Images

Artist's impression of how a Greek religious festival may have looked like.

Foundation figure of King Shulgi of Ur carrying a basket, copper, c. 2094–2047 BCE. Foundation figures were buried in the foundations of a temple and show the king carrying building materials for the temple. Building and restoring temples...

As described by the Roman historian Livy (1st century BC), the youthful Massiva was the nephew of a prince of Numidia in present-day Algeria who had supported Scipio Africanus (a Roman general so known because of his conquests in North Africa...

Artist's impression of how a Scythian funeral process may have looked like. A typical Scythian burial mound (or kurgan) is visible in the background.

A Nazca mummy bundle from Chauchilla, Peru. Then Nazca civilization flourished between 200 BCE and 600 CE. Mummification was a common practice in many ancient Andean cultures.

Black-figured amphora showing a boxing contest, made in Athens about 550-500 BCE, signed by the potter Nikosthenes, from Agrigento (Sicily). The boxers wearing himantes (leather thongs bound on the fist) are about to exchange blows. The boxer...

Attic red-figure cup (kylix) depicting an athlete ready to throw the javelin, from Vulci (Italy), around 440/430 BCE. (Altes Museum, Berlin).

Pliny the Elder from a 1635 CE printing of Historia Naturalis.

Gold hair ornament from Agrigento, Sicily, 3rd century BCE. The central medallion depicts Medusa. Archaeological Museum of Agrigento.

The initial troop positions of the battle of Pharsalus in 48 BCE between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. In red are the 11 legions of Pompey with cavalry on the left flank against Caesar's 9 legions in blue.