The Liver of Piacenza, a model of a sheep's liver used in Etruscan divination and unearthed in Italy in 1877. | Shonagon, Wikimedia // CC0 1.0 (cropped) The swirling shapes made by pouring melted wax ...

When will I find true love? Will I get the job? Will things get better in the new year? From the I Ching and palm reading to tarot and astrology, humans have long used all kinds of tools to predict ...

Calligraphic standard in the shape of a falcon (Golconda, India, 17th-century), perforated gilt copper (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London) Although it has manifested in ways that are manifold, the ...

It’s easy for us to look around our world populated by iPhones, AI-driven data analysis, self-driving cars, and self-flying planes, and think that we, and our contemporary technology-rich culture, are ...

In the late 1740s, Samuel Meadwell arrived in London. A “raw country fellow” from Northamptonshire, he had come to work as a distiller’s apprentice and hoped to make his fortune. When a pair of women ...