE, the Cyclades were under the control of the Ptolemies. By 88 BCE, Delos was attacked, stability waned, and the islands would eventually evolve into safe havens for pirates or places of exile for criminals. During Roman times, many of the islands once inhabited were barren of civilization, even from the pirates. On Gyaros, the extremities of isolation and lack of resources were a harsh punishment, so few would have survived. Pirates exerted their control over the Aegean throughout the eras, rampant during their golden age.

What little may have been left of the original inhabitants disappeared with time and wavering alliances. Still, the Cyclades may have laid the foundations for later beliefs. Their hunters and mother goddess became Artemis, their musicians became Apollo, and their festive traditions became Dionysus. Their glistening marble statues and figurines may have even inspired the mythical light that shone down, gathering the gods and islands during Apollo’s birth. Certainly, they were more than their memorable marble figures; they were a people who created something extraordinary out of seemingly nothing. Though thousands of years have passed, the islanders continue to tell legends of old and new, and the unique style and physique of ancient figurines continue to inspire modern, abstract artists from around the world. An homage, perhaps, to a people whose lives are an enigma that may never be fully deciphered.

Featured image: Keros island with Cycladic figurines.

References

• Cartwright, M. 2012. Cyclades. World History Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/Cyclades/

• MacGillivray, J.A. 2024. Who Were the Early Cycladic Figurines? The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/cycladic-figures

• Powell, B.B. 2015. Classical Myth. Pearson Education, Inc.

• Herodotus, Translated by Holland, T. 2015. The Histories. Penguin Books.

• Thucydides, Translated by Crawley, R. History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 1. Available at: https://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.1.first.html

• Theoi Greek Mythology. Leto. Available at: https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisLeto.html

On a rugged island shaped by the sea, the earliest hints of a remarkable people appear as stone tombs around 3000 BCE. Roughly a thousand years later, elaborate palaces, a sophisticated hieroglyphic system, and a taste for vibrant art marked their transition into a distinct and thriving society. Settlements sprawled around central complexes, vast palaces with grand courts, theatres, colonnades, lively frescoes, crypts, and drainage systems. Lightwells illuminated a labyrinthine design that reached over four stories high and thousands of square meters. Even as earthquakes and fires ravaged, palaces were rebuilt with renewed vigor. Still, these were not people determined to use their power to conquer; rather, they remained relatively peaceful. Their culture, traditions, and air of mystery effortlessly captivated lands, inspired legends, and forever left the world wondering who the Minoans of Crete truly were.

A Colorful Culture

There were four principal palace sites on Minoan Crete extending over three or four time periods, depending on the source. Sir Arthur Evans, an early 20th-century archaeologist who had given the Minoans their name after the legendary King Minos, divided the civilization into three periods based on pottery styles: Early Bronze Age (3000-2100 BCE), Middle Bronze Age (2100-1600 BCE), and Late Bronze Age (1600-1100 BCE). Greek archaeologist Nikoloas Platon divided time periods into four palatial periods based on historical events. Either chronology works, though both have since been challenged. Palace sites such as Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Zakros rose up independently around Crete’s hillsides and mountains, each serving as administrative, trade, religious, and surplus centers.

Around 1700 BCE, the growing authority of Knossos, coupled with the emergence of Linear A, a new writing system that replaced the earlier Minoan hieroglyphic script, both of which remain undeciphered, served to consolidate political control across the region. Nevertheless, these communities had always managed cordiality; there was little need for fortifications, aside from the occasional guardhouse or watchtower along roads leading to each palace, keeping bandits at bay. That does not mean, however, that they were unprepared. The double axe, the labrys, and the mighty bull were steadfast symbols of their society. They crafted swords, daggers, armor, helmets, and practiced archery and defense tactics. As a seafaring society, the Minoans traded widely across the Aegean and beyond, reaching the Near East and Egypt. Motifs found at Avaris, the Hyksos capital, attest to their influence, as does their later colonization of the Cyclades during the Middle Bronze Age.

Vessels, ranging from large storage containers to small cups, amphorae, beakers, and the like, were characterized by their intricate early geometric designs, later incorporating striking naturalistic scenes of flora and fauna. The Minoans were the first to depict animals in their natural habitats, absent humans. Dolphins frolicked beneath waves, or an octopus wrapped its tentacles around a vessel in an ever-present state of movement. Frescoes found their way into every corner of a room, stretching across ceilings and onto floors, framed by geometric borders and vivid scenes of the same flowing movement. Men were depicted with their skin red, wearing loincloths, while women wore long, multi-layered skirts and open-fronted bodices, revealing their stark white skin against their embellished jet-black curls. Painted figures leapt, picked flowers, carried vessels or a bundle of fish. Monkeys, birds, and sea creatures cascaded across walls. Small figurines fashioned from bronze and other materials showed deities with arms outstretched or bulls suspended in the air.

The Sacred Bull

The lively images that adorned Minoan architecture and material culture also told a story about who they were, their religion, and practices. Indeed, there is not much known about the religion of the Minoans, due to what remains and an undecipherable script. Myths and legends of later years aside, what can be said is that they were a people who honored Mother Earth in the form of a goddess, one who held serpents in her hands or coiled round her arms. Other figures of deities show much the same, a reverence towards animals and nature. Images, wells, and channels found within palaces indicate offerings of libation. Vast courtyards expectedly catered to grand celebrations and sporting events. Processions, feasts, and ceremonies can be seen in stunning detail. The many caves and hilltops that scatter Crete’s exquisite landscape also show evidence of cultic ritual.

Outwardly, the bull was everywhere. It is found on shrines, ceremonial axes, palace art, cultic imagery, sealstones, vessels, and figures. The rhyta, a vessel specially crafted for the elite, replicated the head of the bull. Additionally, the bull has been seen in sacrificial and funerary contexts, its head housed in its own room within a tomb or its horns decorated with flowers or the labrys upon painted coffins, larnakes. In other, more prominent displays, these horns, made of stone or clay, often flanked the roofs of Neopalatial or Middle to Late Bronze Age structures, including temples and shrines. Sir Arthur Evans referred to these extravagant displays as horns of consecration. As a visible symbol of sacrality, the horns likely embodied the bull’s immense strength and fertility, comparable to other neighboring cultures.

The Greeks believed the horns to be a powerful symbol, linked to the Greek god Zeus, his wife Hera, as well as Dionysus and Heracles. Also common was the sacrifice of bulls in honor of the Olympic Games, with a purported 100 bulls being killed at its commencement. Thighs and bones burned, carrying billowing smoke to Zeus, while the people fed on the rest. In ancient Egypt, bulls represented a similar power, linked to kingship, Hathor, Amun, Ptah, Isis, and Nut. The solar disk sat between its horns as a crown of divinity. The Apis bulls, worshipped in Memphis as a manifestation of Ptah, enjoyed royal treatments and elaborate burials. In the Old Testament, horns of the altar, projections on each corner of a bronze altar, were used to bind an animal, destined for sacrifice; its blood was then smeared on the horns.

Clearly, the bull had an impactful impression on ancient civilizations throughout the Mediterranean. Still, the Minoans took sacred bull worship to another, more eventful level. Beginning sometime during the early Late Bronze Age, artistic representations found in Knossos show the acrobatic sport of bull-leaping. Broken down into four phases, participants would cautiously approach a waiting bull, grasp at its menacing horns, and launch over its back, landing firmly on the ground. In some cases, women can be shown holding the bull’s horns as men flung over, while additional women wait to catch tumbling bodies as they land. Grand courts were the presumed location of these exhilarating games, and it was common, based on frescoes, that ladies of status were in attendance; their images large and pronounced. Even Plutarch had commented on the customary practices of women viewing the games in The Life of Theseus.

Some scholars have dismissed the bull games as symbolic representations of religious rites, claiming it is nearly impossible; yet, this is far from the truth. While select images show the bull in varying positions, which may be accommodating, acrobatic acts involving bulls are nothing new to modern sport. The Course Landaise, a non-lethal form of bullfighting found in southwestern France, involves similar feats of athleticism to evade charging bulls. Given the bull’s religious significance, the games on Crete may have been trained or untrained demonstrations of strength and vitality, victories won over nature, rites of passage, or homage to the gods.

Interestingly, the bull games may have also included other forms of sports, particularly wrestling and boxing. Combatants may be shown wearing gloves, guards for the forearms, and at times, helmets and weapons. Depictions differ in equipment styles for participants, suggesting that some may have sported heavier wear while others remained scantily clad. Certainties of complementary athletic games are still hazy; however, this combination of events did inevitably find its way into Mycenaean funerary traditions, which may provide further support. Evidence found on a Mycenaean sarcophagus suggests that the culture adopted the bull-leaping sport as well as armed combat as a part of funerary games.

Women in Minoan Society

As mentioned earlier, frescoes depicting the famous bull games show women not only as prestigious spectators, but also as participants. The portrayal of women in this sort of hierarchical scale compared to their male counterparts may signify their status among spectators, shedding light on women’s position in society as noticeably active, contrary to the Greeks, apart from Sparta. Classical writers, such as Plato, Thucydides, Strabo, and Plutarch, had touched on women in Minoan society having certain freedoms in daily activities and sports, and administrative records written in Linear B provide a plethora of information on the status and work of Mycenaean and Minoan women. On tablets found in Pylos and Knossos, women are methodically classified based on socioeconomic status, expressing a clear hierarchy. Women were also equally integral to the labor force, free to work in skilled and unskilled trades.

Though evidence is lacking as to whether or not women held sovereignty, it is known that they were deeply involved in religious practices; priestesses—as well as priests—had ample sway, spiritually and politically. Their graves, specifically those of priestesses, were found to contain a wealth of lavish goods. Later inscriptions, like the Gortyn Law Code, written in Dorian Greek between 700-600 BCE, are believed to outline laws that once existed in Minoan society. Among the laws, ranging from slave ownership, adultery, divorce, inheritance, property, and so on, there is a degree of favoring towards women. As an example, in the case of divorce, a woman was granted property rights, including anything that she had contributed to the marriage, half of any joint income acquired from property, and a generous portion of household items.

Evidence would indicate that women had far more administrative authority than what later generations would generally allow. Some have argued, based on this evidence, that the Minoans were a matriarchal society. That the presence of a female supreme deity, cultic iconography that revolves around priestess activities, hierarchy of scale in artwork, and administrative agency points to a female-dominated culture, one that may have been historically diminished by patriarchal ideologies. Many of these arguments are, unfortunately, based on modern thought. Given that a proper king’s list does not exist, and the majority of written records are from later dates, it is difficult to determine exactly how men and women interacted politically. If the Minoans operated under a patriarchy, which is likely, the contributions of women in economic, sacerdotal, and athletic roles are undeniable and emblematic of a people immortalized for their refined sophistication.

