Images

A relief from the tomb of Pharaoh Amenemhet I, El-Lisht, 12th Dynasty. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

The remaining columns of the Hellenistic period gymnasium, Kos.

The Roman-built temple of Apollo in the Asclepeion sanctuary of Kos, 2nd century CE.

The restored Roman Odeion of Kos, 1st-2nd century CE.

An artist's impression of what a fallen Greek hoplite may have looked like.

Chinese beauty Yang Guifei, consort of the Tang emperor Xuanzong (AD 685-762), playing the flute, seated alone on an elaborate Chinese-style throne, surrounded by flowering trees and peonies in open mountain landscape. Japanese painting from...

This tablet lists the plants in the garden of King Marduk-apla-iddina, the Biblical Merodach-Baladan, including onions, garlic, leeks, lettuce, cucumbers, and turnips, as well as mint, cress, thyme, and coriander. The plant called "slave...

This is a classroom experiment. As Babylon grew, the language spoken on its streets changed. This remarkable tablet captures interaction between the age-old cuneiform writing for Babylonian Akkadian and the alphabetic Aramaic that ultimately...

This tablet contains treatments, mostly in the form of ointments to soothe distressed and fractious babies. It also includes instructions for making miniature inscribed clay cylinder-amulets. From the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, Northern...

This finely made clay map of Babylon shows the Tuba area in Babylon, two gateways, a section of the city inner wall, and a gateway fed by the Rover Euphrates. The reverse side of the tablet gives accurate measurements for the city walls...