Shah Alam II: Did you mean...?

The Cyrus Cylinder is a document issued by Cyrus the Great, consisting of a cylinder of clay inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform script. The cylinder was created in 539 BCE, surely by order of Cyrus the Great, when he took Babylon from Nabonidus...

The spices clove, nutmeg, and mace originated on only a handful of tiny islands in the Indonesian archipelago but came to have a dramatic, far-reaching impact on world trade. In antiquity, they became popular in the medicines of India and...

Under the Seljuk rule, Persia gained a period of economic and cultural prosperity. The innovative techniques of the Seljuk period and style in architecture and the arts had a strong influence on later artistic developments. Seljuk art is...

A map illustrating the British Raj around 1930, a period of direct British rule over the Indian subcontinent that began in 1858. Following the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, also known as the First War of Independence, the British Parliament passed...

The First Peace of Nisibis (299 CE) established a rare moment of stability in the long rivalry between the Roman and Sasanian Empires, fixing their borders in the Caucasus after Emperor Diocletian (reign 284–305 CE) and his co-emperor Galerius...

The Taj Mahal, Agra. Built in 1634 CE by Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahall.

A silk scroll painting by Shen Du depicting a giraffe given in tribute by King Saif Al-Din Hamzah Shah of Bengal to the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424 CE) of China's Ming Dynasty. The tribute was one of the many collected by Admiral Zheng He...

Zal Consults the Magi, Folio 73v from the Shahnameh (The Persian Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp. Painting attributed to Sultan Muhammad, Tabriz, Iran, c. 1530–35. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A later Mughal painting, as practiced at provincial centers such as Lucknow during the 18th century, where "a less imperial and more leisurely, graceful style" was adopted. This painting depicts a Mughal prince and princess, accompanied by...

A 1632 portrait of Jahanara Begum (1614-81), daughter of Queen Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631) and Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658), emperor of the Mughal Empire. (British Library, London)