For a brief period of time, there was a consensus view on the history of human civilization: humans were first hunter-gatherers, then developed agriculture, and finally developed religion, art, technology, and other aspects of culture. But then, a 20th-century architectural discovery threw all of this into question. Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe …

A 1,500-year-old wonder… Can stones and mosaics communicate divine wisdom? Can a single building showcase thousands of years of spiritual teaching? In the case of the Hagia Sophia, the answer is yes — and that’s exactly what makes it one of the greatest churches of Eastern Christendom. From the images portrayed in …

A guide to the very bottom… Few works of Western literature can compete with Dante’s Divine Comedy. It’s a fascinatingly engaging read, despite being written over 700 years ago and containing many complex references to history and myth. For those who want to master the cultural heritage of the West, it’s …

Originally published on Culture Critic Iraq’s answer to the pyramids: the Great Ziggurat of Ur (before and after restoration)   From the ruined walls of the earliest Mesopotamian cities to the skyscrapers of the 20th century, the story of civilization can be told through five main building materials. Without brick, …

A culture that never dies… Ancient Greece never dies. Every few hundred years, Western culture remembers its roots, and artists and architects find themselves harkening back to the civilization that started it all. In many ways, there’s a continuous thread running back in time from the United States Capitol Building …

Originally published on Culture Critic. What was the worst year in human history? To answer that, we first have to ask how you even define what constitutes the “worst.” Is it the loss of life, or the scale of suffering? Or is it a different kind of damage altogether? The …

Originally published on Culture Critic The gap between medieval and modern art might seem unbridgeable. But there is one painting that connects the two — and it’s as strange as you might expect. Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights is more than a visual masterpiece. It holds the keys to some big questions: …