Images

Stoneware double-fish flask with brown glaze. 25 cm (height). Tang Dynasty, 600s-700s CE. Xi'an Museum. (Photo taken at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney Australia)

Fragmentary statue of Hermes carrying a ram on his shoulders (Kriophoros, the "ram-bearer"). Late Roman marble copy from the 1st century BCE of the Kriophoros of Kalamis (a 5th century BCE sculptor of ancient Greece), found near Rome. (Museo...

Fresco fragment depicting a hermaphrodite displaying both male and female anatomy, 2nd half of 3rd century CE, from Capua. (Museo Barracco, Rome)

Marble sculpture depicting Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes and Aphrodite who became a hermaphrodite after his union with the nymph Salmacis. Roman copy of the 2nd century CE after a Hellenistic original of the 2nd century BCE. (Louvre Lens...

The Tyche of Antioch, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original of the 3rd century BCE by the sculptor Eutychides of Sikyon. The city of Antioch on the Orontes is identified with Tyche, goddess of fortune and protector of the town. She is...

Marble statue of Bes with lion-like ears and mane, 1st century CE, from Rome. Bes was the ancient Egyptian god of childbirth, fertility, sexuality, humour, and war. (Museo Barracco, Rome)

Roman fresco depicting Prometheus creating man in the presence of Athena, from the arcosolium of a tomb near the Basilica of St. Paul, 3rd century CE. (Museo della Via Ostiense, Rome)

712-779 CE. (Head is a reconstruction). Earthenware with pigments. Excavated from Hansenzhai, (eastern suburb of Xi'an), 1988. From the Xi'an Museum. (Photo taken at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney Australia)

742 CE. Earthenware with pigment. Excavated from Crown Prince Li Xian's tomb at Pucheng County, 2000. Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology. (Photo taken at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney Australia)

C. 600-634 CE. Porcelain. 25 cm (height). Excavated from the tomb of Princess Fengning (583-610 CE) and her husband Wei Yuanzhao (572-623 CE), Shaolingyuan, Chang'an District, Xi'an, 1990. From the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology...