Images

A "hu" is a type of wine vessel which displays a pear-shaped cross-section. This bronze carries a fine example of the monster face, known as taotie, shown in the main central panel, with its eyes on each side of the central vertical line...

Bodhisattvas are enlighted beings who have chosen to stay in the world to help others achieve Buddhahood. Avalokitesvara is the Bodhisattva of Compassion, known in Chinese as Guanyin. Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, "he who listens to the...

This container, presumably for wine, is flanked by the heads and forequarters of two rams. The rams are very lifelike and this realistic style of decoration suggests it might have been made in Hunan province. Shang Dynasty, 13th to 12th century...

A model of the medieval Benedictine monastery of Cluny Abbey in France, founded in the early 10th century CE.

A stained glass window from Saint-Corentin Cathedral, Quimper, France, showing two kneeling Franciscan monks.

A 13th century CE illuminated manuscript showing a monk tasting wine as he draws off a jug from a barrel. ('Li Livres dou Santé', British Library, London)

A painting of four monks by Claudio Rinaldi (1852-1909 CE). (Dorotheum, Munich)

Detail of a limestone statue of a Sumerian female in a gesture of prayer. The eye sockets were filled in with white shell set in bitumen. She wears a Sumerian garment with a bare right shoulder. Front view. From the Temple of Sin, Khafajah...

Limestone head of a statue of a Sumerian male; the rest of the body is lost. The eye sockets are empty but might well have been filled in with a white shell or a precious stone set in bitumen. Me holding the head. Back view. From the Single-Shrine...

Limestone head of a statue of a Sumerian male; the rest of the body is lost. The eye sockets are empty but might well have been filled in with a white shell or a precious stone set in bitumen. Side view, left. From the Single-Shrine at the...