Images

This object is an ivory furniture inlay depicting palmettes, ornamental palm leaves. It was excavated from Samaria and dates to the Iron Age II (9th–8th century BCE). It has a height of 17.6 cm and a length of 3.4 cm. (The Israel Museum...

This object is an ivory furniture inlay depicting a striding sphinx. It was excavated from Samaria and dates to the Iron Age II (9th–8th century BCE). It has a length of 7.5 cm and a width of 7 cm. (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem) ©The Israel...

This object is an ivory furniture inlay depicting a striding sphinx. It was excavated from Samaria and dates to the Iron Age II (9th–8th century BCE). It has a length of 3.3 cm and a width of 2.6 cm. (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem) ©The...

Furniture inlay depicting the Egyptian gods Re (Ra) and Horus the child, found in Samaria. Ivory, 9th to 8th century BCE. Israel Antiquities Authority. Copyright, republished with permission.

This exquisite gilded silver rhyton (wine drinking horn) terminates in the forepart of a naturalistically rendered stag. Incorporating stylistic elements of Achaemenid and Seleucid traditions, it was made in Parthia (northwestern Iran, ca...

This beautiful amber-colored glass wine cup (diam. ca. 15 cm), with its fine horizontal grain on the edge, is an early example of moulded glass produce from the Levant (ca. 100 BCE - 100 CE; APM inv. no. 14.023). It had to be placed in a...

A fragment of a gilded silver wine jug from southern Spain (10.5 cm in height; ca. 1st cent. BCE; APM inv. no. 15.375). The image is “rolled” out to compensate for the curvature of the vase neck. The scene illustrates a Nereid riding on the...

Different cultural traditions met in Hellenistic Egypt, as this small silver wine vase illustrates (11 cm in height; ca. 200-150 BCE; APM inv. no. 3397). It is decorated with acanthus and lotus leaves, floral motifs from respectively Greece...

The ancient Persian tradition of drinking or pouring wine from rhyta (drinking horns) was eagerly adopted in Classical Greece – despite the great political enmity between Greece and Persia. In the Hellenistic Age, rhyta in different materials...

Ancient portraits of Cleopatra depict her assertive, but certainly not unattractive features. The wide royal headband (diadēma) and traditional wavy coiffure express her sovereignty based on her Lagid descent. Silver tetradrachm struck...