Theseus and the Minotaur

Disguised as a bull, Zeus carried Princess Europa across the sea to Crete, where she bore a child, naming him Minos. The man would later become the king of Knossos, celebrated for his naval mastery and prosperity. Though Minos did well for his country, he held a dark secret. To legitimize his rule, he once prayed to the god of the sea, Poseidon, asking him for his favor. The god answered with a brilliant white bull that emerged from the sea, a gift intended for sacrifice. So enamored Minos found himself with the handsome bull that he chose to sacrifice one of his own in its place.

Thus, Poseidon cast a spell on Pasiphae, Minos’s since faithful wife, to fall madly in love with his bull. Pasiphae, now possessed by a primal obsession, went to Daedalus, master craftsman and architect, to craft her a cow that she could enter and mate with the bull. Her desires soon manifested into a child, one born with the body of a man and the head of a bull, the Minotaur. Appalled, Minos then ordered Daedalus to build a network of tunnels beneath his palace, a labyrinth to house the horrific beast. Every nine years thereafter, Athens was forced to surrender seven young men and seven young women to Crete to satiate the Minotaur.

Infiltrating another pledge of victims, the hero Theseus was determined to end this brutal tradition. Purposefully, he wandered through Minos’s palace of endless corridors, passageways, and shadows until his gaze was unexpectedly met by Ariadne’s, Minos’s beautiful daughter. Instantly enchanted, Ariadne heard his tale and offered aid, giving him a ball of thread to mark his path through the labyrinth. Navigating the dreadful tunnels tested his strength and endurance, but would ultimately lead him to his ominous foe. Theseus succeeded in slaying the beast, followed the thread to his escape, and fled with Ariadne.

Minos’s fury turned to Daedalus and his son Icarus, whom he swiftly imprisoned in the very labyrinth that Daedalus constructed. Fashioning wings from feathers and wax, father and son chose to escape by air. But in Icarus’s haste, he flew too close to the sun. For a brief moment, he triumphed in the sun’s glory, only to feel the burn of melting wax upon his skin and watch the feathers of his wings flutter away. He fell to his death, washed away by the sea. Daedalus would survive, taking refuge in Sicily.

These tales were how the Greeks remembered the Minoans. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and the rise of their mainland neighbors, the Mycenaeans, left their land conquered and their palaces abandoned. By 1200 BCE, most Minoan sites were in ruin, while piratical groups began claiming their coastlines. It wasn’t until the 8^th century BCE that archaic Greeks colonized Crete. Not all was lost, and as such, there are several ways to connect myth and legend to what is known about Minoan civilization, their architecture, traditions, and symbols.

Theseus’s heroic adventure into Crete is centered around the bull, the Minotaur, and he, as well as the other sacrificial victims, are youths. Considering that the bull games may have been a rite of passage or perhaps a trial of strength, it parallels Theseus’s experience in overcoming the bull and his introduction into a love relationship. Though Ariadne and Theseus never wed, their series of events mimics coming-of-age or rites of passage, which prepare youths for adulthood and eventually marriage. The labyrinth is noticeably defined in the complexity of Minoan palaces as well as the symbolic labrys. Etymologically, it is believed that the Greek word labyrinthos (labyrinth) is derived from labrys (double axe) and inthos (place of), roughly meaning place of the double axe, or more appropriately, House of the Double Axe.

There is, however, another explanation that accounts for the labyrinth structure being underground. In Cretan versions of the legend, the youths were never victims of sacrifice, at least to the bull, but rather prizes meant for participation or sacrifice in Androgeus’s funerary games, much like later Mycenaeans incorporated bull games and combat sports into funerary tradition. In this case, the subject is the son of King Minos—the Minotaur was the product of an affair, but similarly linked to Minos. Victims may have been held temporarily in an underground holding area within the palace complex, being trained or untrained in the sports that followed. The bull games were most certainly dangerous; death or severe injury was inevitable. The contests themselves, much like gladiatorial games, were evocative to the spectator, terrifying to the participant, but also a symbol of bravery.

Subtleties in written accounts, like those of Plutarch and Philo of Alexandria, point to a highly plausible scenario in which the legend may be purely fantastical based on actual events. That Theseus did not necessarily travel to Crete to stop the Minotaur, but to participate in the bull games and accompanying sports. Iconography, as well as these written accounts, suggests that the games may have been exclusive to Minoan elites. Taursus, another name for the Minotaur, may actually be a general of Minos’s army to whom Theseus was granted permission as a foreigner to wrestle. It is still possible that Theseus wrestled a bull, as gems found in Crete, dating to the Minoan era, show men actively wrestling with bulls, rather than leaping over them. Additionally, the legendary Heracles famously wrestled and subdued the Cretan Bull during his seventh trial.

Inspiration and Modern Myth

Whether bull sports were funerary, celebratory, rites of passage, or a combination of sorts, they were entrenched in Minoan culture, recognizably diverse, and utterly fascinating to outsiders. Those most notably influenced by the Minoans were the mainland Mycenaeans, who, according to popular consensus, invaded Crete and its surrounding islands sometime around 1450 BCE. At this time, and the decades leading up, the Minoans had been fortifying and storing, indicative of war preparations. It is also during this time that Crete began using Linear B, an adaptation of Linear A widely used by the Mycenaeans.

The best evidence is found through artistic motifs of bulls and sea life, pottery, frescoes, and metalworks. Though most Mycenaean artwork has a military focus, clear inspiration can be drawn. Palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Pylos were similar in design to the elaborate palaces of Crete, despite having their own architectural traditions. Grave goods originate from Crete, the double axe, a religious pantheon with a principal female deity, and religious symbolism, all carried on fluently.

The origins of perhaps the greatest oracular site in ancient history, Delphi, transpired as Apollo defeated an enormous she-dragon, the serpent Python, to establish a site for his oracles, then transformed into a dolphin to bring priests from Crete to run his temple. The specificity of a female snake deity and Cretan priests echo beliefs, traditions, and practices that originated in Crete. If the Minoans had something similar to a theocratic system of governance, whereby rulers were associated with the divine and religious leaders were revered and sought after, it is no coincidence that Delphi was at the center of political counsel, bending the will of the powerful. Their oracles, the Pythia, also enjoyed a level of prestige compared to other sites.

In modern times, the Minoans are often associated with the otherworldly lost city of Atlantis. Plato’s description in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias (360 BCE), handed down from an Egyptian priest to an Athenian statesman, tells of a mysterious city with wonders and advancements beyond their time. Their city was curiously designed, trade networks were extensive, granting them exceptional wealth and a superior navy. A natural disaster struck within a day and night, leaving Atlantis to fall into a watery abyss.

The connections are compelling. Natural disasters destroyed Thera around 1600 BCE, a Minoan colony. It is no secret that the region had repeatedly dealt with natural disasters, as was the case with the rebuilding of all Minoan palaces on Crete during the Late Bronze Age. Trade was known to occur in distant regions, including Egypt, which supports the Egyptian record of such a place. Plato had also mentioned bull sacrifice, and Thucydides claimed that Minos built the world’s first navy. However, inconsistencies outweigh evidence. The time period, location, and the oddly specific nature of Atlantis do not match current archaeological data.

For now, at least, Atlantis is a myth or may be located in some other far-off place that is beyond the scope of this article. In any case, the Minoans left a mark on not just the ancients but modern society as well. Their rare exceptionality speaks to a world where conflict is not invited, where tradition, myth, and legend collide. In the ancient portrayal of Minoan society, and what is known about them now, albeit not complete, they may certainly be the epitome of mythifications of history. Mythology has never been simple storytelling to explain the world or to give life to deities; it is also based on histories, oral and written. What the Minoans give, truly, is a definitive glimpse into how and why mythification occurs. In a place that defied convention, so extraordinary and well preserved in its expression, its influence could not help but drift across lands and imaginations, becoming lasting myth and legend, like a fair wind carrying a ship across the sea.

Featured image: Ladies in Blue, Knossos (Heraklion Archaeological Museum, CC0)

References

• Cartwright, M. 2018. Minoan Civilization. World History Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/Minoan_Civilization/

• Macquire, K. 2020. The Minoans & Mycenaeans: Comparison of Two Bronze Age Civilisations. World History Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1610/the-minoans--mycenaeans-comparison-of-two-bronze-a/

• Scanlon, T.F. 2014. Women, Bull Sports, Cults, and Initiation in Minoan Crete. Sports in the Greek and Roman World. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sport_in_the_Greek_and_Roman_Worlds/mGcJBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=female+athletes+minoan+society&pg=PA28&printsec=frontcover

• Mclnerney, J. 2011. Bulls and Bull-Leaping in the Minoan World. Expedition Magazine. Available at: https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/bulls-and-bull-leaping-in-the-minoan-world/

• Pedley, J.G. 2012. Greek Art and Archaeology – 5^th Edition. Pearson Education, Inc.

• Plutarch. The Parallel Lives – The Life of Theseus. Loeb Classical Library, 1914. Available at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Theseus*.html

• Plato, translated by Waterfield, R. 2008. Timaeus and Critias. Oxford World Classics, Oxford University Press.

While I continue to produce material for Digging Up The Past, I will be starting a new unrelated podcast centered around another passion of mine: music. More specifically, heavy metal music. And I will be hosting this podcast with my wife, Jodi Koutoupis. Music is what brought us together and music continues to play an important role in our life together. In fact, music plays an important role in our household, as even our children continue to carry that torch (while also knowing how to play multiple instruments).

Amped & Unleashed

A podcast for Metal Music ranging from Metalcore to Nu metal and and its many other sub genres. Stories, interviews, news, tours, album reviews, behind-the-scene moments, and monthly line-ups and many more.

By Petros Koutoupis

Anyway, the podcast is named Amped and Unleashed and it is geared for Metal Music enthusiasts with topics ranging from Metalcore to Nu metal and and its many other sub genres. You will hear stories, concert experiences, interviews, music news about your favorite bands, current tours, album reviews, behind-the-scene moments, monthly music line-ups and many more.

It is a project I look forward to doing with her. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, please subscribe.

We will start recording this week!

NOTE - Current logos will change this week to add her name to mine.

For much of the past century, Julius Nepos has been remembered primarily as a footnote in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Overthrown in 475, he ruled in Dalmatia for nearly a decade before his assassination in 480. Yet recent archaeological discoveries are beginning to illuminate the reality of his court, offering tangible insights into what life was like for the last emperor to claim Rome’s western throne.

