Images

This Gallo-Roman altar was donated by Quintus Nicennius in honor of the Celtic goddesses of the crossroads. The worshiping of these deities dates back to the era before the Roman occupation of Gaul and what is now present-day...

This Roman mosaic of an exotic tiger comes from Avenches, Switzerland. It was made from stone and glass, and it dates from c. 200-250 CE. (Landesmuseum, Zürich)

Diptych (two-part writing tablet), ivory. c. 506 CE. From the collection of the Zurich historian J. H. Hottinger (1620-1667 CE). The man on the throne was called Areobindus. He is shown giving the signal to begin the animal...

A father had this tombstone erected in memory of his little boy Lucius, who had died at the age of two. The inscription in Latin not only mentions the profession of the man, who was head of the Zurich customs post...

Marble relief depicting Antinous as Silvanus (god of woods and fields) harvesting grapes. Antinous is wearing a pine wreath and the exomis, the Greek tunic fastened over the left shoulder only. He is accompanied by a hound...

These are miniature stupas (hyakumanto). A stupa is a structure in a Buddhist temple that contains religious relics. Empress Shotoku (reigned 764-770 CE) ordered a million of these miniature wooden stupas to be made...

A coin of King Offa of Mercia, r. 757-796 CE. (British Museum, London)

A map showing the greatest extent of the Kingdom of Mercia (c. 527-879 CE), an Anglo-Saxon political entity located in the midlands of present-day Britain

A medieval manuscript illustration showing children having a snowball fight. A Book of Hours, c. 1510 CE. (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, USA)

This is a griffin-headed demon of blackened ivory. Both arms are raised (the right is lost), probably to support a throne. From Toprakkale, Eastern Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Urartian, 8th to 7th century BCE...