Four hundred years ago, on April 22, 1616, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, died in Madrid. (William Shakespeare died the next day.) Cervantes died in the house on Calle de León that he’d been renting from Francisco Martínez, chaplain of the...

Out of the many incredible artifacts that have been recovered from sites in Iraq where flourishing Sumerian cities once stood, few have been more intriguing than the Sumerian King List. An ancient manuscript originally recorded in the Sumerian language, the...

Archaeologists in China have discovered a 2,700-year-old leather horse saddle. Not only is this maybe the oldest saddle ever discovered, but having been found in a woman’s tomb it contradicts historical narratives associating horse riding with male elites. The leather...

No structure in the world is more mysterious than the Great Pyramid. But who first broke into its well-guarded interior? When? And what did they find? There is a story, regrettably apocryphal, about Napoleon and the Great Pyramid. When Bonaparte...