The East · Archaeology
Among the 5,000 spectator seats of the theatre in the ancient city of Apollonia on the Rhyndacus, a cremation burial of the 1st century AD has been discovered. The ruins of Apollonia lie near the village of Gölyazı on Lake Uluabat in Bursa Province, in north-western Turkey. The
The East · In the Press · Geography · Society
Grant Newsham, a retired US Marine Corps officer and former diplomat, has published a column in Asia Times on the elections in the Northern Mariana Islands. The islands form a Commonwealth, that is, a US territory in the western Pacific whose inhabitants hold American citizenship. On 3 November some 50,
The East · Geography · Society · Nature
A catastrophic fire broke out in the Nömrög Strictly Protected Area in the far east of Mongolia because of a nature outing by employees of a mobile operator. The Khalkhin Gol river flows through this reserve, where in 1939 Soviet-Mongolian forces fought the Japanese army. The incident took place
The East · Archaeology · People
An offering chapel belonging to Ikhetnefer, wife of the high priest Sabu, has been discovered at Saqqara. Saqqara is the necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, situated some 30 kilometres south of modern Cairo. The chapel is about 4,000 years old. An offering chapel was the place where
The East · Observations · Education · Society
The US Department of Defense has added the Confucius Institutes to its list of organisations that pose a threat to the country's national security. The Confucius Institutes are cultural centres attached to foreign universities, opened and funded since 2004 by the Chinese government. They teach the Chinese language,
The East · Archaeology · Art · Museums · Paris
An ancient Egyptian ritual statuette made for a high-ranking official named Ptahmose, who lived in the New Kingdom, in the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II. Ptahmose was a royal scribe, steward of the royal estates and mayor of Memphis. The shabti, that is, the funerary figurine, of Ptahmose
The East · Archive · Faith · Books · Ethnography
Let me tell you about an interesting book. The University of Nebraska Press has published Tilton and Grace Entoka: An Osage Story by the writer Anthony Lookout. The Osage are one of the indigenous peoples of North America; the book is devoted to Native storytellers and appears in the series
The East · Faith · Society · Ethnography
Israeli border guards refused to admit the American rabbi Alissa Wise at the airport and put her on a plane back to the United States. Wise had been leading a delegation of rabbis who were travelling to the West Bank of the Jordan River to help Palestinians gather the olive
The East · Cinema · Observations · Society
Ottawa is witnessing something Canada has not seen for two decades: Prime Minister Mark Carney is holding a large-scale meeting with provincial premiers and the leaders of Indigenous peoples or, as they say in Canada, the First Nations. The authorities speak of a reset in relations with Indigenous peoples
The East · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Society
A visit to the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has turned into a rather melancholy affair. In 1934, by decree of Atatürk, the cathedral became a museum open to all, and in July 2020 the Turkish government restored the building's status as a working mosque, yet for
The East · Archaeology · Science
Chinese scientists have established that fossil bones from the Xujiayao site in northern China belonged to Denisovans. The work was carried out by a team led by Fu Qiaomei of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences The Denisovans interbred with the ancestors of
The East · Coming Up · Monarchies · Museums
The Hermitage-Kazan Centre in the Kazan Kremlin has opened an exhibition, "Nicholas II: Family and Throne". It was prepared by the State Hermitage Museum and the Kazan Kremlin Museum-Reserve, and will run until 5 September 2027. According to Ilnur Rakhimov, director of the museum-reserve, this