Aside from the Holy Grail there is probably no artefact more sought than the Ark of the Covenant. It is said to contain nothing less than the 10 commandments themselves. It vanished in 586 B.C. when the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem. Over the past year this writer has noted no fewer than three major claims, all linked to Africa, which have been made about the Arks current whereabouts: Some religious and Ethiopian media sources report that Abuna Pauolos, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, has made recent comments that his church has…
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(Mostly) fictional English rock band Spinal Tap made a much-anticipated come back at the Glastonbury music festival last weekend, followed swiftly by their 25th anniversary One Night Only World Tour show at Londons Wembley Arena on Tuesday. The bands magnum opus remains Stonehenge, their mystical hard rock mini-opera tribute to Salisburys millennia-old Neolithic masterpiece, “Where a man’s a man, and the children dance to the pipes of pan.” A performance of the song made for a memorable scene in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, featuring midgets dancing around – and threatening to crush – an 18 inch high megalith,…
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This Saturday throngs of visitors from across North America will head to the Royal Ontario Museum, the crown jewel of Canada’s cultural scene, to see one of the most important, and mysterious, texts in antiquity, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World features fragments from Genesis, Daniel, The Book of War, Psalms, Daniel and the Messianic Apocalypse. It also features artefacts from the site they were found (Qumran), as well as Jewish artefacts from Jerusalem and Sepphoris. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a group of Bedouins, said to be searching for a…
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Attribution: FatTireTour.org Corinth Greece Key Dates Founded in the Neolithic Age, circa 6000 BC; flourished as a Greek city from the 8th century BC before being levelled by the invading Romans in 146 BC, who refounded it in 44 BC. Under Byzantium rule, earthquakes hit Corinth three times, in 375, 551 and 856. Key People Julius Caesar refounded the city in 44 BC, shortly before his assassination. The Apostle Paul lived in Corinth for a year and a half. Julius Caesar Positioned on the Isthmus of Corinth, between the Peloponnesus and mainland Greece, Corinth has been right at the forefront…
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Attribution: JoshTrefethen.com Rome Italy Key Dates The area of the forum was originally a grassy wetland, drained in the 7th century BC by the building of the Cloaca Maxima. In 600 BC Tarquinius Priscus traditionally had the area paved for the first time, and the forum was augmented with temples, basilicas, arches and other public buildings thenceforth – notable constributors being Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the Flavians. Key People Pretty much anyone who was anyone in Rome can be connected to the Forum Romanum in some way. It was the heart of the city – especially in the…
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The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, Robert Graves (translator) As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colourful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome. It covers the time from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero, then the recovery that came with his successors. A masterpiece of observation, anecdote and…
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Ever heard of mudlarking? No marks off if not, it’s the hobby of sifting through the muddy banks of a river in the search for lost treasure. Sound a bit messy? You betcha, and it used to be a lot worse. The past-time sprang up in the industrial revolution of 19th century Britain, as struggling workers and down-and-outs would resort to scrambling through the rubbish, rocks and excrement of the Thames in the vain hope they’d find something vaguely of value. The pressures of a cramped city overcome by desperate urbanisation meant that the Thames was invariably chock-a-block with all…
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When it comes to museums, there’s no doubting London’s credentials as one of the world’s finest launchpads for the intrepid antiquarian. Huge, sprawling caverns of colonial collections and stunning curios line the magnificent colonnaded hallways of giants like the British Museum or the V&A, and no-one can deny that both have fully earned their status as truly wonderful exhibitors. Yet scratch below the surface and there’s a whole mini-museum microcosm just waiting to be explored – and you won’t have to shimmy past shoals of dough-eyed snappers to get a glimpse of some of the city’s most intriguing artefacts. Here’s…
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Would you walk on someone’s grave? Or cross someone’s back yard if they asked you not to? Or risk your life if you knew someone else would feel responsible if you died? They’re simple questions of common sense and respect, but neither comes into the equation when it comes to climbing the world’s most famous monolithic site. The traditional Aboriginal owners of Australia’s Uluru (also known officially by its European name of Ayer’s Rock), ask tourists to not to climb their sacred site. It’s considered by the local Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara (or Aangu) people to be sacred because it links…
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First he gets cruelly (and, many would say, unfairly) evicted, and then he finds his home crammed full of 35,000 half-cut hippies, and not the odd copper on patrol. It’s enough to make a reincarnated Medieval King hang up his cloaks for good. But King Arthur Pendragon is not going to let a little thing like being evicted stand in his way. Pendragon’s home is a campervan parked on a byway 12, which is known locally as the Netheravon coach road, beside Stonehenge – the closest you can get to the stones without a ticket from English Heritage. There is…