History

What we know for sure about the early alphabet’s background is linguistic and material. It is widely agreed that the early alphabet a) represents a West Semitic language ancestral to Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic; b) but based its signs on the Egyptian writing system, and c) was— as far as we know— not done by scribes or professional writers but... See more

I. TIME in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things, and drowns them in the depths of obscurity, no matter if they be quite unworthy of mention, or most noteworthy and important, and thus, as the tragedian says, "he brings from the darkness all things to the birth, and all things born envelops in the night."... See more

For a millennium, rivalries between and among Byzantine noble families propelled public life, with the kind of bloody factional maneuvering that makes the Tudors look like the Waltons in comparison.

Though political power was usually a male privilege in Byzantium, a striking feature of the Byzantine tales is the prominence of women as political... See more

The new Monopoly ‘celebrates women trailblazers.’ But the game’s female inventor still isn’t getting credit.