THE CROWNING GLORY

Sindoor Jatra of Maharajah Dev Shumsher in 1901 A.D. Queen Elizabeth I is credited with the lines,”to be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.” [...]

COURT INTRIGUES OF THE THREE SISTERS

Recently Bagh Durbar located near the erstwhile Bhimsen Tower ‘Dharahara’ at the heart of Kathmandu city was in the news as the Municipality had more or less decided to demolish a historical building adversely affected by the [...]

THE RANI FROM RUKUM

Rukum is a scenic hill district of western Nepal where one of the Chaubisi Rajyas or 24 small fiefdoms held sway before unification. Ruled by the Thakuris or the heads of the local clans it was finally absorbed into unified Nepal sometime during [...]

DEATH OF A MONARCH

Nepalese of my generation associate the end of the 104 years old Rana oligarchy with a garlanded king in Nepalese mayelposh suruwal dress waving his right hand to acknowledge the multitude that thronged the Kathmandu airport to see him arrive [...]

THE GOLDEN WIDOW

“Lhasa ma soon chha, kaan mero buch-chai”, teased Putali Maharani whenever she had the chance. Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana had come out victorious against the Tibetans and abrogated the unfair Treaty of Betrawati signed under [...]

RANA COURT PHOTOGRAPHERS

It is but ironical that it has now become fashionable for many Nepalese households and public places such as restaurants and bars to display photographs of the Rana rulers of Nepal and their families, the men with their military decorations [...]
Clues to Ancient Egyptian Dynasties: Excavation Finds Large Buildings, Clay Sealings, Evidence of Metallurgy

Clues to Ancient Egyptian Dynasties: Excavation Finds Large Buildings, Clay Sealings, Evidence of Metallurgy

The Daily Journalist.   The archaeological excavation of an ancient Egyptian city at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt, led by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has discovered well-preserved settlement remains dating to [...]

RANI MAHAL, STORY OF ITS MAKER

PROLOGUE  The first time I ever saw this historical edifice thirty five years ago, she was in ruins and looked like an old hag during the winter of her life, simply waiting for her eventual demise. I was then on my way further west on a [...]
Archaeologists find Oldest School in the world

Archaeologists find Oldest School in the world

The Daily Journalist. Ancestors of modern humans taught their children how to make flint tools at prehistoric school, researchers say  The school was found at the Qesem Cave, a Lower Paleolithic archaeological site 12 km east of Tel Aviv in [...]
To Liberate Cambodia

To Liberate Cambodia

By Robert J. Burrowes. A long-standing French protectorate briefly occupied by Japan during World War II, Cambodia became independent in 1953 as the French finally withdrew from Indochina. Under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia [...]

Escalating Tension between the US & North Korea – What History Can Teach Us

For several years now, the tension between the United States and North Korea has been growing because that geographically small Asian country now has nuclear capabilities. They have repeatedly threatened to launch against the Western World, [...]
Ruins of Ancient Turkic Monument Surrounded by 14 Pillars with Inscriptions Discovered

Ruins of Ancient Turkic Monument Surrounded by 14 Pillars with Inscriptions Discovered

The Daily Journalist. A joint excavation team from Osaka University and the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences discovered the ruins of a unique monument surrounded by 14 large stone pillars with Turkic [...]

ON DIVINE REVELATIONS

When the founder of modern Nepal King Prithivi Narayan Shah likened his new Nepali state to the “yam between two boulders” he was referring to the fragile state of his new kingdom lodged perilously between Mughal India and Qing [...]

LOOKING BACK AT A BETRAYAL MOST FOUL

Maharani Haripriya Devi was now a refugee in Benaras. She looked back in anger at what had transpired in Nepal. She trembled with fear and paled at the memory even now when she remembered that terrible event! Yes, she had delved in politics [...]
Buried in a Cave or a Dolmen: Megalithic Stone Age Funeral Practices, What the Bones Say

Buried in a Cave or a Dolmen: Megalithic Stone Age Funeral Practices, What the Bones Say

In megalithic times funeral practices reveal that even 5000 years ago socioeconomic differences were already evolving. The journal PLOS ONE has published a piece of research conducted by the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country and the [...]
Ancient Fabrics Reveal Differences in Mediterranean Textiles in 1st Millennium BC

Ancient Fabrics Reveal Differences in Mediterranean Textiles in 1st Millennium BC

Textiles represent one of the earliest human craft technologies and applied arts, and their production would have been one of the most important time, resource and labor consuming activities in the ancient past. In archaeological contexts, textiles [...]
Where Did Minoans and Mycenaeans Originate?

Where Did Minoans and Mycenaeans Originate?

The Daily Journalist. For the first time, scientists have obtained and analyzed genome sequences from the ancient Minoans and Mycenaeans, who lived three to five thousand years ago and were Europe’s first civilized people. The new analysis [...]
Unique Wheat Discovery in Bronze Age Lunch Box

Unique Wheat Discovery in Bronze Age Lunch Box

Container found in the Swiss Alps leads researchers to new analysis method In a wooden container found in the Bernese Alps in 2012, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, together with an international [...]
Ancient Skulls Shed Light On Migration Into The Roman Empire

Ancient Skulls Shed Light On Migration Into The Roman Empire

Skeletal evidence shows that, hundreds of years after the Roman Republic conquered most of the Mediterranean world, coastal communities in what is now south and central Italy still bore distinct physical differences to one another – [...]
On The Wrong Side Of History: The US Democratic Party's Decline

On The Wrong Side Of History: The US Democratic Party’s Decline

By Jon Kofas. ‘   Introduction: Democrats on the Wrong Side of History History is not on the side of the US Democratic Party and not just because Republicans control all branches of government and dominate in legislatures in 32 [...]