16-metre-long book of the dead papyrus is discovered

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

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

The great naturalist Sir Richard Owen coined the term “dinosaur”, wrote the first scientific descriptions of dinosaurs and was a founder of the first Natural History Museum (NHM) and its first directo

Chartarumludentist Anthony Wilkins [FT458:63] may wish to visit China. While living there in 2005 I found so many discarded playing cards on the ground that I was able to assemble a unique deck of 52

The most intriguing aspect of this book is that it’s written as a sort of ‘life in the day’ of the Colosseum, that vast edifice begun in Rome by the emperor Vespasian (AD 69–79) to entertain the masse

Samuel Pepys’s self-incriminating diaries