Early xebec ships were outfitted with just two masts, but as the design progressed, xebecs became more easily recognized by their standard three-mast structure. The ships were long, designed for speed, with an overhanging, long bowsprit.

The types of sails used depended on the period of use. While traditionally the ships used lateen sails, later xebec designs included square sails on the foremast and lateen sails on the other, also known as a polacre-xebec.

As for the Mediterranean corsairs, they made their own adjustments to the ships, to better outfit them for plundering ships and seizing merchandise from other xebecs! Instead of relying simply on sails, these xebecs were outfitted with oars or sweeps, allowing the ships to come alongside other vessels in calm waters. The corsair xebecs, regardless of their narrow floor plan, would also carry 300-400 men, as well as nearly 30 guns in a range of sizes.

Though in early days they were referred to as a “throwback” to galley ships, xebecs could certainly hold their own, and lasted for several centuries as the ship of choice for traders and plundering corsairs alike!

A number of theories have arisen about how the children came to be buried in the Tophet. Worship of the god Ba’al Hammon and the goddess Tanit called for child sacrifice and it is the remains of those sacrifices that are found buried in the Tophet. Other theories are that the infants had died naturally of causes such as disease.

But if the babies in the Tophet had been sacrificed to Tanit and Ba’al Hammon, where did they come from? Were the Carthaginians sacrificing their own children? And how many children were sacrificed at one time?

If historical accounts are to be believed, the babies that were sacrificed were often the children of servants or were purchased by affluent Carthaginians rather than offering their own children to the flames. Some circumstances called for special sacrifices, however, and in cases such as famine, war or other disasters, Carthaginians may have been forced by the priests to offer their own children up in sacrifice. One story states that in 310 BCE, up to 500 children were killed and their bodies were then placed into a sacrificial fire pit. The urns were used to store the remains which were gathered up after the ceremony was complete.

A number of historians wrote about the child sacrifice that was practiced in Carthage. Noted historians and philosophers such as Orosious, Philo and Plutarch mentioned that child sacrifice was performed at the Tophet (a name which actually means “roasting place”).

However, some individuals believe that since the authors of these reports were Roman for the most part that it may have been an attempt to slander the Carthaginians and turn public opinion against them. The Carthaginian military commander Hannibal vowed to destroy Rome and travelled across the Alps accompanied by his army and a number of elephants in an attempt to take the city itself. He occupied much of Italy for approximately fifteen years before being defeated by the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus. Rome and Carthage fought in a series of Punic Wars which ultimately led to the fall of Carthage in 146 BCE.

Whether you believe that the Tophet was a scene of numerous child sacrifices or you believe that the area was a graveyard for children the facts remain the same. The area, which was estimated to be as large as an acre and a half by the fourth century BCE, was home to the remains of more than twenty thousand infants and children. It is no wonder, then, that visitors to the area still find the Tophet to be a spooky and unnerving tourism destination.

Hannibal was from Carthage, a city-state that was located outside of where Tunis, Tunisia now stands. Over time, Carthage took control of some of the most economically powerful colonies in the area. The city-state became quite powerful as a result. Rome didn’t really enjoy having any rivals for power in the area and, in 509 BCE, signed a treaty with Carthage that divided both the political influence and the commercial activity in the area. Despite this division of power, Carthage managed to become the center of commerce in the Western Mediterranean region.

Rome let this stand until 24 BCE, when the First Punic War broke out. Although it was not strictly between Carthage and Rome, they were some of the major players in the conflict. Enter Hamilcar Barca, a general who led Carthaginian troops in later portions of the war. Hamilcar Barca was Hannibal’s father. By the time he got involved, the war had already been going on for some time. Hamilcar was a fairly brutal man. He punished any of the mercenaries that had rebelled by murdering, drowning or sending them away.

Hamilcar trained Hannibal to be his successor and instilled in him a deep suspicion of, and hatred for, Rome. Hannibal saw himself as taking up his father’s fight against Rome. There were many stories that came out of Carthage about how Hannibal had been groomed to take up the fight. Some state that he swore to the God Baal that he would continue to fight against Rome. It was said that the Carthaginians were willing to sacrifice their own nobly born sons in order to keep Rome from taking the city.

