Yamato Period: Did you mean...?

This terracotta vase dates from the Predynastic period in ancient Egyptian history, c. 4500-3100 BCE. (Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Stanford, California)

A gilded cast bronze cinerary urn from the Nara Period (710-794 CE). From Kamori, Katsuragi-shi, Nara, Japan. Important Cultural Property (Tokyo National Museum)

Scale model of the Honmaru and Ninomaru Palaces of Edo Castle, as they would have appeared during the late Tokugawa Shogunate. (Edo-Tokyo Museum, Japan)

These are miniature stupas (hyakumanto). A stupa is a structure in a Buddhist temple that contains religious relics. Empress Shotoku (reigned 764-770 CE) ordered a million of these miniature wooden stupas to be made. Each one contained a...

This pottery jar was handmade and painted. It is carinated and stemmed with four equidistant vertically perforated lugs on the carination. Ninevite 5 Period, 3000-2750 BCE. From Nineveh, Northern Mesopotamia, Iraq. (The British Museum, London...

This pottery cup was wheel-made and unpainted. It has a pointed base. Excavated by Robin Hamilton and Reginald Thompson in 1930-1931 season. Ninevite 5 period, 2750-2500 BCE. From Nineveh, northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. (The British...

The Manyoshu or 'Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves' is an anthology of ancient Japanese poems compiled c. 759 CE during the Nara Period but including many earlier works. The most likely person to have assembled the collection is Otomo no...

The Migration Period in Europe (c. 4th–6th centuries CE) marks a prolonged era of movement, conflict, and political transformation rather than a single moment of collapse. Following the death of Emperor Theodosius I (reign 379–395 CE) and...

The Delhi Sultanate under the Mamluk (or “Slave”) Dynasty (1206–1290) marked the consolidation of centralized Muslim rule in northern India following the fragmentation of the Ghurid Empire. The term mamlūk (Arabic: “owned” or military slave...

The decoration on both lizard-headed female figurines might well represent tattoos or jewelery. The one on the right side appears to breastfeed an infant. Such figurines were probably made for ritual purposes. Ubaid period, 5200-4200 BCE...