I was thinking about Mayan and Egyptian traditions. It came to my mind that all human sacrifice examples (in my knowledge) are from agricultural communities. I also remember that Carthagians sacrificed hundreds of children to the gods in order to prevail in Punic Wars.

Is there any archeological findings in tumulus and kurgans which are made by nomadic people such as Scythians, Ancient Germans, Slavics, and Turkics?

These flags look the same. Almost the same that is. Is there a reason behind. I have read abit about it but want to know more.

I have seen theories that the huns were a tribe that was expelled from modern day Mongolia by other tribes. I have seen similar claims about the Hungarians.

The slavic people came out of nowhere one day and took half of europe.

Indoeuropean people appeared relatively recently in human history and look how far and fast they managed to spread.

I could keep going.

Over and over there all these examples of entire cultures appearing in one place, moving to some other place, and having a great impact there...

I just can't wrap my head around this.

I don't understand how was this possible.

And what confuses me more is how uncertain we are about things that happened so recently, for example: oh yeah the indoaryans arrived from... ¯_(ツ)_/¯... and took northern India.... excuse me?, how can an entire civilisation appear of of nowhere, take a huge piece of land, and we don't know where they came from?

If this was a fantasy book I would put it down for sloppy writing with all these legendary tribes appearing out of nowhere and doing impossible things

This is history and its literally threatening my suspension of disbelief, which shouldn't even be a thing in this context

Hello,

I saw previous post buts I was wondering if someone could answer who is familiar with pre-islamic inscriptions and not answer using hadiths.

My question is: was Allah, as a distinct god, worshiped by the ancient polytheistic Arabs? and is there proof? Even if not in arabic do we see such a thing in the languages before arabic?

From google searches all I have seen is that allah appears usually in christian contexts. Perhaps since they used aramaic as their religious language they ported allaha to allah to denote their monotheistic god.

Names with Allah in it would be proof as well. I am under the impression that the polytheists in Arabia might have just been worshiping Allah near the time of islam, but after hearing of the god from Christians.

lastly if anyone is able to comment on differences between al ilah (which is on inscriptions) and allah, i would appreciate it.

Thank You!

In mafia films and television shows, protection rackets are treated almost as a form of robbery. But did schemes like this offer any benefits to businesses? Benefits that they normally would not have within the confines of the law, such as being able to undercut competition, skirt regulation?

I know that ninja were used for espionage and other covert missions in 15th century Japan, so how could they coexist in a society based around fighting with honor. As far as I know the samurai were governed by an extreme code of honor and there were honorable and dishonorable ways of fighting. Ninja were used by different groups to gain an edge on their opponents. They did so using espionage and stealth, but in a society were samurai were dominant in warfare how was this perceived?

Were they seen as a necessary evil or were ninja tactics regarded as honorable? Could it also be that during the 15th century Japans warrior culture had evolved so that all became fair in war?

Please let me know if I am making any wrong assumptions

I've always heard the old adage that Jewish ritualized circumcision emerged from the practice of circumcising infants to prevent infections and other diseases. This always seemed like a justification added after the fact to give rational explanation to a law that never had much rational backing to it. Am I wrong? How common was the practice of either ritualized or non ritualized circumcision among other non-Jewish bronze age cultures?

sorry, extra clarification: primarily I'm asking about levantine/adjacent mediterranean Semitic cultures, but would also be super interested to hear other perspectives!

I'm looking to learn more about my grandfather and what he did in World War II. I don't really know where to start at all. I have an old photograph that says: "Battery 'B' 28th Battalion Fort Sill, Oklahoma". Any help on where to even start would be much appreciated!

The Spanish-American war marked America's global coming-out party as a first-rate imperial power. It unseated one of the oldest empires, Spain, asserted American dominance in the Caribbean, and made inroads into Asia with the seizure of the Philippines.

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How did the world, especially the incumbent European empires, respond to the new kid on the block? Were they nervous about a new rising power? Did they form strategic partnerships to counter the new threat across the ocean? What did America do to allay these fears?

While I understand this sounds obvious, I kinda curious on why Mehmed IV order his execution, the procces, what happened with his body and if other Ottoman generals deal with the same consequences after losing battles.

Title

This claim makes it into the news cycle every so often, and it's come back 'round again.

The claim is generally that Lewis Latimer, a black man, actually created the light bulb and not Edison. From what I've seen, this claim is usually refuted entirely. A more (ostensibly) nuanced claim is that he patented an innovation of the light bulb that we all use today - the upshot being that while he didn't originate the invention of light bulbs, it is fair to credit him as the inventor of what the general public is familiar with today.

Unfortunately it's hard to pin down the facts on this because so much of the discussion around it gets caught up in politics. I'm asking here to try and cut past the noise.

Who was Lewis Latimer, and what was his actual role in the creation of modern light bulbs as we understand them? Does he actually deserve more recognition than he gets?

Just wondering really, i don't understand how you can navigate the ocean without GPS or SatNav, much less when you don't even have an accurate map of the world.

Hey, something that I cant understand is 2 things.

(Time from 1975, Place: Cambodia, Vietnam).

First, why even Khmer Rouge attacked vietnam if they both communist and didnt was in war against each other before?

Second, both vietnam and cambodia where communists so why US picked side and supported cambodia?

By the way something I cant find, cambodia has a king now but the govermant is communist(like China, vietnam etc...) or no?

Thanks in advance.

One generally sees people say Socrates was sentenced to death for purely making people question things, that he was innocent and the masses killed them because he threatened their cosmovision. Is this the whole story or even true? Were there maybe political machinations or revenges on his figure the fuel of his trial? Can his trial be understood without the political context of the time, since most philosophy courses impart his trial in this manner?

I personally love learning history through reading and analysing first hand accounts from different historical periods. But I have had some trouble finding first hand accounts from the Third Crusades, paticularly I would be interested in anything relating to or written by Baldwin IV.

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Hope someone can help.

Recently I've been looking into the grains we eat. It fascinates me that certain whole grains were once dirt cheap in price and considered poor man's food. Now they're getting really expensive for the amount and considered this magical super food all of a sudden.

My question is, in the Middle Ages, what was considered the most prized and expensive grain compared to the cheapest? I had heard that millet was a lesser grain for poor farmers and made into gruel. However, I also read gruel was a common staple food of most people at that time. Even during Roman times, bread was scarce outside of the cities as there were few public ovens and so gruel was common even for the well off.

Trying to find nutritional research on millet now typically turns up, "A very important crop grown in developing countries" with all these amazing health benefits. It seems like they're all trying to sell me something as I've never heard anyone choosing to eat millet.