Images

A Mycenaean vase (1300-1200 BCE) in the pictorial style depicting stylized bulls and birds. From a tomb in Enkomi, Cyprus. (British Museum, London)

A modern reproduction of the lost statue of Athena which once resided in the Parthenon of Athens. The 12m high original, sculpted by Pheidias in the mid-5th century BCE, was made of an inner wooden core covered in ivory and gold. In her right...

A portrait of the Greek philosopher Antisthenes (c. 450-370 BCE), founder of the Cynic school of philosophy. Roman copy of a lost Greek original c. 300 BCE. (British Museum, London)

A clay tablet with cuneiform from an Assyrian trading post, c. 1875-1840 BCE. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, L.A.).

A bronze portrait head (modern bust) widely known as Brutus but with no evidence it is that figure. It is now considered to be of Etruscan manufacture c. 300 BCE. (Capitoline Museums, Rome)

A detail of an Attic red-figure bowl (500-480 BC) depicting Achilles fighting Hektor in the Trojan War. (British Museum, London).

Bodhisattva Maitreya Kushan period 2nd-3rd century CE from the ancient region of Gandhara, India/Afghanistan. (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco).

Head of a Bodhisattva, Pakistan or Afghanistan Gandharan region 4th-6th century CE. Stucco with traces of pigment. (The Art Institute of Chicago).

A marble head of a figurine from Iraq, 3rd Millennium BCE. (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology).

A column capital in the form of a bull-man from the Tripylon, Persepolis, Achaemenid Period, Reign of Xerxes 486-465 BCE. (The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)