Dalmatia, far from being a peripheral backwater, was a vital region in the late fifth century. Its fortified towns, maritime connections, and agricultural wealth provided a strategic base from which Nepos could maintain his claim to Italy, coordinate diplomacy with Constantinople, and manage local elites. Until recently, our knowledge of this period came almost exclusively from literary sources: the chronicles of Marcellinus Comes, Priscus, and the fragmentary writings of Eastern historians. While valuable, these texts leave much to the imagination. Archaeology now allows us to see Nepos’ world in material terms.

Recent excavations in Salona (modern Solin, Croatia), the Roman provincial capital and likely administrative centre for Nepos, have uncovered layers of late Roman fortifications and domestic architecture dating to the late fifth century. Walls previously thought to have been abandoned in the early fifth century show signs of rapid repair and reinforcement, consistent with Marcellinus’ account of Nepos’ efforts to defend his territory against internal rivals and external raiders. Ceramic and coin finds further support an active, organized court: coins bearing Eastern imperial imagery alongside remnants of imported pottery suggest that Nepos maintained connections not only with Constantinople but also with Mediterranean trade networks, ensuring that Dalmatia remained economically vibrant despite political upheaval in Italy.

Smaller settlements and rural villas along the Adriatic coast reveal a similar pattern. Excavations at Trogir and Split have identified elite residences with mosaics, hypocausts, and evidence of ongoing agricultural production. These villas likely served as secondary residences or administrative hubs, enabling Nepos to project authority across the province and provide for his retinue. The material record demonstrates that the emperor’s administration was far from idle: local economies were maintained, taxes collected, and social hierarchies preserved.

Perhaps most fascinating are the recent finds of late fifth-century inscriptions and seal impressions. Some of these suggest that Nepos actively engaged in formal administration, issuing official correspondence and legal orders. While the texts are fragmentary, they indicate a functioning bureaucratic apparatus reminiscent of that in Ravenna, reinforcing the view that Dalmatia was not merely a refuge but a seat of legitimate power. Nepos’ court, in effect, continued the traditions of Roman governance even as the Italian heartland slipped from imperial control.

These discoveries also illuminate daily life. The presence of imported ceramics, fine tableware, and evidence of specialized craft production, particularly metalwork and textile processing suggests that Nepos’ court was culturally sophisticated, blending Roman, Mediterranean, and local Illyrian influences. Rather than a desperate exile clinging to a fading title, the material record portrays a ruler capable of sustaining a functioning, prosperous court far from the former imperial capital.

Importantly, these findings challenge the long-standing narrative of Nepos as a marginal figure. Traditional histories emphasize his overthrow by Odoacer and the swift absorption of Italy into barbarian domains, portraying Dalmatia as a backwater. Archaeology, however, offers nuance. It shows that Nepos’ Dalmatian court was not a shadow of imperial power but a continuation of Roman governance and culture in a peripheral region, one that maintained administrative coherence, economic stability, and diplomatic ties to the Eastern Empire.

For historians, these discoveries are transformative. They allow us to reassess the collapse of the Western Empire, not as a single catastrophic event, but as a process in which pockets of Roman authority persisted, adapted, and endured. Nepos’ court in Dalmatia stands as a testament to the resilience of imperial structures and the capacity of regional centers to sustain governance, trade, and cultural life in the face of systemic collapse elsewhere.

As excavations continue, we can expect even more light to be shed on this fascinating period. Each coin, ceramic shard, or fragment of inscription is a piece of the puzzle, revealing a Dalmatia that was vibrant, administratively complex, and politically significant under the last Roman emperor of the West. Julius Nepos, long relegated to the margins of history, is slowly being rediscovered, not merely as a man in exile, but as a ruler whose court kept the machinery of empire alive at the edge of the old Roman world.

Feature image: Illustration depicting the Palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in its original appearance ca 1912 by Ernest Hébrard. (Public Domain)

Leslie Ivings is the author of Byzantine Emperor Constantine V, Pen & Sword (2025)

Constantine V - warrior, reformer, and one of Byzantium’s most formidable emperors. A brilliant general who crushed the Arab advance, strengthened the crumbling empire, and won the loyalty of his soldiers long after his death.

But history has not been kind. A fierce iconoclast, hated by the church and smeared by monastic chroniclers, he was branded Copronymos (“the dung-named”), compared to a sorcerer - even the Antichrist.

Married three times, politically astute, and as influential in theology as he was on the battlefield, Constantine’s legacy rivals Justinian himself. Yet unlike Justinian, he died not in splendour, but leading his army on campaign in Bulgaria.

Articles and Podcasts by and with Leslie Ivings

Kingdoms across the ancient world were gripped by confusion during the 14^th century BCE. Egyptian and Near Eastern coastal cities were being ransacked by marauders, while rulers hurled accusations at one another in desperate attempts to uncover the culprits. Their surviving correspondences echo mutual frustrations, an omnipresent sense of uncertainty that hung over the Mediterranean world. Akhenaten wrote to the king of Alasiya, accusing him of the treachery facing his kingdom, only to be reminded that their plight was shared. Some had an inkling as to who these mysterious marauders were. The Hittites spoke about the Lukka, a group with indeterminate territories in Anatolia, or perhaps it was the Sherden, the very same seafaring mercenaries the Egyptians employed throughout their military.

No matter, something was clearly churning in the waters that sustained these ancient societies. Two centuries later, the mechanisms of societal collapse that defined the end of the Bronze Age were devastating for some but liberating for others. Those who worked tirelessly for meager rations, laboring away in cramped, unsanitary, and dangerous conditions, were given an opportunity. Ship builders, rowers, textile and construction workers often faced harsh conditions and even harsher punishments. Uprisings of the working class through the end of the Bronze Age and into the early Iron Age only fueled an already raging fire. With natural and economic factors merging into a frenzy, social structures crumbled, wars broke out, and unexpected alliances formed. Catastrophe inevitably forged new identities, products of desperation and adaptation, guided by the merciless sea, and thus, the pirate was born.

Emerging Tribal Identities

Before the rise of the infamous Sea Peoples, piracy had already begun to establish itself in the Mediterranean. As trade expanded, so too did opportunities for acquiring wealth. But for the many, wealth was reserved for the elitists of their society, and they were forced to endure at the will of those in power. When societies began to fall, any means to a sustainable living were forfeit; starvation, disaster, and droughts withered away the resilient. Through this unfathomable series of events, those who were once a nuisance found camaraderie at the sea. The Sea Peoples, so well-known for their plundering and devastation, laying waste to cities, came from no single place. They were a collective, one that did not live by the laws of the land and saw no reason to submit to the leaders who failed them.

“Not one stood before their hands… They desolated his people and his land like that which is not… they lay their hands upon the land as far as the Circle of the Earth. Their hearts were confident, full of their plans.”

Ramesses III temple inscription, Medinet Habu. Breasted translation, 2001

When Ramesses III defeated the Sea Peoples in 1178 BCE, sparing his kingdom from their wrath, they disappeared from historical records. Others were not so lucky. New kingdoms emerged in the wake of destruction, rebuilding their societies from the ground up. But the Sea Peoples were not gone; some had assimilated back into society, leaving their undeniable mark on cultures, while others embraced the piratical lifestyle and would later become the pirates of future generations. What can be said about the Sea Peoples is that they built a fully self-governing and self-supporting society of their own, flourishing in the shadows of expansion and interdependency. They came from various geographical locations, religions, and cultures, working together through common aspirations. What defined them, and continued to define piratical activity thereafter, was their tribal nature.

Historically, tribalism is a form of egalitarianism, based on a system that embraces equal distribution of work and wealth. As such, it may be more informal than that of other social organizations like chiefdoms or city-states, whereby an individual or close-knit group, usually granted through hereditary rights, holds sovereignty. Therefore, the basis of pirate culture relied on the equality of its people, which was in stark contrast to the types of societies prevalent at the time. This is why piracy served as an opportunity for those less fortunate; it enabled a form of equality that may not have been afforded to them in their past lives. Their newfound identities revolved around social behaviors that entitled each of them to rewards—food, plunder, and drink—that they did not have to surrender to a higher power. In this freedom, patterns of behavior evolved into a social order of its own.

Undoubtedly, leaders were chosen, but the choice may have been based on merit rather than hereditary affiliations. Likely taking Indo-European titles, pirate leaders would have called themselves tawaris, the warlord, among other commendable titles. Several tribes could have been under the same leadership, sailing the seas under their own tribal names. In time, as tribes exponentially grew through the seizing of new ships and resources, they would split off and form new tribal groups with new leaders. For piracy to be at its most effective, groups needed to remain small, agile, and efficient. In essence, this configuration is reminiscent of hunter-gather societies, moving from place to place in similarly small groups, gathering resources, and then moving on. Contrary to common belief, pirates, even in those early days, did not plunder anything and everything. Their choices were meticulous to ensure that survival at sea was sustainable.

Symbols of Unification

Because the Sea Peoples came from multi-ethnic backgrounds, it propagated cultural exchange. Through archaeological records, early pirates shared their native material cultures and traditions in inventive maritime ways, having strong ties to Aegean and Italic cultures, as well as others throughout Anatolia. Their ships, small and easily navigable, were their homes, their kingdoms, and a symbol of their identities. At the prow of their ship sat the head of a bird. On their bodies, the regalia of a true warrior of the sea. Horned and feathered helmets likely adorned their heads, stylized to their liking, and unifying them as a tribe or collective. These helmets also linked them to people, like the Sherden or Anatolians, who were known, along with some of their deities, to wear the horned or feathered helmet. Emblems, spiraled patterns, pottery, weaponry, and wares shared common features inspired by their multi-ethnic heritage, yet transformed into something new.

The feasts in which pirates shared after a successful pillaging campaign mirrored the once grand celebrations that were only offered to them through the palaces of their leaders as a steadfast reminder of the social hierarchy that existed on land. Without the palace to grant them extravagant feasts, they were free to celebrate at their leisure. Gathered around immense hearths that scattered their coastal retreats, they feasted and drank, reminiscing on spoils and conquests. Drinking in excess became an act of unification between a single crew or separate tribes, a symbol of their communal spirits. With all that they had acquired, all they were set to gain, there was nothing to hoard. In these simple acts, they were equals.

Expectedly, there was more required of the pirate lifestyle than feasting, drinking, and pillaging. The organization of any given ship needed a skilled crew. Some were ranked based on skill: fighters, rowers, builders, doctors, and others. Still, even the unskilled were given jobs, though their share of spoils may have been slightly affected. Nonetheless, everyone aboard functioned and benefited from the arrangement. Working together, their tactics proved efficacious. Practical ships easily beached on moonlit shores, allowing them to slip into cities without much of a fight. Successes depended on the element of surprise. Structures were destroyed, agricultural fields burned, and people fled in panic, as they ravaged what was theirs for the taking. If the land was suitable, they could then effortlessly claim it as their own, feasting beneath the flames of ruin.

