The mummy's curse..and other true (and false) tales

In short, yes: the Victorians did indeed think eating mummified remains pilfered from ancient Egyptian tombs was a good idea, although they did not come up with the idea themselves. The morbid practic

Often admired and adored during their lifetimes, the great composers would, you might think, enjoy similar reverence after death. Once the last rites had been read, surely these great cultural icons w

Carthage burned for six days. After three long years of siege, in the spring of 146 BC Roman soldiers finally broke through the city’s defences and began to slaughter the population. But still the Car

Whether vestiges of paganism survived Europe’s Christianisation is a subject of enduring fascination. Scholarly debate navigates between the ‘maximalist’ position (much survived) and the ‘minimalist’

AFRICAN FOLKLORE

From miasma to miracles: how medieval medicine desperately battled the bubonic plague