Images

A pirate flag (often attributed to the pirate Christopher Moody) showing typical symbols of death. Various combinations of such symbols - weapons, a bleeding heart, hourglass, wings, skull and crossbones - were used by pirates on...

Peaceful & Wrathful Deities of the Bardo, ground mineral pigment on cotton, Tibet, 18th century. Rubin Museum of Art, New York

An engraving from c. 1724 of Stede Bonnet, the notorious Barbadian pirate (d. 1718). This version of the Jolly Roger flag was not actually flown by Bonnet but by the British pirate Richard Worley (d. 1718). (From an...

A colourised engraving from c. 1724 of Bartholomew Roberts (aka Black Bart Roberts), the notorious Welsh pirate (c. 1682-1722). The illustration shows the various flags Roberts flew to bring fear and capitulation from his victims...

Statue of Padmasambhava (l. 8th century) overlooking a small town named Namchi in the southern part of Sikkim, India.

A 17th century portrait of the Dutch traveller and chronicler Jan Huygen van Linschoten (l, 1563-1611). From the princeps edition of his Itinerario.

A portrait of the Portuguese Renaissance naturalist Garcia de Orta by Veloso Salgado. (From "Portuguese Medicine", c. 1906)

A still from the movie Agora (2009) showing Hypatia of Alexandria (played by Rachel Weisz) explaining something to Theon of Alexandria (played by Michael Lonsdale).

A photograph of the principal delegates at the Cairo Conference of March 1921. The purpose of the conference was to decide British foreign policy in the Middle East. Seated at the front-centre is Winston Churchill, then Colonial...

A photograph by Gertrude Bell (l. 1868-1926) of Bombay harbour (now Mumbai, India) Taken in 1902. (Gertrude Bell Archive)