The Second Punic War began in 218 BCE, and involved Hannibal’s long, overland trek through the Alps with his troops and elephants. Although it is commonly known as a fight between Carthage and Rome, other parties were involved as well. Carthage, Syracuse, Macedon and other peoples who were located in the western Mediterranean were all involved in the conflict.

Hannibal managed to seize and hold control over a large portion of Italy for years but, in the end, Hannibal was defeated. The Battle of Zama took place in 202 BCE between forces led by Hannibal and Scipio. The elephants that Hannibal had brought so far turned out to be of little use in the battle. In the end, Hannibal’s troops were encircled and annihilated by the Roman troops. This forced Carthage to sue for peace and ultimately led to the destruction of Carthage itself.

Historians certainly thought that the city was a myth. After all, there were no ruins, no digs that had unearthed proof of the city’s existence. Homer’s Troy seemed like nothing more than the fictional setting for a tale of betrayal, revenge and godly intervention. It seemed doomed to exist only in books and, later, in movies and television shows.

One archaeologist found what he thought may have been the site of this ancient city. In 1865, Frank Calvert purchased a field near Hisarlik in Turkey. The area was located near Mount Ida in an area southeast of the Dardanelles. Calvert began to excavate the area using a series of trenches. He was later joined by a German archaeologist by the name of Heinrich Schliemann. Their digging and excavation revealed not one city, but several which had been built in succession.

A total of nine different cities ranging from the third millennium BCE up until the first century BCE were discovered on the same site. The last city to have been built on the site was actually not called Troy. Instead the city, which was built during the time of the Emperor Augustus was named Ilium. It actually remained in existence until Constantinople was established and it began to decline during the Byzantine era.

The city began as a mercantile city. It was able to dominate trade in the area since it controlled access to the Dardanelles, a narrow strait that was once known as Hellespont. It connected the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara. Many ships travelled through this strait and so being able to control access to the area meant that Troy was very powerful indeed.

One incarnation of the city was destroyed by an earthquake around 1300BCE. When the area occupied by this city (named Troy VI) was excavated, only one artifact (an arrowhead) was unearthed and there were no bodies discovered. Another incarnation of the city actually was destroyed by war. It was dated to the mid to late 13^th century BCE.

Even as late as the founding of Ilium the city was known as an important trade city. This city was not destroyed. Instead, it declined gradually as Constantinople became established as the Roman Empire’s eastern capital. Ruins can still be viewed today although this area is not considered to be the Troy of Homeric legend.

Individuals who are interested in viewing the ancient and fabled ruins are able to do so by travelling to Truva, a Turkish city located near the Troia archaeological site. In 1998, the Troia site became a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A number of theories have arisen about how the children came to be buried in the Tophet. Worship of the god Ba’al Hammon and the goddess Tanit called for child sacrifice and it is the remains of those sacrifices that are found buried in the Tophet. Other theories are that the infants had died naturally of causes such as disease.

But if the babies in the Tophet had been sacrificed to Tanit and Ba’al Hammon, where did they come from? Were the Carthaginians sacrificing their own children? And how many children were sacrificed at one time?

If historical accounts are to be believed, the babies that were sacrificed were often the children of servants or were purchased by affluent Carthaginians rather than offering their own children to the flames. Some circumstances called for special sacrifices, however, and in cases such as famine, war or other disasters, Carthaginians may have been forced by the priests to offer their own children up in sacrifice. One story states that in 310 BCE, up to 500 children were killed and their bodies were then placed into a sacrificial fire pit. The urns were used to store the remains which were gathered up after the ceremony was complete.

A number of historians wrote about the child sacrifice that was practiced in Carthage. Noted historians and philosophers such as Orosious, Philo and Plutarch mentioned that child sacrifice was performed at the Tophet (a name which actually means “roasting place”).

However, some individuals believe that since the authors of these reports were Roman for the most part that it may have been an attempt to slander the Carthaginians and turn public opinion against them. The Carthaginian military commander Hannibal vowed to destroy Rome and travelled across the Alps accompanied by his army and a number of elephants in an attempt to take the city itself. He occupied much of Italy for approximately fifteen years before being defeated by the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus. Rome and Carthage fought in a series of Punic Wars which ultimately led to the fall of Carthage in 146 BCE.

