046 In the decades before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 C.E., Jews gave a new and heightened emphasis to ritual purity. In fact, purity laws may have been interpreted more strictly at this time than at any point before—...

040 A spectacular sound and light show greeted the Israelites when the new nation encountered God for the first time at Mt. Sinai.1 The awesome display of divine presence and power so terrified the Children of Israel that they begged God not to...

054 David Roberts was no archaeologist. But, thanks to his scores of lithographs of the Holy Land, he may have done more to popularize ancient sites in the Near East than anyone else in the 19th century. Roberts was an artist who lived before...

028 Films recreate the past and make it come alive. For many people movies are their first and most memorable encounter with history. Movies can also reflect a society’s changing values, as well as its attempts to come to terms with its past and...

029 Respect, even reverence, for the past has inspired Graham Binns to take up causes involving cultural history. In the 1950’s, he chaired a committee that oversaw the restoration of a 17th-century theater in Malta. Since the early 1980’s, he...

020 021 Do you wonder what happened to the ancient Etruscans, those civilized, seemingly mysterious people who revealed so many secrets of life and death to the Romans? Simply journey to the...