Past Lives

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The Man with a Knife for a Hand (Lombard Italy, Late 6th Century) Sep 30, 2026

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Toward the end of the 6th century CE, a man was buried in northern Italy. He had lived an interesting life: born in what is now Hungary, he crossed the Alps as part of the great Longobard migration to Italy. Most surprising of all is the fact that he survived the amputation of his right hand, and replaced the lost limb with a knife.

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Introducing What Could Go Right? Sep 30, 2026

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Xin Zhui, the Best-Preserved Mummy of All Time Sep 23, 2026

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When Chinese archaeologists opened a tomb in the city of Changsha in 1972, they found an undisturbed burial chamber filled with treasures from the early Han Dynasty. At the center was the body of a woman who looked like she had died only days or weeks ago, instead of more than 2,000 years.

Go see Patrick, Dr. Claire Aubin, and Manny Fidel draft teams of the greatest assholes in American history on Tuesday, September 29th in New York! Tickets available here: https://admitone.com/events/new-york/community/comedy/tgs-presents-draft-of-shame/54UI98

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How Do You Get Bitten by a Lion in Roman York? Sep 16, 2026

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Around 1800 years ago, a man was bitten by a lion in the city of York, in what is now northern England. Lions aren't native to York, so how did it get there, and why was it biting this man? The answers to those questions tell us a great deal about the Roman Empire as an interconnected, wide-ranging world, and the sometimes strange practices that interconnection made possible.

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The Siberian Ice Maiden and the Scythian World Sep 09, 2026

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Around 270 BC, a woman died of breast cancer in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. Her tomb, cut into the permafrost, is one of the best-preserved archaeological sites on the planet. Thanks to the ice, everything from her extraordinary tattoos to the silk garments she wore has survived, providing a direct window onto the forgotten world of the Iron Age steppe and the Scythians who dominated it.

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Weapons Sacrifices and the Long Road to the Viking Age Sep 02, 2026

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When we think of Scandinavia, it seems to be a long way from the Roman Empire, with hundreds of miles separating the Rhine and Danube frontiers from the bogs of Jutland and Sweden. Why, then, were hundreds upon hundreds of Roman-made weapons intentionally thrown into these bogs in the third and fourth centuries AD? The answer opens the gate that will eventually lead, many centuries down the road, to the warrior-kings of the Viking Age.

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Professor Peter Mancall on Understanding Colonial America Aug 26, 2026

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Professor Peter Mancall is one of the finest historians of colonial America working today, and he's written a banger of a book, the newest entry in the wonderful Oxford History of the United States series. It's entitled Contested Continent, and it's a book everyone who enjoys American history should read.

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Tollund Man Aug 19, 2026

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More than 2,400 years ago, a man living in southern Denmark was hung from a plaited leather cord, then buried in a bog. There he stayed until 1950, when his perfectly preserved face emerged from the peat. We know him as Tollund Man, but who was he in life, and what can we know about the world he inhabited?

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Bog Bodies Aug 12, 2026

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Bog bodies - the age-old remains of people who were submerged in bogs - are an eerie sight. Soft tissue remains, often to an even greater extent than mummies, bringing us face to face with people who died thousands of years ago.

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The Human Sacrifices of the Shang Dynasty Aug 05, 2026

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Over more than two centuries, the rulers of Bronze Age China's Shang Dynasty sacrificed at least 13,000 people. Who were they? Where had they come from, and what were their lives like? Thanks to new studies, we can finally take our focus off the Shang elite and move it onto the victims.

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