Collections

In this collection of resources, we examine daily life during the London Blitz, the period of intense bombing of the British capital from 1940 to 1941 during the Second World War (1939-45). We look at Nazi Germany's objectives for the bombing...

Magic and medicine in ancient Egypt were understood as gifts from the god Heka, who presided over both, and were used together – or interchangeably – by medical professionals in treating patients. 'Magic' was recognized as the act of drawing...

Writing in ancient Egypt developed sometime prior to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-2613 BCE) and came to be recognized as a gift of the god Thoth who empowered humanity through the written word. Writing preserved memory, honored the...

In this collection of resources, we look at the events of D-Day, 6 June 1944, when the Allies stormed the Normandy beaches in France on the first day of a campaign to free Western Europe from occupation by Nazi Germany during the Second World...

Mummification is the natural or artificial preservation of the soft tissue of a dead body. Natural mummification can happen in extremely cold, dry, or anaerobic conditions. Perhaps the most famous example of a natural mummy preserved in ice...

This gallery features images of Roman gladiators. In ancient Rome, gladiators were professional combatants who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire by violently confronting other gladiators and wild animals. They fought...

Ghost stories are among the oldest in recorded history and were as popular with the Plains Indians of North America as in any other ancient culture. The descendants of those nations still tell the same stories of ghostly apparitions in the...

This gallery features images of Greek and Roman chariot racers. Chariot racing was the most popular spectator sport in ancient times. In Greece, chariot racing was important in aristocratic funeral games from an early period. As formal races...

The first non-functional human-made objects that could be clearly classified as art date back to the Upper Paleolithic (c. 50,000 to c. 12,000 years ago) in Europe. Although Upper Paleolithic art is mostly associated with rock art, besides...

Ancient Persian religion developed in the region of Greater Iran by the 3rd millennium BCE and corresponds to what is known today as ancient Persian mythology. This belief system informed the Persian Achaemenid Empire, even after the acceptance...