Age of Enlightenment: Did you mean...?

Jade, 5000-3600 BCE. Biebrich, Germany. This axe is made of European jade mined in prehistoric quarries in the Italian Alps. It appears to be an object of beauty rather than function. It would have taken several days to...

Ceremonial giant dirk of the Plougrescant-Ommerschans type, Plougrescant, France, 1500–1300 BC.

Overview of the different pottery styles found in Greece between 1050 BC to 700 BC.

Bowl, gold. c. 1100 BCE. Zurich-Altstetten. Canton of Zurich. With images of stags and does grazing under round suns and crescent moons, this heavy vessel made of pure gold depicts both heaven and earth. It was buried...

Bowl, gold. c. 1100 BCE. Zurich-Altstetten. Canton of Zurich. With images of stags and does grazing under round suns and crescent moons, this heavy vessel made of pure gold depicts both heaven and earth. It was...

The Palaeolithic ('Old Stone Age') makes up the earliest chunk of the Stone Age – the large swathe of time during which hominins used stone to make tools – and ranges from the first known tool use roughly 2,6 million years ago to...

The Viking Age helmet pictured here is known as the Gjermundbu helmet, named after the farm it was found at near Haugsbygd, Norway, in 1943 CE. It was located inside a Viking Age burial chamber. Although at the time of discovery...

A map of Bronze Age Anatolia. Indicated in the northeast is the Hayasa-Azzi confederation, an indigenous Bronze Age tribal confederation which flourished on the plateau of ancient Armenia and Turkey between c. 1500 and c. 1200...

Reconstructions of Viking Age clothing as found on display at the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger, Norway. The woman is wearing a white shift or underdress, a red overdress (hangerock or smokkr) and two characteristically...

Two Viking Age oval brooches - also known as tortoise brooches - which were used in a practical way by women to pin up the straps of their overdresses but were often decorated. They came in pairs - one for each...