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Material Objects & Cultures Material objects convey volumes about the people who possessed them. Cultures and societies in every generation are in part classified - either correctly or incorrectly...

The rock drawings of Valcamonica are prehistoric petroglyphs carved in the glacier-polished, grey-purple Permian sandstone of the Camonica valley that extends for 90 km in the Italian provinces of Brescia and Bergamo...

The Inca civilization flourished in ancient Peru between c. 1400 and 1533 CE. The Inca Empire eventually extended across western South America from Quito in the north to Santiago in the south. It was the largest empire ever seen...

Taoism (also known as Daoism) is a Chinese philosophy attributed to Lao Tzu (c. 500 BCE) which developed from the folk religion of the people primarily in the rural areas of China and became the official religion of the country under...

The samurai (also bushi) were a class of warriors that arose in the 10th century in Japan and which performed military service until the 19th century. Elite and highly-trained soldiers adept at using both the bow and sword, the samurai...

Mesopotamian science and technology developed during the Uruk period (circa 4000-3100 BCE) and the Early Dynastic period (circa 2900-2350/2334 BCE) of the Sumerian culture of...

Silk is a fabric first produced in Neolithic China from the filaments of the cocoon of the silk worm. It became a staple source of income for small farmers and, as weaving techniques improved, the reputation of Chinese silk spread...

Osiris is the Egyptian Lord of the Underworld and Judge of the Dead, brother-husband to Isis, and one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt. The name `Osiris' is the Latinized form of the Egyptian Usir which is interpreted as 'powerful'...

A mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”) is an artistic representation of higher thought and deeper meaning given as a geometric symbol used in spiritual, emotional, or psychological work to focus one's attention. The image first appears in...

Asherah is a Hebrew word for what was either a goddess or a cultic object or perhaps both. Although many see evidence for Asherah being an individual goddess known to the Israelites, some scholars believe that the context of the word...