Whether you believe that the Tophet was a scene of numerous child sacrifices or you believe that the area was a graveyard for children the facts remain the same. The area, which was estimated to be as large as an acre and a half by the fourth century BCE, was home to the remains of more than twenty thousand infants and children. It is no wonder, then, that visitors to the area still find the Tophet to be a spooky and unnerving tourism destination.

The ancient town of Tiberias is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, and is perhaps most famous for its prominent place in Jewish history – even though its origins are situated in Rome, since it was built by around 20 AD by Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, and named after the Roman Emperor Tiberius.

Recent excavations in Tiberias have exposed finds that date to the town’s founding during the 1st century, as well as a Byzantine church from sometime between the 4th and 5th centuries AD. The mosaics that were uncovered in this church are incredibly detailed and extremely colorful, and are decorated with geometric patterns of shapes and crosses.

In addition, there are three inscriptions written in ancient Greek that appear to be dedications – part of one of the inscriptions begins: “Our Lord, protect the soul of your servant…”. Another mosaic has a prominent medallion in the center with a large cross inside and the Greek letters alpha and omega, which was a typical Byzantine monogram for the name of Jesus.

Since this is the oldest church to be discovered in Tiberias thus far, it is interesting to see that the buildings which surrounded the church in ancient times were far from religious – they were typical public buildings, including a bathhouse, some shops, and a basilica. What is more, the church was built right in the center of the city, which falls contrary to the previous notion about Christian and Jewish relations at the time.

It was originally theorized that the Jewish leadership at Tiberias prohibited Christians from establishing their own places of prayer in the middle of the town, instead claiming this area for exclusively Jewish religious needs. The position of this church now disproves the theory conclusively – apparently town planning and Christian-Jewish relationships at Tiberas during the Byzantine era were not as straightforward as previously thought.

Although the exact date of the church’s construction is not yet known, there was a decree issued in 427 AD that prohibited the placement of crosses in mosaic floor designs, after it was decided that stepping on a sacred symbol was not appropriate. Since there are a large number of crosses in the mosaic designs from this church, at the very least, it was constructed before the ban was put into place.

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Tomorrow: Extreme home makeover…in ancient Egypt!

Around six million years ago, something rather drastic happened: the world lost an ocean. Fortunately, it’s returned since then, but during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, there was no Mediterranean Sea. Instead, there was a bit of a wading pool… or possibly even completely dry land.

During the Messinian period of the Miocene epoch, it seems that what is now known as the Strait of Gibraltar actually closed up, disallowing the flow of water from the Atlantic and resulting in the Mediterranean seabed simply evaporating – in some places up to 3 miles below sea level. As this occurred, there were also some cases of extreme erosion, creating several enormous canyons in and around the coastline, after which the evaporation procedure left behind deposits of evaporite mineral sediments.

It was during some routine geological work in the Mediterranean that geologists found evidence for this ancient desiccation of the sea, as they found mineral deposits that only form when large amounts of isolated salt water evaporate over time. Combined with layers of marine fossils, which indicats repeated periods of drying and flooding, as well as now submerged canyons that are cut into the sides of the sea basin, geologists realized there was enough evidence to confidently assert that, for some period of time, there was no Mediterranean sea.

During the period of dehydration, earth’s sea levels rose by 10 meters – if this happened today, many of the world’s major cities and landforms would be completely submerged! The global climate was also changed during this time, causing almost the entire Mediterranean basin to become a wasteland devoid of plant and animal life, and at 3 meters below sea level inside the basin, the temperature would have been almost 50 degrees hotter at the bottom than the temperature at sea level. With that kind of heat in and around the basin, added to the increased salinity of the area, the great civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and any other known Mediterranean culture could not have developed – unless the sea was refilled.

Eventually, the Strait of Gibraltar opened again, allowing water from the Atlantic to once again refill the Mediterranean basin, but not until the earth’s oceans had already been permanently altered by the loss – the freezing point of the ocean had been raised, and the average salinity of seawater significantly reduced. Even today, the salinity of the Mediterranean is higher than the North Atlantic, and thus it continues to have a higher rate of evaporation.

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Tomorrow: Iranian Salt Men.

