Images

Stairs ascending from the Great Plaza (the market and residential area) to the Gran Basamento ("Great Basement") of the Maya site of Chacchoben, c. 700 CE. The Gran Basamento was a sacred plateau where religious rituals were enacted, including...

The stairs of the Gran Basamento ("Great Basement") at Maya site of Chacchoben c. 700 CE. These stairs lead up from the Great Plaza, the market place/residential area, to the plateau of the Great Basement where the Temple of the Vessels (Las...

Structure known as Temple 1 at Maya site of Chacchoben c. 700 CE. The temple is astronomically aligned to focus the first rays of dawn on the summer solstice down onto an area where once a statue or stele would have stood.

Temple of Las Vasijas ("the vessels") at Maya site of Chacchoben c. 700 CE.

A modern statue of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy (r. 1035-87 CE) and king of England as William I (r. 1066-87 CE). In Falaise, Normandy, France. Sculpted by Louis Rochet (1818-1873) in 1851 CE.

Modern-day Yule bonfire in Sweden.

The Green Man fighting Jack Frost at a Neopagan Imbolc Festival, Marsden, England, 2007.

Painted Wheel of the Year from the Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle.

The phallic symbol known as the Maypole, which is decorated with long strands of ribbon that participants would hold onto as they dance, evolved from the Celtic Beltane rituals.

5,000-year-old megalithic cairn in the Boyne Valley, Ireland.