Images

The hero Grettir Asmundson from the 13th-14th century CE Icelandic Grettir's Saga (also Grettis Saga). This saga features one of the best-known stories involving a draugr, a sort of Norse zombie, who is eventually destroyed by Grettir. This...

Artist's rendition of a scene from the 13th-century CE Icelandic Laxdæla Saga (anglicised as Laxdale Saga), which is set in the Viking Age (c. 790-1100 CE). Here, we see one of the saga's main characters, Guðrún, meeting a ghost: "That...

This is a headless dogu. Earthenware figures (dogu) were important in the Jomon period and as many as 1000 have been found at some sites. Some seem to represent imaginary animals but most are human in shape. Are they females, or without a...

This ritual alcohol vessel is inlaid with malachite and copper wire. Eastern Zhou period, Warring States period, 475-221 BCE. From modern-day China. Anonymous loan. (The British Museum, London).

Pottery amphora with applied jewel motifs and grotesque heads; neck and hands are missing. During the South and Northen dynasties, this jewel motif and other applied designs were adopted by Chinese potters further east for use in glazed ceramics...

This figure was made of a slipped and brown pigmented earthenware. It represents a male dancer, possibly an African or Indonesian. It was found in a Chinese tomb. Tang Dynasty, 8th century CE. (The British Museum, London).

The Fraumunster in Zurich, once a Benedictine abbey which was founded in the mid-9th century CE.

A fresco by the Swiss artist Paul Bodmer (1886-1983 CE) within the Fraumunster which illustrates the legend of its founding by Princesses Hildegard and Bertha in the mid-9th century CE.

A Roman fountain mosaic from Anzio depicting the hero Hercules and his faithful companion Iolaus. (Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome)

A detail of a red-figure vase showing the king of Argos, Eurystheus, hiding from Hercules who, after one of his labours, carries the Erymanthian boar. (Louvre Museum, Paris)