Sometime between 1800 and 1200 BC, a group of settlers arrived on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean, and proceeded to build over 30,000 stone towers across the landscape. Although only around 8,000 of these structures survive to date, it appears that the network of towers – called Nuraghe – was constructed so that each tower had a line of visibility to the next, forming a strategic chain of visual communication.

Nuraghe were built in a beehive or truncated cone shape, and relied on the weight of the stones – instead of a typical building foundation – to keep the structures in place. Standing up to 20 meters in height, it remains unknown as to what exactly these structures were used for. Suggestions have been made, such as: chieftain dwellings, religious structures, military strongholds, or place of assembly for local governors. While all ideas are certainly credible, it should be considered that the Nuraghe are all placed in strategic locations across the island – not only did each tower have visual contact with its neighbor, but they were also placed along important passages on the island.

The most important Nuraghe in Sardinia is at the site of Barumini, where an entire complex was constructed about 1500 BC around a three-story tower. Now considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Barumini was once a fortified village with a number of smaller Nuraghe centered around the three-story one, containing many corridors as well as a cache of small, bronze statues.

Although little is known about the so-called “Nuragici people”, they left behind some other small pieces of art, such as stone carvings and statues of female goddesses, and bronze representations of chieftains, hunting men, warriors and animals.

It is also speculated that the Nuragici had contact with the Mycenaean and Phoenician cultures during the height of their cultural development, which may have had some influence on Nuragici art and architecture. The Mycenaeans, renowned for their megalithic defensive architecture, may have provided inspiration for the strategically located, giant Nuraghe towers, while Phoenician skill at bronzeworking may have influenced the Nuragici’s use of bronze for their artistic statues.

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Tomorrow: Down with Dowsing

Generally considered to be an extinct “giant fennel”, the plant was valued both for its use in seasoning foods, as well as for its unique ability to affect cures for a number of ailments. Cooking aside, sap from the silphium plant was used to treat everything from coughs, fever, indigestion, to sore throat, aches, warts, and more. What it was most valued for, however, was its use as an herbal contraceptive.

It is thought that the plant may have been active in the prevention or termination of pregnancy. The Roman physician Soranus, also known as the most famous gynecologist of the ancient world, wrote in a medical treatise that women should drink about the size of a chick pea’s worth of silphium juice, mixed with water, once a month. He claimed that this “not only prevents conception, but also destroys anything existing.”

While silphium was eventually harvested to extinction, there were also several other plants in antiquity purported to have prophylactic abilities: Queen Anne’s lace blocked a woman’s internal cycle, while even in modern times, pennyroyal contains a substance that can terminate both human and animal pregnancies.

Although much of the information from antiquity concerning contraceptive herbs and medicinal remedies for pregnancies has been lost, one thing remains clear: women in and around ancient Greece and Rome definitely had a great deal of control over their reproductive decisions.

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Tomorrow: Woman beating prince.

The first inhabitants of Malta probably arrived around 5200 BC from Sicily, and originally fished, farmed, and hunted for their survival. As their society progressed, buildings and culture became more and more complex, eventually arriving at the time now known as the ‘Temple Period’ on Malta. Built around 3600 BC, the prehistoric Maltese temples are the oldest free-standing stone structures in the world – older than the Pyramids or Stonehenge.

Although it is not known why the Maltese people built so many large temples, most of the temples share the same form – five semi-circular rooms connected at the centre – and so it appears that they were related in some way. One suggestion has been that these rooms might have represented the head, arms, and legs of a deity, since the most common finds in these temples were “fat lady” statues. Images of large women are often celebrated in ancient cultures as symbols of fertility.

Finds from the temples indicate that the buildings were used for sacrificing animals, mainly goat, sheep, and ram. Several altars were found in temple rooms, though the rooms themselves were only large enough to hold several individuals.

Unfortunately, the people of ancient Malta did not leave behind any writing or inscriptions that may have provided more insight into the culture and its temples. Instead, around 2500 BC, the Temple period came to a sudden and inexplicable end – the entire culture seems to have vanished.

New people such as the Phoenicians would later colonize the island, and ownership disputes would be ongoing until 1964, when Malta was finally granted status as an independent nation.

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Tomorrow: Ancient “Morning-After” pill?