Erotic Art in Pompeii and Herculaneum (NSFW!)
Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum is a phenomenon often omitted from textbooks about ancient history. These famous Roman cities destroyed by the...
Zuzanna Stańska 2 February 2022
Ancient Rome
The Portrait of Rome’s Decline: Bust of Decius
The turmoil of Rome’s decline in the 3rd century enclosed the 21-month reign of Decius. His tenure as emperor was not exceptionally short for the...
Guest Profile 4 January 2022
How to Identify a Roman Emperor by His Beard
How many times have you walked into a museum full of statues or busts and not been able to tell one ancient sculpture from another? It can be...
Lauren Dorsey 4 January 2022
Painting the Fall of the Roman Empire
After many centuries, we are still wondering why the Roman Empire disappeared. There are many theories that try to explain it: wars, ideological...
Celia Leiva Otto 4 January 2022
Masterpiece Story: Mithras Slaying the Bull
Mithras Slaying the Bull is a compilation of the entire religious and symbolic images of Mithraism. It reflects promised immortality and personal...
James W Singer 18 July 2021
The Torlonia Marbles: A Long-awaited Classical Collection
After strictly remaining in the shade for decades and decades, one of the world’s most extensive private collections of classical sculpture, the...
Erol Degirmenci 4 January 2021
Ancient Bikini Girls from the Roman Mosaics
If you have ever wondered when the history of the bikini began, it started exactly at the same time and place in history as philosophy, mathematics,...
Magda Michalska 17 October 2020
How to Show Up in a Gym – 3 Ancient Sculptures of Hercules
In Greek mythology Hercules was a demigod and much admired heroic figure. The Romans called him Hercules (Herakles was his Greek name) and he was...
Ameera Patel 9 September 2020
Khaled al-Asaad — The Hero of Palmyra
Five years ago on August 18, 2015, the world-renowned Palmyran expert Khaled al-Asaad was brutally murdered by the Islamic State (ISIS) after weeks...
Maya M. Tola 18 August 2020
Timeless Beauty: Ancient Greek Athletes in Art
The idea of timeless beauty is fascinating. Also, it's a great concern for lovers of art history. Conceptions of beauty in Western art history have...
Isla Phillips-Ewen 25 July 2020
The Curious Lure and Strange Beauty of Ancient Anatomical Votives
Eerie, mysterious, and fascinating, ancient anatomical votives represent literal parts of people’s past. When most people think of a votive object,...
Marga Patterson 12 June 2020
Gradiva: What Did Freud and the Surrealists See in Her?
A woman who walks. That's what Gradiva (the name of an anonymous woman from an antique bas-relief) means, as given by a fictional character from a...
Magda Michalska 27 April 2020
