Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 2003
Features
When the Phoenicians arrived on the Iberian peninsula, probably at the end of the ninth century B.C., they came into contact with an indigenous people called the Tartessians. The two cultures soon fused. The hybrid culture produced by this fusion of peoples is evident in a mysterious structure at Cancho Roano, deep in […]
Do not be deceived by the alluring mythological creatures known as sirens, sphinxes and gorgons. Their feminine faces belie a ferocity and frightening power, which the ancient Greeks expressed in poetry, sculpture and painting. Sirens lured their prey with seductive songs. Sphinxes posed fatal riddles and snatched away the unsuspecting. Gorgons had faces so […]
One of the most mysterious buildings in all of Western architecture—the tomb of Theoderic (454–526 C.E.), king of the Ostrogoths (see the sidebar to this article)—glowers at the end of a tree-lined avenue in Ravenna, Italy. The tomb’s heavy, brooding presence has prompted one modern observer to describe it as a “monstrous object flung […]