This wooden mask, which is decorated with human hair and a textile headband, adorned an Andean mummy up to a millennium ago. Made by an artist of the Chancay people, the mask was also painted red with the mercury-containing pigment cinnabar.

The Chancay were a pre-Inca people who lived along the central coast of Peru in the Late Intermediate Period (1000 to 1450). A common tradition among the Chancay was the funerary bundle — the end result of wrapping their dead in layers of textiles, vegetal material and animal skin. The bundle was then buried in a pit along with grave goods such as tools, food and figurines. Because the bodies were usually wrapped in a fetal position, however, it was not always clear exactly where the head was located once the bundle was complete.

According to The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which has this mask in its collection, "false heads" made from textiles or wood were sometimes tied onto the Chancay funerary bundles to act as a focal point for venerating the ancestor.

The mask is roughly life-size, measuring 12 by 8 inches (30.5 by 20.3 centimeters). Chancay funeral masks were not meant to be realistic. Instead, they had simplified features, such as the diamond-shaped eyes; triangular nose; and tiny, U-shaped smile on this mask. The wig was almost certainly made from human hair, according to a microscopic analysis The Walters Art Museum undertook in 2017.

The Chancay artist who made the mask painted it red using cinnabar, a toxic substance that is the brick-red form of mercury sulfide. Cinnabar was frequently used in Andean funerary rituals, and the color was associated with purification and commemoration rituals. But the mask was likely not placed on the outside of the bundle burial, as a patterned impression has been left on the cinnabar of this mask, probably from being wrapped in even more textiles, according to The Walters Art Museum.

Although the Chancay culture is not as well known as the Inca, recent research into the ceramics the Chancay left behind and the tattoos on their mummified ancestors has revealed that they were a complex society with a high degree of artistic talent.

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This unique helmet comes from the Elamite culture, an ancient civilization that flourished for nearly three millennia in what is now Iran. Likely worn by a warrior king more than 3,000 years ago, the helmet has been decorated with a large bird of prey that is swooping down over three divine figures.

The dome-shaped bronze helmet measures roughly 8.5 inches (21.6 centimeters) in diameter and has a thin, cutaway area on the front that would have gone over the wearer's eyebrows. Originally, a small projection would have extended down between them to cover the wearer's nose. Gold-covered silver studs line the edge of the helmet, and a bronze tube on the back likely once held a plume of feathers or hair.

The helmet, which is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was made by a master artisan of the Elamite culture, one of the earliest civilizations of the ancient Near East. The Elamites lived in what is now southwest Iran, along the eastern Persian Gulf, from roughly 2700 B.C. until they were conquered by the Persian Empire in 539 B.C. Elam was frequently at war with neighboring Mesopotamian cities, including Ur and Babylon, and archaeologists have found numerous examples of the culture's elaborate weapons and armor.

But this particular helmet is "a masterpiece of ancient art" that "has no parallels in either the representative art of the ancient Near East or from excavations," archaeologist Oscar White Muscarella wrote in a 1988 book about the ancient Near Eastern bronze and iron artifacts in The Met's collection. This helmet's unique shape and decorations make it stand out from other Elamite armor.

On the front of the helmet are three gold deities: two females and one male. The male deity carries a vessel with water cascading out of it, suggesting he is an Elamite water god. The two identical goddesses wear horned headdresses and jewelry, and they are holding up their hands in a gesture of prayer. A raptor is positioned vertically over the water god, possibly symbolizing the bird of prey of the battlefield that awaits the victims of the warrior king who wore the helmet, Charles K. Wilkinson, curator emeritus of Near Eastern art at The Met, wrote in a 1965 study of the object.

The helmet certainly would have been worn by someone of high rank in the Elamite culture, Muscarella and Wilkinson both wrote, but it was likely symbolic as well as functional. The representations of important deities were probably intended to ward off evil and conflict on the ancient battlefield.

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This small, abstract sculpture of a woman, carved from milky-white marble, is known as The Stargazer because her head is tilted back and her eyes appear to stare skyward. Only about 30 figurines of this type have ever been found; all of them date to about 3000 B.C. and were crafted by a culture that left no written records of the figurines' meaning, according to art historian Amanda Mikolic.

This particular stargazer figurine was once owned by philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller, a member of the wealthy industrial family and vice president of the United States under Gerald Ford. It is now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA).

The marble figurine is roughly 6.8 inches (17.2 centimeters) tall and weighs about 1 pound (454 grams). Clearly carved into human form but lacking a mouth, the statuette likely represents a woman, with the incised lines below the waist representing her pubic triangle. Her large, oval head is tilted back, and her tiny, dot-like eyes look upward.

Most stargazer figurines that have been discovered in western Anatolia (present-day Turkey) were broken at the neck before being buried in the ground millennia ago, making the CMA example one of the finest and most complete stargazer statuettes ever found.

But the meaning of the woman portrayed in The Stargazer figurine is unclear, since the culture that created it did not leave any written language explaining their art.

The figurine cannot stand on its own, suggesting that it was meant to be held or placed flat, according to Mikolic. "Deliberately rendered as female, she may be associated with fertility and abundance," she wrote. The statuette may be part of a trend of simplistic female figurines in the Mediterranean area linked to female fertility and the life cycle, such as the Cycladic figurines, according to The Getty, which has a stargazer figurine in its collection.

Regardless of the woman's specific meaning, "she must have been an important devotional object to some long-lost culture," Arielle Kozloff, former curator of ancient art at the CMA, wrote in the CMA Members Magazine.

