Category: Mythology

Professor Claims Dante's "Inferno" Offers "Accurate" Depiction of Asteroid Impact

5/13/2026

Last week, a professor of English claimed that Satan’s fall to Earth in Dante’s Inferno was an accurate description of a meteor strike on the planet. Timothy Burbery of Marshall University made the claim that Dante engaged in a thought experiment in impact physics to the European Geosciences Union General Assembly on Friday, where he claimed that Dante provided a description of the impact crater created by a meteor impact and the resulting shock waves that anticipated modern scientific understanding of “modern meteorics,” including non-Euclidean mathematical modeling.

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The Surprising History of the Sea Monsters That Destroyed Alexandria

4/20/2026

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This weekend, I worked on translating chapters from ibn ’Abd al-Hakam and al-Mas‘udi on the foundation of Alexandria. These chapters contain a mixture of history, legends associated with the Alexander Romance, and fossilized bits of more ancient mythology, particularly references to the Arabian myth cycle of Shaddād bin ’Ād, the legendary builder of Iram of the Pillars and the pyramids. In Arabic myths, Alexandria wasn’t merely the city Alexander built but rather the successor to a marvelous ancient city called Raqūdah. As al-Marqizi put it in a marginal note found in his personal manuscript of his book Al-Ḫabar, “Alexander did not found the city of Alexandria as it already existed, being known as Raqūdah (Rhacotis). He rather restored the city and made it the capital instead of Memphis” (trans. Mayte Penelas).

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Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam and the Secret Source of the "General Estoria's" History of Egypt

3/23/2026

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After several weeks of investigation, I am happy to provide the closest possible solution to the mystery of where Alfonso X got his history of Ancient Egypt in the General Estoria (c. 1270 CE)—and it’s a solution that none of the experts, including the modern editors of both editions of the General Estoria as well as Juan Udaondo Alegre, who wrote about it in his 2024 book The Spanish Hermes, discovered. And now you can see it for yourself for the first time here.

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An Ancient Text on Nebuchadnezzar That Might Solve a Medieval Literary Mystery

3/12/2026

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Since there is no new episode of Ancient Aliens tonight, I thought I would use the time to discuss a surprising discovery I stumbled across that provides a plausible solution to the mystery of “lost” second part of medieval writer Ibrāhīm ibn Waṣīf Shāh’s Book of Marvels, his history of ancient Egypt. Regular readers will recall that Alfonso X cited this book as his source for the history of Egypt in the General Estoria (c. 1270 CE), but that the passages he attributes to the author, under the name Alguazif, do not match the surviving fragments of his work. I think I found the source text that stands behind both Alfonso’s narrative and the scattered references in the surviving fragments of ibn Waṣīf Shāh—and it took me completely by surprise!

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Review of Ancient Aliens S22E03 “Islands of the Gods”

1/30/2026

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(For reasons that are beyond me, this episode is listed as S21E19 on the History website and S22E03 everywhere else.)

The settlement of Polynesia is one of the great stories of human achievement, full of incredible feats of sailing across almost incomprehensible distances. Those voyages carried a cultural matrix that included cyclopean walls and megalithic statues across the Pacific, the from the Marquesas to Nan Madol and from Hawaii to Easter Island. It’s also been a frequent subject for Ancient Aliens. In the past eight years, they have devoted entire episodes to Easter Island and the Marquesas (2018), Hawaii (2019), and Nan Madol (2020) in addition to frequent segments in other episodes. Now we are doing it all again because it’s been a few years, and they probably figure that the audience has forgotten since they reused so much material from these previous episodes, including b-roll footage.

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Graham Hancock Claims Ancient Secret Society “Is Involved in Making Civilizations”

1/19/2026

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In a new interview with Randall Carlson, Graham Hancock claimed that “secret societies” survived the Great Flood, maintain the traditions of the antediluvian world, and continue to influence civilization today. “The mysteries in our past that remain to be exposed do concern secret societies,” Hancock said. “They do concern a behind-the-scenes organization that is somehow involved in making civilizations.” Carlson and Hancock agree that “someone” had “foreknowledge” of the Flood and therefore took precautions to save knowledge.

