Images

A map illustrating the rise and expansion of the Bronze Age Shang dynasty of China in the second millennium BCE following the overthrowing of the Xia dynasty. Established around 1600 BCE, on the North China Plain, the Shang ruled by a single...

A 19th-century print by Gustave Dore showing the massacre of the Waldensians of Merindol in France in 1545.

A 19th-century statue of Pierre Waldo (l. 1140–1218), a forerunner of the Christian Reformists. Luther Memorial in Worms, Germany.

A jade assemblage representing a leaf-nosed bat. Likely worn as a belt or chest adornment. From a Zapotec royal tomb at Monte Alban, Mexico.

The Kunz Axe, a ceremonial axe-head or celt created by the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica. Carved from jade. (Museum of Natural History, New York)

A polished jade figurine from the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica. The larger figure holds a deity, probably a representation of a rain god. (Brooklyn Museum, New York)

Rome: Strategy of Empire by James Lacey.

James Lacy, author of Rome: Strategy of Empire.

A polished jade celt or ceremonial axehead from the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica. The Olmec ritually buried celts to appease the gods and guarantee future harvests, particularly of maize which jade was associated with. (Metropolitan...

The painting Martin Luther in Front of Thomas Cajetan by Belgian painter Ferdinand Pauwels (l. 1830-1904), depicting the 1518 disputation between Cardinal Thomas Cajetan and Martin Luther in Augsburg.