The unlucky emperor Clodius Albinus – a portrait study

What a huge surprise when the company Gorny & Mosch – Giessener Münzhandlung auctioned off a Roman portrait head from the late 2nd cent. A. D. at auction sale 184 on December 18th, 2009. It was a high quality marble portrait in a remarkable state of preservation which some …

The Melle Mines

When the Arabs went out in the 7th century to conquer a vast empire with their new faith, the world changed not only religiously and politically but also …

Gold!

Jack London, Klondike and Burning Daylight
One day in December Daylight filled a pan from bed rock on his own claim and carried it into his cabin. Here a fire burned and enabled him to keep water unfrozen in a canvas tank. He squatted over the tank and began to wash…

Ainos – A Commercial Center in Thrace

Ainos, today called Enez and located on the border of the Aegean Sea in the European part of Turkey, didn’t have any important resources. As far as we know, there also didn’t exist any remarkable industry. Ainos reached incredible wealth during the 5th century B.C. despite these facts.

Honni soit qui mal y pense or What exactly was the spintriae’s function?

One has to pay high prices indeed for the so-called spintriae – brothel tokens as one is secretly whispered to. There are experts who know exactly what the function of these objects was…

Why Sigismund ‘rich in coin’ died a destitute man

The date was February 7th, 1496. Columbus hadn’t returned from his second journey yet, in the realm of the Holy Roman Empire everyone was upset about general taxation which had been decided at the diet at Worms one year ago, and the Syphilis which had been introduced from America spread all over Europe. Much happened those days indeed; and in a secluded chamber in the Innsbruck Residence a lonely man laid dying.