Images

Mount Athos in northeastern Greece, home of 20 monasteries, the first of which was built probably in the 9th century CE.

A map of the monasteries on the Mount Athos peninsula, northern Greece. The first monastery was founded probably in the 9th century CE.

Mask Temple, Lamanai, Orange Walk District, Belize

Mural fragment in San Bartolo, Guatemala, rediscovered 2003 CE, presented at the Palacio Nacional de La Cultura, May 2006 CE. Preclassic Maya art.

Jadeite celt, 10-4th century BCE, Mexico, Mesoamerica Metropolitan Museum of Art About 1000 BCE, celts-elongated, elliptical ground stone tools-would acquire meaning beyond their workaday function. When made of greenstones such as the...

This spouted vessel is one of the most elegantly sculpted stone containers in the corpus of Maya art. Its form with the vertical spout parallel to the central axis of the main chamber is known from the late 1st millennium B.C. and is especially...

3-4th century CE, Guatemala, Mesoamerica. Metropolitan Museum of Art A favored vessel type of the Maya lowlands was one made in the shape of a tropical bird, perhaps a cormorant, in the act of catching a fish in its beak. The bird's forehead...

Alexander I Balas was born in Smyrna and ruled the Greek Seleucid kingdom from 152-145 BCE.

This is a detail of the so-called "Peace Scene" of the Standard of Ur. Here, on the left, a man, wearing a flounced skirt, sits on a chair (or stool) and drinks from a cup. Behind him, a man holds (and plays) a lyre; a very similar lyre was...

This is a close-up view of the so-called "Peace Scene" of the Standard of Ur. The scene is composed of three horizontal registers, showing a feast or a banquet. The central figure of the scene appears on the top register, and is depicted...