Lucia Marchini explores sacred sites in the sultan’s city. The year AD 532 was an eventful one in the history of Constantinople, and one it is still easy to revisit through some of the sites in the modern city of Istanbul. Spurred on by the rival charioteering factions the Blues and the Greens, fierce riots […]
Istanbul
CWA 88
It sounds more like Hollywood than archaeology: thousands of life-size sculpted soldiers, brandishing real weapons and faithfully guarding an emperor’s tomb for millennia. Yet the terracotta warriors are no special effect. These soldiers are believed to have been individually crafted, capturing an army on the cusp of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The resources and […]
CWA 73
The spectacular discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 brought the 18th Dynasty teenage pharaoh 20th-century celebrity status, and inspired generations of future Egyptologists. His stepmother, Queen Nefertiti, is equally famous: her limestone bust, found at Amarna and now at the Neues Museum in Berlin, is as recognisable the world over as Tutankhamun’s golden burial mask. But her tomb is yet […]
CWA 67
The Moche were the first empire-builders of the American continent, more than eight centuries before the Incas, and just as deserving of fame as those Johnny-come-latelys. But they had no written language, and did not hang around long enough to be recorded in the histories written by European fortune-hunters who plundered their material legacy almost a millennium later. Now, […]