ADRIAN J BOAS

Fortresses fulfilled a variety of roles. Some were intended to actively defend, some primarily to fulfil a regional administrative role,...

While travelling across Europe in the summer of 1975, a friend and I met up with some other young backpackers in Athens and rented a car...

Lawrence Durrell, a writer particularly charmed by islands, opens his travel book on Rhodes, Reflections on a Marine Venus, with the...

A “monadnock”, to use the Native American term, or “inselberg”, island mountain, in German, its isolation makes this dome-shaped hill...

Among the possessions I keep on my desk is a tiny brown shoe. It is companion to various other objects, most of which are either entirely...

One must flow with the times, but who does not miss those simple things of the past. I recall forgotten and cherished possessions: a...

Terrace houses, also known as row houses or sometimes townhouses, are near-identical dwellings built in rows adjacent to a street,...

A popular childhood book was the whimsical history of England titled 1066 and All That written by two British humourists, W. C. Sellar...

Hospital food. Who has not felt a rapid decline of appetite on being presented with an overflowing plastic bowl of lukewarm, watery...

Composed in a hospital bed, in gratitude for being alive. The minibus ascends the narrow twisting road up to the heights, and here it is,...

The word "nature" refers to all physical existence, though when we speak of nature we are often thinking of life. One of the most...

One needs a quiet place to contemplate. For me it is a seat under the fig tree in my tiny garden with its three fountains. It is my...

During the current crisis most people have had to undergo some degree of isolation, whether self-imposed or enforced. Human beings are...

In a second-hand bookshop I noticed the title: The Unfinished History of the World. Well, I thought, thank Heavens! And how very astute...

In the summer of 2002, my wife and I drove through south-eastern Turkey visiting a number of medieval fortresses, among them several that...

The black Golan shimmers in late spring heat. The hills are already tawny and spotted with stunted trees like a hyena's hide. Far to the...

This post is dedicated to my son Amir on his wedding day Arborglyphs, dendroglyphs and,silvaglyphs - three terms for words and symbols...

I live in a walled city but outside the city wall. It is just about a five-minute walk from my house to the main city gate. Until a...

The grass in the cemetery is knee high and has already turned to white gold. Above the black trunks of carob trees and peppercorns, in...

The elbow is one of the quirkier parts of the human anatomy. It is useful but somewhat grotesque, rather like the ear. It is difficult to...