Though many cities were left as abandoned rubble, the land that became pirate rendezvous, hideouts, and lookouts was strategically chosen. The Mediterranean was plentiful in rocky outcrops, sheltered creeks, coves, straits, capes, and promontories. Turbulent seas meant that trade ships skirted the coastline, leaving them open to attack. Pirates hidden by rocky cliffs or watching ominously from promontories that hung high above the waters could easily overtake a vulnerable ship. Capes and straits provided the perfect choke points with little time for merchants to evade. They founded their havens in advantageous locations, where ships could be spotted and the element of surprise was their loyal ally. In places desolated by pirate attacks, such as Crete, those who remained migrated further inland, leaving the coast abandoned to piratical occupation. Attempts to subdue only strengthened their resolve. Numbers grew faster than any one society could withstand. Myriads of Aegean islands became the triumphs of rogues.

The explosion of piracy brought on by the Sea Peoples inevitably fed on the failures of strained institutions. However, despite pushback long after the world recovered, relics of a past cultivated in chaos metamorphosed into a functioning enterprise, welcomed and adopted by the very people who once sought to end them. Not only did pirates receive willing members, many of whom came from shattered cities, but they also took by force. The slave trade was nothing new to Iron Age people. Clever tricks and well-organized assaults were leverageable skills. If slaves were not sold, reconciliation lived aboard the ship of their captors. Their rites of passage were dependent on proving themselves worthy and reveling in their rituals. For the societies that relied on slave labor, pirates were formidable collaborators.

Blurring the Lines Between the Political and the Piratical

As the slave trade became more lucrative, so too did those who participated in it. Pirates were employed, kidnapping and selling citizens at slave ports with full profits. Legitimate traders were also quick to transport slaves who sold themselves or their children, or even engaged in kidnapping, all the same. Demand for slaves far outweighed moral reason, and the ease of acquiring human cargo with little expense made for a rewarding living. Power and influence in the Greek Mediterranean, along with approved slave acquisition by any means, meant that piracy at this time was a tool rather than a hindrance. Further indifference to piratical activity led to the Greek implementation of the marauder strategy for wartime efforts, targeting political adversaries, capturing fleets, and sailing away with riches. Indeed, crews needed approval by the state, and spoils needed verification as belonging to the enemy, with some expectedly turned over to the sponsored city-state.

The lure of perceived fortuitous transgression enabled anyone to fit a small ship and assemble a crew of fellow peasants. Any fisherman or builder would have been well-acquainted with the necessary skills in maintaining a lifestyle at sea aboard small limbus crafts, and the opportunity for upward mobility likely mollified hesitation. So common and ingrained in everyday affairs, even the great writers of the time celebrated or told tales of the pirate’s life. Homer gave some of the earliest written descriptions of piratical motivations: thrilling exploits, sacking cities, women ready for the taking, feasts of lamb, and copious wine. Thucydides considered them somewhat primitive, yet honorable in their pursuits.

“For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most powerful men; the motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support the needy. They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls, and consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it; indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, no disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement, but even some glory.”

Thucydides, 1.5

Herodotus raved about Polycrates of Samos, a 6th-century BCE pirate warlord with 100 ships at his command, frighteningly competent in his naval mastery. Though not so competent when he fell for a trap that led to his crucifixion. A 7th-century Homeric Hymn told the tale of the abduction of a beautiful boy in favor of Dionysus, the god of madness, by the Tyrrhenians. Vines sprang from the wooden boards of their ship, beasts flowed like water through their cracks, and the men transformed into dolphins. The Etruscans, also referred to as Tyrrhenians—an ambiguous term the Greeks often used for pirates or ethnic groups in Italy—were synonymous with piratical aggressions. Perhaps a product of negative propaganda, most Etruscans were merely armed traders. Regardless, the blurring of lines between pirate and policy made identification of aggressors a challenging obstacle. For those who ventured out to sea, anyone could be a pirate. Such a predicament did the Greeks find themselves in that attempts at limiting unchecked piratical reign were short-lived. Alexander the Great’s international coalition against piracy seemed promising, but it was regularly met with resistance and betrayal. By the time of his death in 323 BCE, his successors resumed a tradition steeped in deception and desolation.

As the Roman Empire trailed the Hellenistic era, piracy had exploded into an unstoppable force. The Greeks had been utilizing pirate tactics for warfare, the slave trade, and petty disputes. Pirates had long taken over the coastal regions of Crete and many of the islands in the Aegean. Powerless coastal cities were either left abandoned, destroyed, or reclaimed by tribes of pirates. A sinister presence threatened any ship that sailed the Mediterranean, probing eyes looming in all directions. Cilician pirates from the south of Tarsus in Anatolia targeted lucrative trade centers. The Illyrians, a highly skilled tribal culture under the rule of Queen Teutra, scourged the seas, provoking Rome with trade disruptions and the killing of an envoy. After two tumultuous wars and the betrayal of her successor, she supposedly leaped from a cliff. But as these things often go, the Illyrians did not keep up their end of the deal with Rome and hastily returned to their pirate ways until they were finally decimated in 227 BCE.

In truth, the Romans had a grave dilemma on their hands. They relied on piracy for slaves, resulting in several extremely wealthy ports, founded on piracy and the slave trade. The faltering of the Seleucid Empire only bolstered the Cilician pirates, and even as Rome moved to annex the region in 190 BCE, nothing could deter their growing numbers. Emboldened by unbridled ambitions, dignitaries were killed, war efforts thwarted, merchants ruthlessly attacked, and travelers tricked into trade were kidnapped and sold as slaves. Rhodes endured relentless assaults, their navy on the verge of collapse. Fortifying ships and patrol routes proved successful, but only for a time. In 75 BCE, 25-year-old Julius Caesar was kidnapped by Cilician pirates while in Rhodes. Rather than submit to his captors, he embraced what fate had offered him, going so far as to demand a higher, worthy ransom for his return.

“For eight and thirty days, as if the men were not his watchers, but his royal body-guard, he shared in their sports and exercises with great unconcern. He also wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate Barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all. The pirates were delighted at this, and attributed his boldness of speech to a certain simplicity and boyish mirth.”

Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar

Means to an End

The abduction of Julius Caesar and the disastrous raids that followed inevitably spelled the end for unbound warriors of the sea. Despite their hefty contributions to the slave trade, the Romans no longer saw sufficient use for them, seeing them as more of a growing encumbrance to the empire. In 71 BCE, Rome waged war on the Cretan pirates. A few years later and through a series of three turbulent conflicts and unprecedented authority, Pompey the Great defeated the Cilician pirates. For the first time, fleets came together, working their way through designated districts assigned to the sea. It was a collaborative effort that paid off. Pirates were driven back, crucified, sold as slaves, or given opportunities for rehabilitation far from the sea’s auspicious repute.

Still, the culture that the Sea People built did not fade into obscurity. The Romans eliminated opposition but continued to utilize the Cilicians in a controlled manner, granting them sanctioned prospects in the slave trade. Through this, the city of Side achieved immense wealth and status, all under the guise of Roman law, and still as deceptive as ever in their tactics. The reality was that piracy never ended; it was simply mitigated as long as it could be contained. Piracy thrived in the Mediterranean until the Middle Ages, not only because it was the birthplace of pirates, but also because it was the perfect geographical location.

Future piratical groups emulated the traditions and tactics of the original warriors of the sea. The notorious Barbary Pirates, spanning from the 16^th to the 19^th century, were a collective of different ethnicities, all drinking, feasting, and plundering to their hearts’ content, gathering slaves for sale, and expressing their identities through their ships, symbols, and material culture. Among others, the tribal nature of the Vikings, along with their impeccable seafaring skills, made them legendary pirates in their own right. The act of piracy was and has always been based on the unifying nature of the liberation that is found in camaraderie. The tribal affiliation that almost instinctively occurs in piratical formations is the uninhibited release of the chains that bind individuals to the rigidness of hierarchical society. And so, the pirate is not the villain in the world’s story. Though their acts may be seen as deplorable, it is not so different than what feuding nations have inflicted on each other. The rogue’s freewill was never a means to an end, but a means of surviving in a world shaped by brutality.

Featured image: Corsairs (pirate), ca. 1880 by Henryk Siemiradzki (Public domain)

References

• Hitchcock, L.A. & Maeir, A.M. 2016. Fifteen Men on a Dead Seren’s Chest: Yo Ho Ho and a Krater of Wine.

• Hitchcock, L.A. & Maeir, A.M. 2016. A Pirate’s Life for Me: The Maritime Culture of the Sea Peoples. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1-20.

• Hitchcock, L.A & Maeir, A.M. 2016. Pirates of the Crete Aegean: migration, mobility, and Post-Palatial realities at the end of the Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Cretan Studies, Heraklion.

• Mark, J. 2019. Pirates in the Ancient Mediterranean. World History Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/Piracy/

• Bileta, V. 2021. Scourge of the Inner Sea: The Pirates of the Ancient Mediterranean. The Collector. Available at: https://www.thecollector.com/ancient-mediterranean-pirates/

• Thucydides (translated). History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 1. 1-23. The Latin Library. Available at: https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/historians/thucyd/thucydides1.html

• Plutarch (translated). 1919. The Life of Julius Caesar. Loeb Classical Library. Available at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html

There are days when I find myself bone-tired, not of the work of history itself, but of the endless parade of pseudoscientific fantasies that clutter our field. One spends years reading inscriptions, weighing fragments of evidence, learning dead languages, carefully piecing together the lives of emperors, peasants, and poets alike. And yet, when I speak to the public, the first question is not about the fragile empire of Constantine V or the struggles of Julius Nepos. It is: “But what about Atlantis?”

The weariness comes not from disagreement, historians thrive on debate, but from the sheer displacement of history by spectacle. Atlantis, ancient aliens, lost golden ages, biblical literalism, Aryan master-races: the counterfeit past always seems to attract more attention than the real one. This is not a minor nuisance. It is a profound intellectual and social problem, and one that requires both philosophical clarity and historical courage to address.

Why, though, does pseudoscience find such fertile ground in history? And what can we do to resist its seductive pull?

