And human religion’s forgotten secret — 18 stories and 280 feet deep. Able to house 20,000 people and thousands more livestock. Featuring thousands of separate living spaces, as well as communal spaces, storage spaces, stables, wine presses, cellars, dungeons and even churches. Carved into its present shape almost two thousand years ago. Started possibly all the…

And why it is the way it is — If you had to guess where the drunkest county in the United States was, you’d be smart to choose somewhere in Wisconsin. …

On the conditions that rob us of the option to excel — I’ve always gotten the sense when learning about history that I was learning about a world a lot smaller than my own. Which of course I was: people up to a few hundred years ago nearly all lived in small communities with only the barest contact to the rest of…

How a treasure from before the dawn of civilization changes the human story — Before the Roman Empire left hordes of coins across the Mediterranean and the wider world. Before Alexander, Sargon, or Gilgamesh. Before the ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramid. Before the farmers of Neolithic Britain raised Stonehenge. …

Reexamining the Phaedo and its account of virtue and death — With all the almost god-like reverence Socrates has been given by practically all of Western philosophy for the past 1000+ years, and for a man whose final days and death alone have become cultural icons in their own right, you’d expect his position on something as elemental as the cycle…

With heavy eyes and long heaving yawns From rest I wrenched myself and found a seat, About to be beside, though unbeknownst, A most-admired, mist-enshrouded, Otherworldly woman wearing waving white wings. A “hi” she smiled like a sort of shy hint That somehow she was blind to all the light …

Dispelling one prolific modern political myth — If anyone were to want to object to Karl Marx — imagine that — they’d be forgiven to try to start with “On the Jewish Question”. …

Students reportedly upset at their favorite tailgate location getting closed off — Two 20-foot-tall man-made mounds standing next to each other. Commonly thought to be at least 5,000 years old. Now, two professors claim at least one is over 11,000 years old. Situated in the middle of the wilderness, somewhere the arid deserts or the deadly mountains of the Old World? Don’t…

A lack of economic diversity at top colleges threatens the entire education system — The Ivy League and other top American colleges are known as much for their elitism and corruption just as for their academic excellence. It’s not a secret that a lot, if not the majority, of the kids going to these schools are only there because of rich parents and prestigious…