ancient history

  • How Ancient Amulets Tried to Ward Off Disease

    How Ancient Amulets Tried to Ward Off Disease

    Throughout antiquity, from the Mediterranean to Egypt and today’s Middle East, people believed that misfortune, including accidents, diseases, and sometimes even death, were caused by external forces. Be they gods or other types of supernatural forces (such as a daimon), people — regardless of faith — sought magical means of protection against them. While medicine…


  • Which Historical Figure Was The Mark Zuckerberg Of Their Time?

    Which Historical Figure Was The Mark Zuckerberg Of Their Time?

    Purely on the level of physical appearance, Mark Zuckerberg is unprecedented; I doubt he’s ever once heard the phrase “you know who you look like?” unless the follow-up was “an unfinished police sketch left out in the rain.” But if we’re talking about Zuckerberg the man—or, more precisely, the nihilistically expansionist tech mogul—the historical record…