The Lure of False Certainty

The problem is hardly new. Plato, in his Republic, described humanity as prisoners in a cave, watching shadows on the wall, mistaking them for reality. The philosopher’s task was to break free and confront the painful light of truth. But most prefer the shadows. That allegory is a powerful reminder of why pseudo-history persists: it is easier to accept vivid illusions than to grapple with messy truths.

David Hume put it bluntly: “The passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events.” (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, X.12). The human mind is not naturally inclined towards scepticism; it delights in marvels. Thus, when confronted with competing accounts, one sober, evidence-based, nuanced; the other spectacular, cosmic, filled with lost continents and hidden secrets, many readers lean toward the latter.

Pseudo-history thrives on narrative clarity. “The pyramids were built by aliens” is a far simpler story than “The pyramids were the result of complex social, economic, and religious structures over centuries, relying on human ingenuity and labour.” False certainty is more comforting than real ambiguity.

Why, though, is history more vulnerable to pseudoscience than, say, chemistry or mathematics? One answer lies in Karl Popper’s criterion of falsifiability. A scientific theory must be open to testing and disproof. History, however, often deals with unique and unrepeatable events. We cannot rerun the fall of Rome or conduct laboratory experiments on the life of Julius Caesar. This inherent difference leaves space for imaginative speculation.

Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, showed how science progresses through paradigm shifts, normal science punctuated by revolutions. History, by contrast, does not experience paradigms in the same way. Historians debate interpretations, but rarely do we have the clarity of an Einstein displacing Newton. This makes it harder to decisively dismiss pseudo-historical claims. If one person insists Atlantis existed, how do we ‘falsify’ it beyond the absence of evidence? And as every historian knows, the absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.

It is precisely this epistemological gap that pseudo-historians exploit. They thrive in the grey zones where absolute proof is impossible, presenting speculation as if it were legitimate debate. The result is a flourishing industry of conjecture, from ‘biblical archaeology’ wielded to prove literal readings of scripture, to nationalist myths that conjure ancient homelands for modern political projects.

Power, Politics, and the Uses of Pseudo-History

Pseudo-history is never innocent. Michel Foucault argued that knowledge and power are inseparable: ‘We should admit… that power produces knowledge… that power and knowledge directly imply one another.’ (Discipline and Punish). To control the past is to control identity, legitimacy, and authority in the present.

This is why pseudo-history has been so potent in politics. The Nazi myth of Aryan antiquity was not a harmless fantasy but a justification for conquest and extermination. Nationalist regimes throughout the twentieth century have pressed historians into service, fabricating ancient continuity or inventing legendary origins. Even today, myths of a ‘lost golden age’ are mobilised in political rhetoric across continents.

Hannah Arendt warned of the danger when the line between fact and fiction dissolves: ‘The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction… no longer exists.’ (The Origins of Totalitarianism). Pseudo-history erodes precisely that distinction. It is not merely false; it is corrosive, preparing the ground for authoritarianism by blurring truth and fiction. Thus, when we dismiss Atlantis or ancient aliens as harmless entertainment, we underestimate the stakes. The past, rewritten in false terms, becomes a tool of present domination.

Here, then, I must confess my own weariness. It is not easy to spend years labouring over manuscripts, only to have readers discard them in favour of a forty-minute documentary on YouTube that claims Julius Caesar was a time traveller, or that Rome was founded by refugees from outer space. The emotional toll of seeing spectacle displace scholarship is real. What makes it disheartening is not disagreement. I welcome debate; the clash of interpretations is the lifeblood of history. What wears me down is the displacement of history itself, the way myths crowd out the real work of reconstructing the past. There is nothing more dispiriting than a student who arrives eager for Atlantis, but finds Livy or Ammianus dull in comparison. And yet, this is precisely why we must resist. Weariness cannot give way to silence.

What Can Be Done?

The problem is formidable, but not hopeless. Several remedies present themselves.
Popper’s insistence on falsifiability remains a crucial safeguard. We must remind readers that theories which cannot be tested, challenged, or disproven are not historical theories at all. Hume’s scepticism should be part of every historian’s toolkit: an alertness to the human tendency toward wonder and credulity.
History must be taught not only as a body of facts but as a discipline of method. Students should learn how evidence is weighed, how sources are evaluated, how bias is detected. Richard Evans, in In Defence of History, rightly emphasised that history is not the same as fiction; it rests on disciplined engagement with sources. If the public were better trained in these skills, pseudo-history would have less appeal. Historians cannot retreat into the ivory tower. If we write only for one another, we leave the public sphere open to pseudo-historians. The challenge is to write accessibly without sacrificing rigour, to show that the true past is complex, messy, human and is more fascinating than any fabrication. The best antidote to pseudo-history is compelling, well-told, evidence-based history. The age of social media has amplified pseudo-history beyond anything Gibbon could have imagined. We must arm readers with tools to assess sources critically, to ask who is producing a video, what evidence is offered, and what motives may ie behind it. Just as citizens are taught to detect misinformation in politics, they must be taught to detect pseudo-history.
Finally, historians must not cede the realm of wonder to pseudo-science. The real past is filled with marvels: the engineering genius of Roman aqueducts, the intellectual ferment of the Greek city-states, the resilience of cultures long dismissed as “barbarian.” If we can tell these stories with passion, readers will see that history itself, honestly told, contains more awe than Atlantis ever could.

Why is pseudo-history so prevalent? Because it flatters our craving for simplicity, for wonder, for stories that confirm our identities or political ambitions. History is vulnerable because it cannot be replicated in laboratories, and because its evidential gaps invite fantasy. And yet, if we allow pseudo-history to prevail, we surrender the past to illusion, and the present to manipulation. The remedy lies in scepticism, in philosophy, in education, and above all in engagement. We must keep showing that the truth of the past, however partial, however provisional, is richer and stranger than the myths that obscure it.

I am weary, yes. But history deserves better than shadows and myths. And so, I think, do we.

Featured image: Illumination of a 15th-century manuscript of Historia Regum Britanniae showing king of the Britons Vortigern and Ambros watching the fight between two dragons. (Public Domain)

Leslie Ivings is the author of Byzantine Emperor Constantine V, Pen & Sword (2025)

Constantine V - warrior, reformer, and one of Byzantium’s most formidable emperors. A brilliant general who crushed the Arab advance, strengthened the crumbling empire, and won the loyalty of his soldiers long after his death.

But history has not been kind. A fierce iconoclast, hated by the church and smeared by monastic chroniclers, he was branded Copronymos (“the dung-named”), compared to a sorcerer - even the Antichrist.

Married three times, politically astute, and as influential in theology as he was on the battlefield, Constantine’s legacy rivals Justinian himself. Yet unlike Justinian, he died not in splendour, but leading his army on campaign in Bulgaria.

Articles and Podcasts by and with Leslie Ivings

Reported by UC San Diego Today:

New research out of the University of California San Diego and the University of Haifa is reshaping what we know about ancient seaborne trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Published recently in Antiquity, a new paper documents the first-ever discovery of Iron Age ship cargoes within a former port city in Israel and provides rare, direct evidence of trade in a period previously understood largely through land-based finds.

Spearheaded by UC San Diego’s Thomas E. Levy, co-director of the UC San Diego Qualcomm Institute Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability, a distinguished professor in the Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs and inaugural holder of the Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands in the Department of Anthropology, and Assaf Yasur-Landau, the founder of the University of Haifa’s Laboratory for Coastal Archaeology and Underwater Survey, the international research team has revealed new patterns of connectivity, commerce and political change in the region from the 11th to 6th centuries BCE.

The researchers uncovered three distinct submerged cargo assemblages in the Dor Lagoon—also known as Tantura Lagoon—on Israel’s Carmel Coast. This was once home to the bustling port city of Dor, which sat at the crossroads of Egyptian, Phoenician and later Assyrian and Babylonian trade.

These are among the very few Iron Age cargoes known across the entire Mediterranean and the first tied to a known Iron Age port city in the southern Levant.

The project is part of the long-running marine and cyber-archaeology collaboration between UC San Diego’s Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability and the University of Haifa’s School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures. Through this partnership, researchers combine cutting-edge technologies like 3D modeling, multispectral imaging and digital mapping with traditional archaeological excavation to explore submerged cultural heritage.

Read more here.

Be sure to check out their podcast here: https://www.lostromanheroes.com

Reported by Archaeology News:

A team of international underwater archaeologists is unearthing fresh information regarding Roman maritime life after unearthing a well-preserved shipwreck in Barbir Bay, near the town of Sukošan on Croatia’s Adriatic coast.

The ship, believed to have been built between the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, was discovered in 2021 during excavations of a Roman-era harbor. It has since emerged as the most significant archaeological find in the region.

The ship, about 12.5 meters (40 feet) in length, was likely a merchant vessel. Archaeologists discovered hundreds of olive pits in its wreckage, which suggests that it had transported agricultural products across the Adriatic. Other discoveries at the harbor site, including grapes, peaches, and walnut shells, support the idea that the port was a hub for the transportation of produce, possibly to estates in the surrounding countryside. Combined, these findings demonstrate the significant role that coastal trade played in sustaining communities in the Roman frontier.

What is outstanding about the discovery is the state of preservation of the vessel. Large sections of its upper structure, rarely preserved in ancient wrecks, survived in the bay sediments. Specialists describe the construction as precise and stable, perfect for carrying heavy loads over medium to long distances. Such vessels would have been indispensable two thousand years ago, supporting economic chains connecting islands, ports, and settlements on land.

Read more here.

Reported by Hurriyet Daily News:

Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy has announced the discovery of a 4,500-year-old gold ring brooch and a rare jade stone during excavations in the ancient city of Troy, located in the western province of Çanakkale, which have been ongoing for over 160 years.

“A 4,500-year-old gold brooch and jade stone have been brought to light at Troy. During the Troy excavations, ongoing for over 160 years, a gold ring brooch dating back to the Early Bronze Age and an extremely rare jade stone were found. This brooch, one of only three known examples in the world and the best-preserved, is among the most important discoveries of the last 100 years,” he said.

The find, originating from the Troy II layers, dates to approximately 2,500 B.C. Ersoy noted that the jade stone was one of the luxury items of its time, reflecting the social status and wealth of its owner. “These unique artifacts will soon be displayed at the Troy Museum. I would like to thank the teams working meticulously under the ‘Legacy for the Future’ project and everyone who contributed to these important excavations,” he added.

A statement from the ministry emphasized that the 2025 Troy excavations have yielded discoveries of such significance that they will enter the global archaeology literature. The uncovering of the gold brooch in the Troy II layers has also resolved long-standing debates about the city’s chronology. Alongside the brooch, archaeologists found a bronze pin and the rare jade stone, both considered symbols of power and social prestige.

