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Human Sacrifice and the Death of Antinous

1/8/2026

In Ancient World Magazine, British researcher Andrew Michael Chugg has a new piece about the death of Hadrian’s lover Antinous and his subsequent promotion to a constellation in Ptolemy’s Almagest. Most of the article concerns the early modern history of the now-forgotten constellation of Antinous, which is beyond my interest or scope. But Chugg promoted his piece on social media as the “unexpurgated” story of Antinous, so it is worth giving a bit of consideration to the evidence for Antinous’s life and death.

11 Comments

Canadian Documentary Series Searches for Viking Explorers in Minnesota, Elsewhere

1/6/2026

9 Comments

On Sunday, Super Channel in Canada launched a new history-themed reality TV show called Quest for the Lost Vikings in which David Collette and Johann Sigurdson of the Explorer’s Club and the Fara Heim team travel across Canada and the United States in search of evidence that the Norse explored the interior of North America far beyond the settlements in Vinland credited to them. The eight-part series, which is airing in 70 countries (but not the U.S.) sees the two men visit the Kensington Runestone in Minnesota and other hoax stones in the hope of proving they are monuments to what publicity materials call the men’s “Viking roots.”

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Malaysian Professor Claims Romans Learned Shipbuilding from Malay Peoples

11/10/2025

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Professors at the International Islamic University Malaysia are urging the school’s administrators to investigate associate professor Solehah Yaacob, claiming the lecturer in Arabic brought the school into disrepute by claiming that the Romans learned the art of shipbuilding from the ancient Malays in a social media video originally shot in 2022 but which went viral last month. “The credibility of our institution depends on the integrity, accountability and professionalism of its academic staff,” faculty wrote in a social media post last week.

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Djoser's Pyramid Was Built with Giant Hydraulic Works, New Paper Claims

7/30/2024

6 Comments

A preprint of a new scientific paper to be published in an upcoming edition of PLOS One made news this week when a team of interdisciplinary researchers led by Xavier Landreau of the Paleotechnic research firm claimed to have evidence that Djoser’s step pyramid at Saqqara had been built using a hydraulic lift. The authors claim that a large stone enclosure near the pyramid, known as Gisr el-Mudir, was a water treatment facility and served as a dam, allowing purified Nile water to travel along channels to the site of the pyramid, where, in “volcano” fashion, the water mover through a series of shafts and pushed stones up to the top of the pyramid while it was under construction.

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Weekly Roundup: A House UFO Hearing, Prehistoric Phallic "Civilization," and More!

5/10/2022

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This week, Rep. André Carson announced that his subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee would hold a hearing next week on the Pentagon’s lack of transparency on UFOs. It is the first UFO hearing in Congress since 1966. Naturally, the New York Times brought back its biased reporters Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, both with conflicts of interest, to cover the story. Both reporters are longtime members of the UFO community. Blumenthal has openly spoken of his “transcendent” belief in the paranormal power of UFOs, and Kean spent much of the last year working for Bob Bigelow, a key figure in the government UFO story. She was also the longtime romantic partner of the late Budd Hopkins, an alien abduction researcher funded by Bigelow.

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White House Issues Proclamation Praising Leif Erikson's Judeo-Christian Values

10/10/2020

36 Comments

A powerful storm hit eastern New York on Wednesday and took out electrical service for much of the area. While some parts of the region are still without power, fortunately my power has been restored. My internet service came back on just before 10 PM last night. As a result, I have been unable to keep up with my usual work this week. However, I could not let the week pass without noting the proclamation that Pres. Trump issued yesterday declaring Oct. 9 to be Leif Erikson Day, in honor of the Norse explorer often credited as the first European to reach the Americas.

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Stanford Professor Says the Fall of Rome Was the "Best" Thing to Happen to Europe

10/24/2019

42 Comments

A new book by Stanford historian Walter Scheidel claims that the fall of the Roman Empire was ultimately a good thing because, basically, it created capitalism a thousand years later. In Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity, Scheidel argues that Western civilization only emerged because of the absence of an imperial authority. Empires, he says, stifle innovation and prevent economic development. In an interview with Phys.org, Scheidel explained his reasoning:

42 Comments

Is a New Name from the Bible Really to Be Found on the Mesha Stele?

5/11/2019

15 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I received an embargoed press release announcing a radical new interpretation of the ninth century Mesha Stele, which a team of researchers now claims could represent the first and only independent confirmation of the existence of King Balak outside of the Bible (Numbers 22-24). I honestly don’t care whether Balak existed or not, but I found the reasoning used to make the claim to be somewhat lacking.

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Review of "Ten Caesars" by Barry Strauss

2/23/2019

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Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine
Barry Strauss | 432 pages | Simon & Schuster | ISBN: 978-1451668834 | $28.00

The story of the Roman Empire is well-known, its major personalities still celebrities even today. But the fame of the Empire and its emperors makes it a challenge to say something new about a subject that has spawned books both thoughtful and sensational for two thousand years. Cornell University professor Barry Strauss’s Ten Caesars, which will be published on March 5, doesn’t quite manage to say anything new about the ten men it profiles, but it does have the virtue of telling a familiar story well.

22 Comments

Marvel's Apocalypse and the Fascination with Ancient Egypt's Dark Side

11/28/2018

31 Comments

The other day, archaeologist David S. Anderson posted an article on Adventures in Poor Taste discussing the Marvel Comics villain Apocalypse and why he is associated with ancient Egypt. In the piece, Anderson traces back fascination and fear of all things Egyptian to the 1922 opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen and the resulting media frenzy surrounding both the tomb opening and the subsequent allegations that a pharaonic “curse” had felled several of the participants in the excavation. I know Anderson slightly from Twitter, so I hope he will forgive me if I dissent a bit from his analysis.

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<<Previous

Human Sacrifice and the Death of Antinous

Canadian Documentary Series Searches for Viking Explorers in Minnesota, Elsewhere

Malaysian Professor Claims Romans Learned Shipbuilding from Malay Peoples

Djoser's Pyramid Was Built with Giant Hydraulic Works, New Paper Claims

Weekly Roundup: A House UFO Hearing, Prehistoric Phallic "Civilization," and More!

White House Issues Proclamation Praising Leif Erikson's Judeo-Christian Values

Stanford Professor Says the Fall of Rome Was the "Best" Thing to Happen to Europe

Is a New Name from the Bible Really to Be Found on the Mesha Stele?

Review of "Ten Caesars" by Barry Strauss

Marvel's Apocalypse and the Fascination with Ancient Egypt's Dark Side

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