Images

A 19th century CE print depicting the major Hindu deity Indra riding his white elephant Airāvata and carrying a chisel, sword and thunderbolt indicating his role as king of the gods and bringer of beneficent rain. (British Museum, London).

Xipe Totec was the Mesoamerican god of spring and patron of planting, seeds and goldsmiths and particularly worshipped by the Aztecs. Human sacrifices were made to the god and the skins of the victims worn in imitation of the process of regeneration...

A detail of the carved niches on the Arch of Janus which stood in the forum Boarium of Rome and was constructed in the 4th century CE most probably to act as a boundary marker.

The Arch of Janus in the forum Boarium of Rome, constructed in the 4th century CE. The four-way marble arch probably acted as a boundary marker and, perhaps not coincidentally, stands directly over the Great Drain or Cloaca Maxima which fed...

A detail of a 7th century BCE amphora displaying the common design motifs of the Geometric style of Greek pottery. The style was in use from 900 to 600 BCE in the Greek world and involved decorating vessels with simple linear motifs and stylised...

A large storage pithoi decorated with dolphins and lilies, 17th century BCE, Akrotiri. (Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini).

The Papyrus Fresco from the Room of the Ladies from the house of the same name, Akrotiri, Thera. Papyrus is not indigineous to Thera and therefore suggests that the Cycladic artists were borrowing iconography from elsewhere, perhaps Egypt...

An architectural sculpture from Teotihuacan of Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed-Serpent god of Mesoamerican religion and mythology. He was regarded as a creator god and a god of wind by such civilizations as the Maya and Aztecs.

An Archaic marble statue of a Gorgon, the fearsome monster from Greek mythology of whom Medusa was the most famous. She holds a snake which is also wrapped around her waist and has a torso of scales. The statue dates from the mid-6th century...

Detail of the Mykonos pithamphora which shows the wooden horse the Greeks used to infiltrate the city of Troy in the final stages of the Trojan War. The wheels on the feet of the horse can be clearly seen. Manufactured in the second quarter...