Images

A Japanese iron plates and leather tanko cuirass. Nagatoronishi Tumulus, Takasaki-shi, Gunma. Kofun Period, 5th century CE. (Tokyo National Museum)

A detail of an inlaid iron sword. From Eta Funayama Tumulus, Nagomi-machi, Tamana-gun, Kumamoto, Japan. Kofun Period, 5th-6th century CE. National Treasure. Tokyo National Museum.

A warrior sekijin or tomb marker. Iwatoyama Tumulus, Yoshida, Fukuoka, Japan. Kofun Period, 6th century CE. Important Cultural Property. (Tokyo National Museum).

A depiction by artist Kikuchi Yosai of Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (804-872 CE), member of the powerful Fujiwara clan and the first Japanese regent not of royal blood.

A 16th century CE silk scroll depicting Fujiwara no Kamatari (614-669 CE) and his two sons, the founder of the powerful Fujiwara clan which dominated Japanese government during the Heian Period (794-1185 CE). (Los Angeles...

Tomb of Menna at Thebes, 18th Dynasty.

Papyrus Anastasi VII; sheet 1, New Kingdom copy of the Satire of the Trades.

Embalmed female mummy, c. 1000 BCE. Inside Ancient Egypt exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Here is a disfigured sarcophagus lid dating back to the 26th Dynasty of Ptolemaic Egypt (664 - 30 BCE). It is now part of the Inside Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Based on Jones & Mattingly's Atlas of Roman Britain; Mattingly's Imperial Possession; Higham's Rome, Britain, and the Anglo-Saxons; Frere's Britannia; and Snyder's An Age of Tyrants.