Images

John Spurling, author of Arcadian Days: Gods, Women, and Men from Greek Myths.

Arcadian Days: Gods, Women, and Men from Greek Myths by John Spurling and published by Pegasus Books.

Hymn to Nungal, a Sumerian poem dated to the Old Babylonian Period (c. 2000-1600 BCE), owing to the number of copies found from that era, but possibly composed during the Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE). Exhibit in the Oriental Institute...

A Bessemer converter in the Science Museum, Sheffield, England. Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) invented a converter in 1856 during the Industrial Revolution that made steel production much cheaper and more reliable. Steel was much stronger, lighter...

The first telegraph machine, invented in 1837 by William Fothergill Cook (1806-79) and Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875). The machine had only 20 letters, indicated in the message sent by the slight movement of two needles (from the machine’s...

The oldest surviving photograph, taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) in 1826 using a camera obscura. The photograph (then known as a heliograph) is titled View from the Window at La Gras. Nièpce's innovation was to permanently capture...

A replica of the electromagnet invented by the Canadian engineer William Sturgeon (1783-1850). Sturgeon first devised the electromagnet in 1825; this version was invented around 1832. It was used to create a magnetic force that could provide...

A Watt & Boulton steam engine, one of the key innovations of the Industrial Revolution. Dating to 1788, this example is the oldest original rotative steam engine in the world. Designed and built by James Watt (1736-1819) and Matthew Boulton...

Mosaic with a huge portrait head of Oceanus, surrounded by four nereids and three lines of Latin verse. From Ain Temouchent near Sétif, late 4th or early 5th century CE. Musée national des Antiquités, Algiers, Algeria.

Head of Oceanus, detail of a mosaic from Baths of Themetra near Sousse, beginning of the 3rd century CE. Sousse Archaeological Museum, Tunisia.