Images

A map illustrating the aftermath of the 15th century BCE ruinous campaigns by the Old Hittite Empire that led to the emergence of new powerful entities in the ancient Near East - the Middle Babylonian Kingdom of the Kassites, the Mitanni...

Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531), painting by Hans Asper, c. 1549. Zürich, Switzerland.

A photo of a boatwoman from Canton (Guangzhou), Kwangtung province, China. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869. Wellcome Collection, London.

Takayo Fischer, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, and Ghassan Massoud in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007). The character Mistress Ching is likely based on the famed pirate chief Zheng Yi Sao (d. 1844), widow of Zheng Yi. © Walt Disney Pictures...

The tomb of the Grand Duke of Kyiv Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019-1054). Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.

The interior and altar of Saint Sophia Cathedral of Kyiv.

Well-preserved fresco of a saint, 11th century. Saint Sophia Cathedral of Kyiv.

A Qing Dynasty (1636-1912) illustration showing pirates attacking merchant ships in the South China Sea. From the Qing Scroll. (Maritime Museum, Hong Kong)

A late-18th century map of the South China Sea. Drawn by Rigobert Bonne and G. Raynal

An 1804 print of a Chinese junk ship. The junk was capable of operating in shallow waters or on ocean voyages and was a mainstay of merchant and pirate shipping in Asia for centuries.