Images

A granite relief sculpture of Avalokitesvara, the eleven-headed bodhisattva. The Seokguram Grotto, near Gyeongju, Korea. Height: over 2 metres. Unified Silla Period, 8th century CE.

This sardonyx cameo depicts a man in profile looking to the left. Perhaps, he is Hercules. Skilful Roman cameo-carvers exploited the tonal contrast of some stones. This could be a simple two-tone contrast or a more subtle...

Each spoon in this matching set has a pear-shaped bowl attached by a small disc to an ornate handle. The bowls are decorated with different leaping animals, including a ram, panther, lion, lioness, stag, bear...

Gold pendant set with a coin of Constantine the Great, c 320s CE. The British Museum, London. The pendant is made in a pierced metalwork technique popular in fine jewellery of the time. The obverse of the coin depicts...

The background metal is bronze containing traces of a gold and silver, and its surface has been deliberately darkened, perhaps by organic acids. It may be an example of what Pliny calls "Corinthian bronze"...

Egyptian soldiers carrying axes and branches. A relief from the tomb of Hatshepsut depicting the expedition to the Land of Punt (1493 BCE), Deir El-Bahri.

Bronze sword from Egypt, c. 1200 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris.

A model of an Egyptian warship, c. 1200 BCE. (National Maritime Museum, Israel)

An illustration of what an Egyptian war chariot may have looked like.

Coping stone fragment depicting a scene from the Sasa Jataka, identified by the inscription at the top. Now housed at the Allahabad Museum, Allahabad, this narrative sculpture is about a story where the Bodhisattva...