The Unknown Artists of Ravenna
I’ve not always liked my name — one of my first acts on hitting puberty was to rebrand myself from “Theodora” to “Theo”, an innovation...
Tagged: history
In Xanadu…
There are some places on this earth that have a magic in their name. Samarkand. Timbuktu. Xanadu… And, as Xanadu is pretty much on the...
The Other Doctor Mengele – Unit 731, Harbin
Among the unremarkable apartment blocks of Ping Fan, an unremarkable suburb of Harbin, sits an unremarkable low brick building, muted against the snow. This...
What is Gallipoli?
World War I is ancient history. It passed from living memory with the death of the last veteran this year. It’s not a “good” war...
A Very Small Atheist Does the Holy Land
“You know, I think the least workable argument for the existence of God is the ontological argument,” spouts my spawn from the back seat. (He...
Exploring Tyre Old Town
Given the chap with the moustache has offered intensive, and, further, only discreetly amused assistance in my parking fiasco, I feel we should eat in...
On the Trail of the Phoenicians – Sidon
One of many things that makes the Middle East worthwhile is the sense that you’re walking in history, amid names and places that are embedded...
HezbollahLand: The Middle East Writ Large
We wind our way up, and up, and up, along a narrow road through stark and beautiful moutains in the hinterlands of South Lebanon, within...
The Village Where Time Just Stopped
Up in the Chouf, the mountains that are home to Lebanon’s biggest nature reserve, a whirl of cedars, cypresses, golden broom and wildflowers, we make...
Friday Photo Essay: Flowers in Ancient Byblos
I fell a little bit in love with Byblos Old Town. But the ruins of the ancient city — some of them dating back six...