Images

In 1000 CE, Europeans had a limited but expanding awareness of the wider world, shaped by trade, exploration, and religious contacts. The Vikings had pushed westward, reaching Greenland and Vinland (North America). At the same time, merchants...

Coins of Antimachus I Theos, 185-170 BCE. Peshawar Museum, Pakistan.

Silver plate with Yazdegerd I, slaying a stag. Sassanian Empire, c. 399-420 CE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Four views of silver ewer with dancing women within arcades. Sassanian Empire, ca. 6th-7th century CE. This object was likely used as a wine jug during celebrations. Its form and decoration shows connections to Greco-Roman and Early Byzantine...

Silver plate with king hunting rams. Sassanian Empire, c. mid-5th–mid-6th century CE. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A relief showing the miracle of Sravasti, with the preaching Buddha depicted on a lotus throne, while Bodhisattvas are seen on either side. 2nd-3rd century CE. Peshawar Museum, Pakistan.

Via Egnatia was a major Roman road in the Balkans, stretching 1,120 kilometers (696 miles) from the Adriatic Sea in the west to the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara in the east. The western terminus is slightly uncertain, often marked in...

Silver plate with a full-length female figure standing in its center. She holds an arch above her head. Grapevines grow from the ends of the arch and fill the space around the figure. The female figure is interpreted by scholars as the Persian...

Silver tetradrachm of Roman proconsul Aulus Gabinius (d. 47 BCE). Minted at Seleucia in Pieria, 1st century BCE. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Four views of a Sassanian silver vessel with four female figures, from the Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE), modern-day Iran, c. 300-500 CE. Cleveland Museum of Art. The four female figures on the vessel may be interpreted as dancers or as...