Graham Hancock reveals that a secret society of elites knows the truth about an ancient flood that wiped out civilization.

But they don’t just know the truth.

They survived the flood.

They’ve controlled civilization for thousands of years.

And they’re preparing to control… pic.twitter.com/KDDxzRlxQt
— Holden Culotta (@Holden_Culotta) January 19, 2026

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Review of Ancient Aliens S22E01 “Skulls of the Gods”

1/16/2026

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After a break of more than two months, Ancient Aliens returned Thursday night, as it has each January, for the start of a new season, its twenty-second over seventeen calendar years, counting from the 2009 pilot episode. I suppose that it is only appropriate that Ancient Aliens returns the same week that its guiding spirit, Erich von Däniken, died at the age of ninety. As long as the series, which was originally an adaptation of Chariots of the Gods, remains on the air, it’s almost like von Däniken is still with us, lying and fabricating shamelessly. Unlike the past two seasons, this one opens with an “original” episode rather than a “Top Ten” clip show. I suppose that is something like progress. On the other hand, the series began its new season with a rehash of familiar material about elongated skulls that the show has repeated for a decade and a half. In a week where Giorgio Tsoukalos was actively posting on X that the supposed “alien” mummies of Peru were nothing but desecrated human bodies made into “dolls,” it is a bit ironic that he is also appearing here to declare some skulls from Peru are in fact extraterrestrial. But that’s where we stand.

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Human Sacrifice and the Death of Antinous

1/8/2026

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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.

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NBC's "Today" Show Runs Credulous Report Claiming "Proof" of Noah's Ark

11/10/2025

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Early this morning, NBC’s Today show broadcast a piece profiling “Christian researcher” Andrew Jones, who has long claimed that a natural formation in Turkey is Noah’s Ark. The “Today In-Depth” report, broadcast during the 7:30 ET half hour, saw international correspondent Keir Simmons deliver a one-sided live report from the Durupinar formation near Mount Ararat, claiming the site to be the Ark. “A group of American Christians believe they have new evidence that that is the wreckage of Noah's Ark here in these mountains,” Simmons told Today anchors Savannah Guthrie, Craig Melvin, and Carson Daly.

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Review of Ancient Aliens S21E17: “Secrets of Japan”

11/7/2025

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The History channel moved Ancient Aliens yet again following its week off, shifting the show from 8 PM to 9 PM, sandwiched between reruns. I suppose there must be some ratings reason for it, but since Nielsen stopped reporting cable ratings (highlights for sports and cable news are released a week after), I’m not sure how Ancient Aliens currently performs. Not that many people would notice much of a difference between new episodes and reruns anyway. This week’s episode is a case in point. “Secrets of Japan” follows the season’s pattern of organizing episodes by geographic region but otherwise remaking past productions. “Secrets of Japan” calls to mind the 2017 episode “A Spaceship Made of Stone,” which similarly was devoted to Japan, though the former episode leaned more into ancient material and this week’s episode into modern UFO sightings. (Some of the same Japanese talking heads even appear in both.)

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<<Previous

Professor Claims Dante's "Inferno" Offers "Accurate" Depiction of Asteroid Impact

The Surprising History of the Sea Monsters That Destroyed Alexandria

Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam and the Secret Source of the "General Estoria's" History of Egypt

An Ancient Text on Nebuchadnezzar That Might Solve a Medieval Literary Mystery

Review of Ancient Aliens S22E03 “Islands of the Gods”

Graham Hancock Claims Ancient Secret Society “Is Involved in Making Civilizations”

Review of Ancient Aliens S22E01 “Skulls of the Gods”

Human Sacrifice and the Death of Antinous

NBC's "Today" Show Runs Credulous Report Claiming "Proof" of Noah's Ark

Review of Ancient Aliens S21E17: “Secrets of Japan”

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