Ancient/Archeological

Ancient and pre-historical topics up to ca. 800 AD

Why Did a Great Egyptian Civilization Suddenly Collapse?

Revilo P. Oliver, a scholar of international stature, taught Classics at the University of Illinois for 32 years. Until his recent death, he was a member of this Journal's Editorial Advisory Committee. For more about Dr. Oliver, see the memorial tribute to him in the Sept.-Oct. 1994 Journal. This essay, originally written in 1963, is…

Alexander the Great and Darius – Kinsmen and Enemies

Edward Langford is the pen name of a historian and anthropologist who holds a doctoral degree in anthropology. He is the author of numerous articles dealing with history, and several books on anthropology. It is a very common error to regard the Greeks and Persians as having been diametrically opposed peoples in history. This common…

Mithraism: Formidable Rival to Early Christianity

During the first two centuries of the Christian era, two competing religions that shared many similarities flourished in the Greco-Roman world: Christianity and Mithraism. For a time, the followers of Mithra outnumbered those of Christ, and it was not until the third century AD that Christianity clearly emerged as the dominant religion of the declining…

An Update on the Dead Sea Scrolls

I was reared in a highly fundamentalist religious denomination; and although I had various early doubts concerning its dogmas and practices and rejected them when I was about twenty years old, I never lost an intense interest in religion as a social phenomenon or in its influence upon mankind. I remember one philosopher who said…

The Might That Was Assyria

The Might That Was Assyria by H.W.F. Saggs. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, with maps, photographs, index, xii + 340 pp. 1984, ISBN 0-283-98961 (hardcover), 0-283-98962 (paperback), (available in the United States through the History Book Club). For approximately two-and-a-half centuries, the Assyrian empire exerted tremendous influence upon developments in what biblical accounts called the “land…

Ancient Mummies in Europe

The first mummies to be discovered in Britain have been found in the Outer Hebrides. Researchers believe islanders on South Uist started mummifying their dead at the same time as the ancient Egyptians. Film-makers from BBC’s “Meet The Ancestors” program followed archaeologists from the University of Sheffield working at Cladh Hallan on South Uist. The…

A New Buddhist-Christian Parable

Introduction Most readers will probably be surprised to learn that more and more scholars are in agreement that it can no longer be denied that Buddhism has influenced Christianity in various ways. At the same time it must also be said that there is by no means any consensus when it comes to the nature…

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