In ancient Rome, late January marked the beginning of the agricultural calendar because this was the time that the farmers of ancient Italy prepared to plant their crops for the new year. This important stage consisted of a multi-day purification… Read More ›
The date of January 16, 7 BC is important for both Roman and German history. Ten years earlier in the year 17 BC, three German tribes crossed the Rhine and raided Gaul, which was controlled by the Roman Empire. It… Read More ›
Will it be a good year for the crops? Are you going to meet the man of your dreams? Should you invest your dinarii in your deadbeat brother-in-law’s latest get-rich-quick scheme? Maybe you should consult Carmenta, the ancient Roman goddess… Read More ›
January is the month of Janus, the ancient Roman god of new beginnings and the patron god of windows and doors – yes, I’m serious. He is depicted as a man with a double face, able to look forwards and… Read More ›
The Compitalia was an ancient Roman festival celebrated from January 3-5 in honor of the Lares Compitales, the guardian spirits of crossroads; the name Compitalia comes from the Latin word compitum, meaning “crossroad”. Marcus Terentius Varro gives a brief explanation… Read More ›
“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, the Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star… Read More ›
Meet the Jurassic Period’s analog of the common house cat. This is Fruitachampsa callisoni, a prehistoric reptile which inhabited western North America during the late Jurassic Period. However, this was not a dinosaur. In fact, Fruitachampsa was a distant relative… Read More ›
Ancient Rome was known far and wide as “the City of the Seven Hills”. The seven eminences which the city of Rome was built upon were known as the Palatine, Capitoline, Aventine, Quirinal, Caelian, Viminal, and Esquiline. For some reason,… Read More ›
Greetings friends. In an earlier post from 2014, I put up some photographs which I took of the two Allosaurus skeletons that are on public display in the American Museum of Natural History (or AMNH for short) in New York… Read More ›
Daylight is certainly getting shorter these days, and to commemorate it is the Brumalia, the Festival of Shortening Days. This was not a single feast day, but rather a festival period beginning on November 24 and lasting until the Saturnalia… Read More ›
