We have just moved Ancient History Encyclopedia to new servers! The old servers were reaching their limits, and we have now found a load-balanced clustered solution, which spreads the traffic over several servers. Due to the move there have been several errors on the site, as well as some downtime… sorry for that. Hopefully you can now enjoy a faster-loading and more stable Ancient History Encyclopedia! Many thanks to tsohost for helping us with the move!

Peter Davidson’s Atlas of Empires is a very accessible and informative history of all of the world’s major empires, describing the reasons for their rise and decline. Most history books focus on great leaders, battles won, lands conquered, and economies exploited when summarizing the history of an empire.While these are important aspects of empire-building, Peter Davidson uses a different lens to look at empires, as he explains in his introduction:This book, then, defines empire as an unequal relationship between a core state and a periphery of one or more states controlled from the core. To explain how empires have risen, persisted and fallen over the millennia, the core, the periphery and the international situation each need to be examined.The core state is the place to look to find various motives for expansion, from the dream of imposing an imperial peace on squabbling states to the desire for economic exploitation, lust for the glory of conquest or zeal for evangelism, religious or ideological.The periphery is the place to look for crucial resistance or collaboration. Specifically, the …

The study of ancient warfare is a broad and well established subject that stretches across a range of disciplines. However, persistent controversies regarding interpretations of and approaches to the subject matter remain. In light of this and in celebration of the recent 2,500 year anniversary of the battle of Marathon, the UCD Schools of Archaeology and Classics will be co-hosting a two-day interdisciplinary conference entitled “Warfare in Antiquity: Approaches and Controversies”.

We have another new feature: Book recommendations! Now you can recommend books on every subject on the site. Recommended books will always display with the related books at the bottom, and are specially highlighted. You can also leave a review (which isn’t displayed yet, but will be soon). I’m looking forward to all your recommendations!

There is a new feature on Ancient History Encyclopedia: visual timelines! Now, above every timeline column you will find a link to a visual timeline, where each event is visually placed on a timeline. When searching the timeline you will now also always see a visual timeline. I hope you like the new feature — feedback is always welcome!

Google Chrome users, listen up: Ancient History Encyclopedia is now also available as Google Chrome app in the Chrome Web Store. You can now simply install the AHE Chrome app to have easy access to the site!

Ancient History Encyclopedia has a new and improved design! Thanks to the help of designer Alexis Chovas we’ve now got a website that’s not only functional but also looking great! It’s not 100% done yet: I still want to change the way contributions are done, and add some more UI improvements. Your feedback is welcome, of course! Just post a comment under this news item, or send an email to jan AT ancient DOT eu DOT com.

Yesterday for the first time in its history AHE has had over 500 uniqe visitors in one day. I thought I should use this opportunity not only to celebrate this milestone, but also take the time to assemble some statistics about the site. Continue reading to see the numbers!

SPEYER, GERMANY: For the past three millennia, the exploits of the Amazon tribe have become the stuff of legend. These implacable female warriors are supposed to have battled before Troy and laid siege to Athens. To this day, scholars have searched the world for evidence of their true nature. In this unique international historical and cultural exhibition with the title Amazons – Mysterious Warriors the Historical Museum of the Palatinate seeks to cast some light on the Amazons in all their facets from antiquity to the present day.

KARLSRUHE, GERMANY: The Baadisches Landesmuseum is hosting the exhibition The Neolithic Period in Transition: The Michelsberg Culture and Central Europe 6.000 years ago on societal changes in the early stone age, focussing on Stone Age culture in southern Germany. Around one thousand years after the establishment of the Neolithic in Central Europe radical cultural changes took place. A second colonisation process involved the occupation of previously uninhabited areas.