The ministry said that the artifacts will be exhibited at the Troy Museum in accordance with the principle of displaying finds on the lands where they were discovered, offering scholars and visitors a direct connection to the ancient civilization.

Read more here.

Reported by the Independent:

Archaeologists found a bone whistle used by ancient Egyptian guards to warn of grave robbers, shedding light on how royal tombs were protected.

The whistle made from a cow’s toe bone was recovered from an archaeological site of the 18th Dynasty city of Akhenaten in Middle Egypt, dating from 1350-1330BC.

Although excavations at the site have been underway since the 1970s, recent digs have uncovered two isolated settlements of the dynasty.

The settlements likely housed the stonecutters and labourers who built the rock-cut tombs of the nearby royal cemetery.

These areas and their connecting roadway circuits appear to have been policed heavily.

In one of these roadways, archaeologists found what might once have been a storage building or a place for the guards to sleep.

Here, they recovered an ancient perforated cow toe bone.

“This object fits with ideas that this community was heavily policed because of their proximity to the royal cemetery and likely connection to work on the royal tombs,” researchers said.

While ancient cultures across the world made use of cow bones to create ornaments and dice for different board games, the one found at the guard building didn’t seem to fit into any of these categories.

An experimental recreation of the artefact revealed the bone might serve as a whistle, capable of producing a loud screeching tone that could be heard a long distance away.

Read more here.

When we hear the word iconoclasm today, many think of statues dragged from their pedestals, of stained glass smashed from church windows, or of portraits of political leaders daubed with paint. The word surfaces whenever societies confront their past by targeting its most visible symbols. Yet its meaning is older and deeper than these modern scenes suggest. Derived from the Greek eikon (image) and klan (to break), iconoclasm literally means “image-breaking.” At first sight it appears to be a straightforward act of destruction. But behind the breaking lies something more significant. Images are never neutral. They embody memory, power, and belief. To attack them is to contest what they stand for, to challenge those who revere them, and to redefine the future.

The Christian world was the first to give the word its sharpest edge. Christians had inherited the biblical suspicion of idols. The commandment in Exodus against “graven images” warned that the worship of anything made by human hands was a form of betrayal. At the same time, Christianity proclaimed the Incarnation, the conviction that God had taken on visible human form in Jesus Christ. How then was a believer to reconcile a rejection of idolatry with the reality of the divine made flesh? John of Damascus, one of the most articulate defenders of sacred images, once asked: “When the Invisible One becomes visible to flesh, you may then draw his likeness. When He who is bodiless and formless, immeasurable in the boundlessness of His own nature, existing in the form of God, takes on the form of a servant, then you may draw His likeness, and show it to anyone who is willing to contemplate it.” For John and others, to ban the image of Christ was in effect to deny the Incarnation itself. But for their opponents, images represented a dangerous slide into idolatry, a form of worship of the creature rather than the Creator.

It was in the Byzantine Empire that this controversy erupted with full force. Byzantium was saturated with images. Icons of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints adorned churches, palaces, and private homes. They were objects of devotion, kissed, venerated, and treated as mediators of divine power. Around 726, however, Emperor Leo III ordered the removal of a famous icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople. His motives remain debated. Some suggest that defeats against the advancing armies of Islam, a religion whose mosques avoided figural representation, persuaded him that God’s anger lay heavy upon Byzantium. Others see Leo’s action as part of an attempt to assert imperial authority over the church and its powerful monastic communities.

Whatever the precise reasons, his act unleashed a century of turmoil. Icons were removed from churches, replaced with simple crosses. The production of new icons was forbidden. Defenders of the practice, especially monks, faced exile, persecution, or worse. John of Damascus, living beyond Byzantine borders under Muslim rule, wrote his treatises in defense of icons, declaring that “the honor paid to the image passes to the prototype.” His writings became foundational for the iconophile position, asserting that images were not idols but visible witnesses to the truth of the Incarnation.

The first wave of iconoclasm lasted until 787, when Empress Irene convened the Second Council of Nicaea. The bishops gathered there made a crucial distinction between latreia (worship) and proskynesis (veneration). Worship, they insisted, was due to God alone, but icons could be venerated as signs pointing beyond themselves. “The honor rendered to the image,” they declared, “ascends to the prototype.” With this, icons were formally restored to Byzantine churches.

Peace, however, proved fleeting. In 815, under Leo V, iconoclasm was revived, ushering in a second and often more aggressive wave of suppression. Churches were stripped once again, bishops and monks who resisted were harassed or deposed, and the debate deepened. It was not until 843, under the regency of Empress Theodora, that icons were definitively restored. This event, known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy, is still commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox Church every year on the first Sunday of Lent. The legacy of the controversy was profound. Out of the struggle came a theology of images that remains central to Orthodox Christianity, one that sees icons not as mere decoration but as sacramental windows into the divine.

Although Byzantium gave iconoclasm its defining episode, the phenomenon was not confined to the Christian East. The Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe unleashed its own wave of iconoclasm. Reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich and John Calvin in Geneva denounced what they saw as the idolatry of Catholic imagery. Their followers acted decisively. In Zurich in 1523, reformers stripped churches bare of paintings and sculptures. In Geneva, stained glass was smashed, statues toppled, and church interiors whitewashed to eradicate every trace of what was judged superstition.

In England, the waves of iconoclasm were equally devastating. Under Henry VIII, the Dissolution of the Monasteries not only closed religious houses but also saw the destruction of countless images, relics, and works of art. Under the Puritans in the seventeenth century, parish churches lost medieval wall paintings and stained glass that had survived the initial upheavals. Canterbury Cathedral’s magnificent glass was shattered, and wooden carvings were hacked apart. For the reformers, such violence was a theological necessity. Salvation came through Scripture and faith alone, not through the intercession of saints or the veneration of images. Yet the physical legacy was dramatic. The aesthetic of many Protestant churches, with their white walls and stripped interiors, continues to testify to the power of iconoclasm long after the passion that drove it has cooled.

Islam too has wrestled with questions of images. The Qur’an itself does not prohibit all images, but traditions developed around avoiding figural representation in mosques and religious contexts. This gave rise to the dazzling achievements of Islamic calligraphy, geometric pattern, and arabesque, art forms that sought to reflect the infinite without relying on human or animal figures. Yet across the Islamic world attitudes varied. Persian miniatures depicted scenes from epic poetry, Mughal artists painted portraits of emperors, and Ottoman court ateliers produced figurative works. The tradition was therefore more complex than an absolute prohibition.

In modern times, however, reformist movements emphasized stricter aniconism. Wahhabism, originating in eighteenth-century Arabia, condemned images and sought to purify Islam of what it saw as corrupt practices. In 2001 the Taliban destroyed the colossal Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, statues that had stood for over a thousand years. The act was justified in religious terms but was also a political gesture, an assertion of control and a challenge to global cultural authority. Iconoclasm here was not only about religion but also about power.

Political and revolutionary iconoclasm has been a recurring feature of modern history. In the French Revolution of 1789, revolutionaries toppled statues of kings, desecrated royal tombs at Saint-Denis, and melted down church bells to make cannon. These acts were not mere vandalism but deliberate attempts to erase monarchy and clerical privilege from the symbolic landscape. In the Soviet Union, religious imagery was suppressed, churches converted to secular use, and monuments to czars destroyed, only for their places to be filled by statues of Lenin and Stalin. Old icons were replaced by new ones, the cult of saints displaced by the cult of the leader.

Our own age is not immune. In the United States, debates over Confederate monuments have divided communities, with some seeing their removal as a necessary repudiation of racism, while others view it as erasure of history. In South Africa, the Rhodes Must Fall movement began in 2015 with the toppling of a statue of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town. In Britain, statues of slave traders and imperial figures have been defaced, removed, or contextualized with new plaques. These acts are iconoclastic in the literal sense, but they are also deeply political. They raise questions about what kind of history we wish to celebrate in public spaces, and whose memories are honored. Although the wanton destruction of any monument decries more a society that wants to forget and that those very altruistic actions of conscience may indeed have deeper historical consequences in the long run. Whatever can be said of Iconoclasm, it has always been divisive whether in the past or the present.

The paradox of iconoclasm is that it rarely succeeds in erasing memory. Instead, it often creates new memories. Empty niches in cathedrals, shattered faces on medieval statues, and vacant plinths where monuments once stood bear witness to absence as eloquently as presence. The very act of destruction can itself become iconic. Photographs of Saddam Hussein’s statue being pulled down in Baghdad in 2003, or of protesters daubing paint on public monuments, have become images that circulate globally. In this way, iconoclasm generates its own imagery, embedding itself in the cultural record.

The persistence of iconoclasm through history raises the question of why images matter so much. The historian David Freedberg argued that pictures provoke strong responses precisely because they are never inert. They draw emotion, reverence, anger, and fear. To destroy them is to acknowledge their potency. Iconoclasm is therefore not merely destruction but a confession of the power of images to shape human lives.

What, then, is iconoclasm? It is not simply the breaking of objects but the remaking of meaning. It is a mirror of society, reflecting its deepest anxieties and aspirations. The Byzantine emperors who tore down icons believed they were defending purity of worship. The Protestant reformers who smashed stained glass saw themselves as restoring the authority of Scripture. The revolutionaries who toppled statues, and the activists who spray-painted monuments, believed they were reshaping history itself. Iconoclasm has always been about more than images. It has been about who we are, what we remember, and what kind of future we wish to inhabit.

In that sense, iconoclasm is never only about the past. It is always also about the future. And most notably a future that can end up being or shattering than any lost record of the past.

Leslie Ivings is the author of Byzantine Emperor Constantine V, Pen & Sword (2025)

Constantine V - warrior, reformer, and one of Byzantium’s most formidable emperors. A brilliant general who crushed the Arab advance, strengthened the crumbling empire, and won the loyalty of his soldiers long after his death.

But history has not been kind. A fierce iconoclast, hated by the church and smeared by monastic chroniclers, he was branded Copronymos (“the dung-named”), compared to a sorcerer - even the Antichrist.

Married three times, politically astute, and as influential in theology as he was on the battlefield, Constantine’s legacy rivals Justinian himself. Yet unlike Justinian, he died not in splendour, but leading his army on campaign in Bulgaria.

