Ancient History Magazine

Editor-in-chief: Jasper Oorthuys Editor: Owain Williams Assistant editor: Lauren van Zoonen Proofreading: Naomi Munts Design & Media: Christianne C. Beall Design © 2017 Karwansaray Publishers Contributors: Christoph Bachhuber, Ciarán Bartlett, Trevor

The Trojan War of Homer's Iliad might be one of the most famous wars in history. Whatever their familiarity with ancient history, nearly everyone has heard of Achilles, Agamemnon, and Hector. Yet the Trojan War, at least, the one featuring in Homer's

A recent study examining the genetic material of several Xiongnu burials suggests that the Inner Asian empire was a diverse place. The Xiongnu, also known as the Hsiung-nu, was a nomadic empire centred on the modern territory of Mongolia. It is thoug

In 1958, American scholar Morton Smith (1915– 1991) visited a Palestinian monastery, where he studied a seventeenth-century book. On the final pages, an eighteenth-century scribe had copied the text of a Greek letter by the early third-century philos

Due to the availability of nineteenth-century books and the unavailability of modern studies, often locked behind paywalls, the theory that Jesus never existed has returned. Among the arguments for this so-called ‘mythicism’ is the observation that t

Western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age was a patchwork of states, from regional powers to confederations of smaller states. Sandwiched between the hegemonic power of the Hittites to the east and the sea to the west, the rulers of these small states

Archaeologists have traditionally divided the remains of human habitation in Troy into ten main architectural phases, each of which is then subdivided according to minor changes in the city's architecture, from the late fourth millennium BC to the Ro

Troy's location at the mouth of the Hellespont, with a sheltered harbour, makes it seem likely that the site was a centre of trade. Later history attests to the desirability of this site to control the shipping lanes between the Aegean and the Black

It is impossible to know which gods were worshipped at Bronze Age Troy. The Hittite deity Appaliunas, the Hittite rendering of Apollo, is attested as one of the divine witnesses in a treaty between the Hittite Great King and his vassal ruler Alaksand

Roman cooks knew very well that chicken is a versatile meat. The Apicius cookbook contains all kinds of recipes with chicken: boiled, roasted, stuffed, served with spicy sauces, lacquered with marinade, and enriched with a hazelnut crust. But the ran

The Athenian general Alcibiades made something of a career out of duplicity that defies any association of factional or even civic loyalty, except perhaps to Alcibiades himself. As a commander and political leader, Alcibiades alternately enlisted in

The ancient Romans would have found the concept of a five-day work week puzzling. From the Roman viewpoint, if one had to have a job, the whole point of that job was to pay for otium – leisure time and recreation. Unsurprisingly, Rome offered all man

ISBN: 978-0190059040 Oxford University Press (2023) - £26.99 www.global.oup.com Books that cover large swathes of history tend to favour narratives examining the political and cultural developments of whatever period is under study, such as military

ISBN: 978-0198823513 Oxford University Press (2023) - £8.99 www.global.oup.com Anthony Verity's latest translation for Oxford University Press collects Xenophon's Estate Management, also known as Oeconomicus, and Symposium into a single volume, with

By Gary Beckman The Society of Biblical Literature, 1999 ISBN: 978-0788505515 A compilation of texts from the Hittite world that deal with matters of diplomacy. From the names of political actors, such as kings, queens, and warlords, to the names of