The parricide’s sack
In the Roman Empire someone who killed their parent would be sewn into a sack with a live rooster, dog, monkey, and snake, and then thrown into the water. In medieval Germany, they used a cat, a dog, and a picture of a snake.
Category: Ancient history
From the beginning of written history until 500 CE
The Library Cave
On June 25, 1900, tens of thousands of important historical manuscripts were found in a secret room within the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas in Dunhuang, China, where they had been hidden for nearly a millennium.
First Jesus
The first pictorial representation of Jesus Christ is insulting Roman graffiti that gives him a donkey’s head.
Cursed stone city
Al-Khazneh, the temple carved out of a cliff in Petra, is the most famous remnant of the Nabataean Kingdom. But to its south lies Hegra, the cursed stoneland city.
The universal antidote
For more than 1700 years, mithridate and theriac were Europe’s ultimate medicines. A concoction of up to sixty-four ingredients – including cinnamon, turpentine, and poppy – they were supposed to neutralise any poison or plague.
Ancient dioramas
We all know that Egyptian tombs contained models of servants, boats, and animals to accompany the deceased in the afterlife. But they sometimes also contained model gardens, granaries, bakeries, breweries, stables, and slaughterhouses.
Pi approximation
The closest approximation of Pi for nearly a thousand years was calculated by Chinese mathematician Zu Chongzhi around 480 CE, using an algorithm developed by Liu Hui.
Largest brick arch
Tāq Kasrā, one of the last surviving buildings of the ancient Sasanian Empire’s capital city, has the largest unreinforced brick arch in the world.
Emperor auction
Didius Julianus won the Roman Empire in an auction held by the Praetorian Guard in 193 CE.
This chariot always points south
Around 255 CE, a Chinese inventor named Ma Jun created a chariot that could always point south – without using magnets.
Kilometre zero
All roads lead to Rome… but where in Rome do they lead?
First author
The first author whose name we know was Enheduanna. Daughter of Sargon the Great, she wrote religious hymns, so she can also lay claim to being the first named poet in history.
First hippo
When he arrived in London in 1850, Obaysch was the first hippopotamus in Europe for more than a millennium.
One lifetime
The saeculum was a measurement of time used by the Etruscans and Romans to represent a single lifetime: no-one who witnessed the beginning of a saeculum would see its end, by definition.
Forty
It’s our 400th post! In most religions originating in the Middle East, the number 40 equals a large unspecific number: 40 days, 40 nights, 40 years should all be interpreted as “many” days, nights, or years.
Gibbon of the tomb
There’s an extinct species of gibbon, Junzi imperialis, we only know about because a Chinese noblewoman kept it as a pet more than two millennia ago.
The Generalist Academy 