Listen to Leslie Ivings discuss his book on our podcast:

Featured image: The Destruction of icons in Zurich 1524. (Public Domain)

References

• Averil Cameron, The Byzantines (Oxford University Press, 2006)

• Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680–850: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2001)

• John of Damascus, On the Divine Images, trans. D. Anderson (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980)

• Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge University Press, 1986)

• David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (University of Chicago Press, 1989)

• Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 1994)

• Finbarr Barry Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter (Princeton University Press, 2009)

• James E. Young, The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between (University of Massachusetts Press, 2016)

Reported by Archaeology News:

Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a massive submerged port off Egypt’s northern coast, a discovery that could shed light on one of history’s most enduring mysteries—Queen Cleopatra’s final resting place. The find is located near Taposiris Magna, an ancient temple complex about 30 miles west of Alexandria, long thought by some scholars to be linked to Egypt’s last pharaoh.

The ancient harbor, approximately 40 feet below the Mediterranean Sea, consists of stone buildings that rise more than six meters high, with shiny floors, columns, cement blocks, anchors, and scattered Ptolemaic amphorae. The port, previously connected to Taposiris Magna, suggests that the complex was far more than a religious site. It also served as a thriving trade center, linking overland routes and Lake Mareotis to Alexandria.

This breakthrough comes from two decades of work by Dominican archaeologist Kathleen Martínez, who has dedicated her career to tracing Cleopatra’s elusive tomb. While most Egyptologists maintain that the queen was buried in Alexandria, Martínez argues that evidence points to Taposiris Magna. The temple was dedicated to Osiris, a god associated with death and resurrection, and its name—“Great Tomb of Osiris”—may hold symbolic significance.

Martínez’s theory was strengthened in 2022, when her team discovered a 4,300-foot tunnel beneath the temple ruins. Carved deep into the rock, partially submerged, and heading seaward, it contained jars and ceramics dating to the time of Cleopatra. The newly discovered offshore harbor appears to be aligned directly with this tunnel, indicating an integrated network that could have been utilized in the queen’s burial.

In collaboration with oceanographer Bob Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic, Martínez and her team used sonar mapping and diving operations to survey the seabed. They revealed remnants of ancient marine activity, such as fishermen’s storage places and unmistakably man-made structures. The find was announced by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities as proof of extensive maritime activities at the site during the Ptolemaic era.

Read more here.

Reported by the Miami Herald:

The ruins of a Roman bridge were recently unearthed in Switzerland, providing a rare glimpse into the region’s ancient past, officials said.

Archaeologists discovered the remains in Aegerten — a municipality about 20 miles northwest of Bern — according to a Sept. 3 news release from the Canton of Bern.

More than 300 oak piles were found well-preserved in waterlogged soil near the site of the Zihl River, which the bridge once stretched across, connecting a major thoroughfare.

Photos show several blackened pile tips lying on the ground, all nearly identical in length, measuring several meters.

Laboratory tests on the oak piles confirmed the structure dates back to the Roman period and showed it underwent multiple repairs or rebuildings over time.

The earliest parts of the structure were erected around 40 B.C., around the time the Romans conquered the Celtic Helvetii, a population originally from southern Germany. Meanwhile, the most recent piles dated to 369 A.D., during the rule of Emperor Valentinian I. These findings indicate the bridge was used for over 400 years.

The Romans governed much of what is now Switzerland until around 400 A.D., establishing numerous military camps and towns — some of which evolved into modern villages with roots tracing back to Roman rule, according to History of Switzerland.

In the area of the bridge ruins, a number of other artifacts were also uncovered.

Read more here.

In the New Testament, the underworld is envisioned as a place of moral dualism. Voracious flames in a desolate void of ceaseless sorrow cast away the wicked into a realm where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched; their fate sealed in separation from God. By contrast, the righteous are awarded a place of radiant splendor, heavenly courts where the promise of everlasting communion with the divine fulfills the deepest human desire. Opposing visions of torment and bliss profoundly shaped Western thought; yet, this Christian image of the afterlife did not emerge in isolation. It is the culmination of millennia of reflection, transformation, and adaptation. Across Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, cultures wrestled with the same fundamental question: What becomes of the human, of the soul after death?

From Dust to Dust

“For dust you are and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)

The dark and dreary world the Mesopotamians imagined, its dusty gates and palace of eternal grandeur, encapsulated a shadowy realm of neither pleasure nor pain. Offerings to the dead sustained their hungry bellies and sated their thirst. If only the murky puddles and masses of grit they were left with could do the same. So far beneath the earth, and distant from the heavens that housed the gods, there was little that awaited those who left the living. When Inanna made her way through the underworld, she was faced with its harshest reality: the order that comes in death is unwavering and unforgiving. The grief that the living endured as their loved ones passed, and the truth of their existence, only attested to their finality to return to whence they came, dust and ash. Living was all they had.

As the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia’s reach extended far. It was a region in constant flux, the movement of people inevitable. Its dim reflection of the underworld cast a shadow over many civilizations thereafter. When the Hittites gained control of the greater region around 1400 BCE, they incorporated a vast pit to offer, sacrifice, purify, and beckon the gods of the dark abyss. Not long after, the Israelites were making their way into the Promised Land. Early conceptions of the underworld among the Israelites echo Mesopotamia’s sentiment as a cavernous house of bleak obscurity. The insatiable hunger that plagued the dead was seen in Sheol, its home and its devourer. Its mouth was like the Hittites’ enormous pits, opening up to swallow the dead with a hunger that only all of humanity could satisfy. Once in the realm of the dead, there was no escape. Like the Mesopotamians, Sheol was a cosmic opposite to the realm of God, the Promised Land. Its gates remained locked, windows to the outside forever closed, and death always stood guard, vigilant and unshaken.

The prince of this forsaken land was the accuser, the adversary, the first enemy of mankind, Satan. When the serpent that tricked Eve into eating the apple was caught by God, he banished him to the underworld, where he would spend all eternity feasting on the dirt of the grave, the same muddy feast the dead were granted. There were no punishments or rewards; it was the destiny of both the righteous and the wicked. No one could remember their God because here, he was forgotten and his praise absent. But God still had dominion over this place of lonesome souls. It was believed that one day, a messiah would come, one to strike down Sheol, and those who were lost would rise by the power of God. And with such hopes, Sheol became a liminal destination, remembered by God though he is forgotten. In some cases, God could save those as they faced the gates of their demise.

In due time, subtleties alluded to something more, communicating justice in the wake of what was long thought to be an empty and impartial afterlife, a compartmentalization of the promise of judgment. Different realms appeared: paradise, Abraham’s bosom, heaven, or the heavens for the righteous; Sheol, the Lake of Fire in Gehenna, Hades for the wicked, or Tartarus for the fallen among God. A shift began to take place, gradually moving away from the inevitable shadow in lives dedicated to and in the presence of the divine.

The Lifeless Dead

“Don’t try to reconcile me to my dying. I’d rather serve as another man’s labourer, as a poor peasant without land, and be alive on Earth, than be lord of all the lifeless dead.” (Words of Achilles. The Odyssey, Book XI. A.S. Klein)

When Homer wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey around 750 BCE, Greece was in its Dark Ages, brought on by the collapse of the Bronze Age. Worlds crumbled under the weight of catastrophe, and stories of the wonders of the past became legends. But Homer’s Odyssey did not bring about new definitions of the underworld. His was as bleak and uninviting as ever. As Odysseus, like the Hittites, dug a pit in the ground to make offerings to the dead to summon those passed on, he was met with despondency. Speaking to the great Achilles in an effort to find his way back to Ithaca and with praises of his likely place among the dead as ruler, Odysseus was only met with those woeful words.

Though Homer’s underworld was not so different than that which came before him, it would not always be that way. The greying world that Hades and Persephone reigned over would eventually evolve into differing domains based on one’s life and status. By the time of Plato, four centuries later, it was understood to contain four distinct realms. For those who lived a pleasant life and were remembered, they enjoyed the sunny meadows of the Asphodel. Warriors or those who died valiantly in battle went to Elysium. The purest of hearts found themselves in the Isle of the Blessed, and if wicked or forgotten, they roamed dolorously or in perpetual torture in Tartarus. These realms did exist during Homer’s time, but lacked clear boundaries. Rather, the souls of the dead were dependent on their remembrance, still aching for the life they once had and anguished by all that they had lost.

For the Greeks, the underworld became a place of responsibility and judgment. Through its melancholy caverns, rivers flowed: oath, woe, lamentation, forget, and fire. Their purposes guided the dead, cleansed them of their grief, or made them forget their mortal lives. They were consumed with a searing fury to keep the wicked tormented or to burn away the sins of the past. The living were held accountable to never forget the dead. Proper burial rituals were honored, food and drink offered, and memorials erected as immortal stelae depicting how they would have liked to be remembered. For the will to carry on in death or be given a second chance, memory was their savior, a glimmer of hope in the gloom of the abyss.

May My Soul Rest

“May I walk every day unceasing on the banks of my water, may my soul rest on the branches of the trees which I have planted, may I refresh myself in the shadow of my sycamore.” (Tomb inscription, 1400 BCE. Nardo, 10)

For the Egyptians, the underworld may have been like the world they once knew. In the Field of Reeds, there was no sickness, no sorrow, no death. It was the destination every Egyptian craved, one that could be granted to them by the Osiris. Tomb inscriptions and depictions reflect the dead flourishing amongst the things and activities they held close to their hearts. But to get there, one had to traverse a realm of peril. Their hearts could not be heavy with desire, jealousy, or self-pity. The heart was the most vital part of themselves that they could take with them. Adorned with amulets, it, along with their voice, carried them through the underworld. Met by the twelve gates of hours that Ra passes through during the night, each with its own named guardian, the dead could face numerous lurking monstrous beings of indescribable harm or a Lake of Fire that may purify or destroy them.

As the soul awoke from its destined slumber, its memories of its life were gone. A part of itself remained in the tomb, while other parts served different functions. The soul, as the Egyptians believed, was severed into five entities. The Ba could move about the world, taking flight like a bird. The Ka found itself in the underworld, alongside Ib, the seat of consciousness and emotion, the heart that would be weighed against the feather of Ma’at, order. Anubis met the dead upon their awakening; at times, it may have been Nephthys. Guided by their divine hands and with ample instructions, the dead opened their mouths and made their way to the west, land of the setting sun, and down into the Hall of Two Truths to stand before Osiris. Here, their immortal soul waited in line while being attended to by goddesses in preparation for their judgment. One by one, hearts were delicately placed on an imposing scale and weighed by Anubis. If the heart proved true to the bearer, light and full of gratitude, paradise was on the horizon. If not, a ravenous god would devour them, and they would cease to exist.

Left behind in their places of rest, offerings would be made to nourish the soul long after death: drinks, food, prayers to the gods, as well as amulets, priced trinkets, and dolls to act as servants in the afterlife. The things that were placed with the dead, whether in their tombs or burials, manifested themselves in the afterlife. A small boat built from wood could carry them across water, and games could entertain them. As such, funerary rituals, preserving the name, and the act of mummification were imperative in the survival of those passed on. Similar to the Mesopotamians, Israelites, and Greeks, death was fated, inescapable. However, the Egyptians did not envision it as desolation. They saw in death the continuation of existence, a path carefully traveled and just in every way.

The first inclination of the Egyptian underworld comes from the Pyramid Texts, dating around 2400 BCE, as one of the oldest conceptions of the underworld. Coffin Texts soon followed, and later, the Book of Coming Forth by Day, otherwise known as the Book of the Dead. These texts meticulously outlined the underworld and helped the dead to remember. Spells, incantations, directions, names of gods, and maps eased their uncertainties and gave them all the strength they needed to overcome their arduous journey. Rebirth, justice, and the divine order of the cosmos were their end and their beginning. For all the emptiness that lingered in other regions with the thought of death, the Egyptians lived their lives to honor themselves and those they loved, to live on in bliss, and to be rewarded for their gratitude.

No More Mourning or Sadness or Pain

“He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone.” (Revelation 21:4)

By the time Virgil’s Aeneid was written, between 29 and 19 BCE, the underworld had transformed into a complex system of reward and punishment. The Romans had taken what the Greeks provided and infused it with their own societal values and laws. Cultural virtues enabled enteral glory, while strict punishments reflected moral obligations. It had become a practical and just continuation of life on earth. Similar to the Greeks, the Romans had compartmentalized their underworld. Limbo held the forgotten, infants, suicides, and those who died an untimely death or were not afforded proper rituals. The Fields of Mourning was something close to the original Hades, bleak with regret, loss, and unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. The Asphodel remained a place for the commoner, quaint and sufficient. Elysium and the Isle of the Blessed were reserved for the brave and virtuous, and Tartarus for the vilest of humanity, a place of damnation.

As the Roman Empire expanded, so too did Judaism and soon Christianity. By the mid-1^st century CE, messages had spread throughout the empire, and Christianity took root. Its underworld evolved into what it is envisioned today. As perfect opposites, heaven and hell house the good and the evil, separate realms that embody a justified continuation. Migration, expansion, and trade facilitated inventive ways to understand death and its place in the great cosmos of existence. Death became more than a resting place; it allowed for lasting worship, unlike its predecessors. Perhaps, it gave unbroken reason to worship, honor the dead, and act with morality. As a god who welcomes his people into his paradise rather than condemning them to emptiness, he, like Osiris, takes away their pain, their suffering, and gently guides them into his illumination.

In truth, ancient underworlds had always functioned as moral compasses, enforcing societal norms and beliefs, and gave structure and reason to the natural cycles of the world. The ways in which they were conceptualized related to their relationships to their god(s) and encouraged familial responsibilities to protect each other in death. For early civilizations, the most a person could expect was to live in the presence of divinity. Later understandings must have recognized the benefit in translating death as a continuation of life, a rebirth not in the literal sense, but as an outcome of the judgment processes that held their societies together.

The Immortal Soul

"I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set in night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere". (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832)

Undoubtedly, ancient civilizations gradually influenced one another, building upon preexisting foundations in unique ways that fostered loyalty. What is more intriguing, however, is the similarities they share not from influence alone but from the innate construction of underworld symbolic motifs. It is well-attested that early humans buried or burned their dead. The reasoning behind this may have more to do with sanitation and preventing animals from scavenging, yet it demonstrates symbolic representations of the underworld being deep below the earth and the concept of returning to dust, dirt.

As such, there are age-old associations with caves as entrances or abodes. The cavernous nature of the cave, its seemingly infinite passageways, as well as its absence of any natural light, allude to a transition between life and death, light and dark, as a sort of liminal space full of eerie and otherworldly sensations. In many cultures, caves are considered to be the Womb of Mother Earth, connected to fertility and rebirth, signified by Jesus rising from the dead in his cave-like tomb. Additionally, caves have long been used as a source of shelter, water, and agriculture. Archaeologists have, on a few occasions, also uncovered evidence that suggests the use of caves for burial rituals going back to Neolithic humans and distant relatives of Homo sapiens. Having such a multifaceted relationship with caves, it is no surprise that the underworlds of the early ancients, their pits of offering, and the tombs of later generations replicate the cave. The deeper one travels, the further away from life they become.

Much like caves, water also has symbolic significance to the underworld. The river that flowed through the entrance of Hades represented a boundary between the living and the dead. Other waters, like those of forget, woe, and lamentation, served purposes that reflect the death experience and the agreements made by the dead to their gods. The recurring motif of a lake of fire found in ancient Egyptian texts as well as biblical texts, as both a punishment and purification source, further reinforces the oath one takes in death and the duties of the living to protect themselves and others from an unfortunate fate through faith and obligation. Further, these waters were part of the mythical origin of the cosmos as an aquatic abyss, one that gave birth to all things, hence a passage into new beginnings, a new state of being. Agricultural cycles, like the cycles of Nile inundation that the Egyptians were so dependent on for their survival, were also intimately bound with life and death. And the vastness of the sea as a barrier between the known and unknown world was a treacherous obstacle in the lives of the ancients, effortlessly providing for and taking away life.

The underworld was a place of no return, where one goes and cannot be brought back. Although some have tried, there remains the reinforcing belief that death is eternal and rarely bends its will to anyone. They forget their past lives, are hidden away behind the gates of death’s kingdom, and knowledge is kept secret. Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Mesopotamian underworld, kept secret knowledge hidden from the dead. This idea, that there are mysteries within the underworld that neither the living nor the dead have access to, reveals how very little people truly knew of what happens after death. Understandably, there really is no way to know for certain, which gives the impression that there must be something hidden therein, something secret and unknowable, stored away and kept from humans by divinity. In this ambiguity, the living try to comfort the dead by providing them with earthly luxuries and sustenance to ease the uneasiness of themselves and those who had passed amongst an abstract transition that is both permanent and hazy.

Intrinsically, the underworld reflects human experience. The creatures that emerge from the ground become monsters, the scorching devastation of the sun upon crops, or the explosive power of the volcano becomes death’s foreboding hand over those who break the laws of the living. The waters of the sea or cavernous passageways become transitional points. And the life-giving rays that poke through billowing clouds or the limitless lights that guide and shine down at night become a paradise for the gods and those who abide by the laws of its people. Fears, famine, war, disaster, and glimmers of hope are perpetuated in visions of the underworld. It is simply within the act of observation that has shaped how the ancients perceived life and death, and the earth, in all its regenerative capabilities, provided the perfect canvas to do so. That is why the underworld holds its own strange beauty: it bestows upon mortals an immortal soul and a worthy place within the cosmos. As the sun moves across the heavens, so too does existence descend, transform, and rise anew, like a flower’s bloom breaking forth after a long, shadowy winter.

Featured image: Dante and Virgil in Hell, also known as The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix ca. 1822 (Public Domain).

References

• Choksi, M. 2014. Ancient Mesopotamian Beliefs in the Afterlife. World History Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/701/ancient-mesopotamian-beliefs-in-the-afterlife/

• Emerson, M. Y. 2020. What is Sheol? Exploring the Afterlife in the Old Testament. Desiring God. Available at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-sheol

• Mark, J.J. 2012. The After-Life in Ancient Greece. World History Encyclopedia. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/29/the-after-life-in-ancient-greece/

• Homer, translated by Kline, A.S. 2004. Homer: The Odyssey Book XI. Poetry in Translation. Available at: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Odyssey11.php

• Virgil, translated by Kline, A.S. 2002. The Aeneid Book VI. Poetry in Translation. Available at: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilAeneidVI.php

• Ngo-Trong, S. 2022. 6 Common Themes Found in Underworld Myths from Around the World. Chasing Gods. Available at: https://chasinggods.com/6-common-themes-found-in-underworld-myths/

• Old Testament and New Testament texts available at: https://www.catholic.org/bible/old_testament.php

Reported by Archaeology News:

Archaeologists in Serbia have unearthed dark new evidence of the brutal entertainment practices of the Roman Empire. Excavations at the site of Viminacium, a former thriving military base and provincial capital on the Danube border, revealed the fractured skull of a brown bear that was forced to participate in the bloody clashes of the amphitheater about 1,700 years ago.

The discovery, published in the journal Antiquity, is the first direct physical evidence that brown bears were used in Roman arena games. While written records and artwork have long indicated their use, no bone remains had ever conclusively established it until now.

The skull, belonging to a six-year-old male brown bear (Ursus arctos), was uncovered near the amphitheater entrance during the 2016 excavation. Multidisciplinary analyses revealed a somber story of prolonged captivity, repeated combat, and eventual death from an untreated injury. Radiological and microscopic examinations found that the animal had suffered a severe blow to the forehead — likely from a spear or other weapon held by a bestiarius, a fighter who battled with animals. The fracture did show signs of the healing process, but also massive infection, meaning the bear survived one fight only to die of disease before it could recover.

The skull showed highly worn teeth and jaw damage due to cage-chewing, a stress response common in captive animals. Researchers concluded that the bear had spent years in captivity, probably participating in many spectacles before meeting its end. Other animal remains, such as those of a leopard, were found in the area, confirming the amphitheater as a site of animal slaughter.

Read more here.

Reported by the Jerusalem Post:

Two recent articles reported the discovery of a cache of gold coins dated to the late fifth century BC in Notion, an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey).

Christopher Ratté from the University of Michigan led the excavation, uncovering the coins in an olpe, a small jug, buried in a corner of a dwelling found beneath the courtyard of a house dated to the third century BC. The coins, identified as Persian darics, were used to pay soldiers of fortune, also known as mercenaries, suggesting the cache was a soldier’s savings hidden during a time of conflict.

The Persian darics, named after either the Old Persian word for gold or Darius I, who ruled from 521 to 486 BC, depicted the Persian king in a long tunic, kneeling and holding a bow and spear. The other side of the coin is blank and unadorned, with the exception of a single punch mark.

The coins were stored at the Ephesus Archaeological Museum in Selçuk, Turkey.

Ratté posited several scenarios to explain why the coins were never retrieved, including the possibility of the soldier meeting a grim fate. Andrew Meadows of the University of Oxford highlighted the significance of this find, noting its potential to refine the chronology of Achaemenid gold coinage.

The archaeological context of Notion, spanning 80 acres atop a promontory, revealed it as a borderland dividing Asia from Europe, marked by warfare and insecurity. The discovery of the hoard underscored the turbulent history of the region, as evidenced by events like the attack by Athenian General Paches in 427 BC, where pro-Persian mercenaries were killed, and subsequent Athenian evacuation.

Read more here.