Abstract female figurines like The Stargazer and other Neolithic examples are known to have inspired early-20th-century cubist masters, Kozloff wrote. This gives her "a sense of timelessness," according to Mikolic, "encouraging the viewer to think of humankind’s place and role in a larger cosmos."

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Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" have inspired countless books, movies and works of art in the nearly three millennia since the epic tales were first written. This small, bronze sculpture, once attached to an ancient box, shows how the Greek epics influenced the aesthetics of the enigmatic Etruscans.

The Sleep and Death cista handle, which is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, features a set of bronze figurines welded to form a decorative handle for a cista ‪—‬ a small, cylindrical, lidded box used for a variety of purposes in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Etruria, an ancient region in central Italy.

The handle is roughly 7.3 inches long and 7.2 inches tall (18.5 by 18.3 centimeters). The figurines represent Hypnos (the Greek god of sleep) and Thanatos (the Greek god of nonviolent death) bending to lift the body of Sarpedon, one of Zeus' sons who fought in the legendary Trojan War.

Sarpedon fought on the side of Troy, leading his men into battle against the formidable Greeks, according to Book XVI of the "Iliad." The Greek hero Patroclus entered the fray wearing Achilles' armor to trick the Trojans into thinking the greatest Greek warrior had joined the fight and scare off the Trojans. Sarpedon met Patroclus on the battlefield, and even though Zeus wanted to save his son, Sarpedon was mortally wounded. The Greeks stripped Sarpedon's body of his armor, but Zeus commanded Apollo to retrieve the corpse and deliver it to twin brothers Hypnos and Thanatos, "who bear men swiftly away" (translation by A. S. Kline).

The ancient sculptor of this piece "succeeded brilliantly in capturing the pathos and emotion in a scene from Homer's 'Iliad,'" Michael Bennett, former curator of Greek and Roman art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, said in a video. And on a technical level, the piece is much more detailed than a typical Etruscan handle; this one appears to be almost ergonomically designed, as Sarpedon's limply falling hair can be used as a finger grip, according to Bennett.

But the reason the Etruscans adapted the visual aesthetic of Homeric epic to many of their artworks, such as sculptures and wall paintings, is still unclear.

Because the Etruscan language is only partly understood, most information about this civilization, which arose around 900 B.C., comes from outside sources, such as the Greek historian Herodotus, who was writing several centuries later. Herodotus believed the Etruscans came from Lydia in Asia Minor, not too far south of Troy. Coupled with the later legend that Aeneas, a Trojan hero, wandered to Italy after the war and helped found Rome, some experts, such as linguist Robert Beekes, believe the Etruscans may derive from the Trojans or groups that fought on the Trojan side. However, a 2021 genetic study found the Etruscans may have been local.

The Etruscans may have used scenes from the Trojan War to decorate their vases and bronze boxes because they felt kinship with the antagonists in the "Iliad." But they also might have adopted the aesthetics because the Trojan War was a popular theme in Greek art at the time, and vases and other works decorated in this style reached the Etruscans through extensive trade networks. The Etruscans then put their own spin on the stories of the Trojan War, focusing in particular on scenes of death and brutality, classical archaeologist Larissa Bonfante argued in "Etruscan Myths" (2006, British Museum Press).

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Oil lamps have been simple and popular light sources for more than three millennia. But during the Roman and Byzantine empires, many oil lamps were highly decorated works of art. This hanging lamp in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was made nearly 1,600 years ago in the shape of a human right foot wearing a sandal, likely as an early Christian symbol.

The bronze oil lamp is significantly smaller than a life-size foot, measuring just 3.25 inches (8.3 centimeters) long. Still attached to the lamp is a chain with a hook for hanging, which is over 17 inches (43.5 cm) long.

The right big toe rests against the spout of the lamp, which would have held the wick. A sandal covers the foot, its leather or cord thongs tied at the ankle. The sole of the sandal is decorated with a swastika, which in Byzantine times was known as a gammadion cross and represented good fortune.

At the back of the lamp, there is an opening at the ankle where the lamp could be filled with oil. The flat cover for the opening is topped with a cross, identifying the lamp as a Christian artifact, Vera Ostoia, a curator of medieval art at The Met, wrote in a 1969 study of objects from the The Met Cloisters.

The foot shape may have been a protective image that symbolized good health and healing, according to The Met, and it may have doubled as a symbol of Christian pilgrimage. But the symbolism may have run even deeper.

In early Christian times, oil lamps and the light they produced were metaphors for enlightenment and immortality rather than just functional, Ostoia wrote. This foot lamp may have been connected to Psalm 119:105, which reads: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path," meaning that people should follow the word of God as their path in life.

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This rare example of an Aztec ritual mask was carved from wood over five centuries ago to represent Mictlantecuhtli, the god of death and lord of the underworld, who was always depicted with a skull face. Mictlantecuhtli was responsible for the souls of people who died "heroic deaths" in battle, sacrifice or childbirth, helping them navigate the nine levels of the underworld and find eternal rest.

According to The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which has the mask in its collection, the carved wooden artifact measures 6.75 by 5.5 inches (17.2 by 14 centimeters). The sunken eyes with black pupils and the triangular nose give the mask a skull-like quality. On the cheeks, experts discovered traces of small, reddish dots that likely represent splotches of decay associated with Mictlantecuhtli. His teeth have been painted with vertical black lines, and both ears appear to have been pierced, as Mictlantecuhtli was often depicted with ear spools made of human bones.

Masks were an important part of ancient Aztec religion. In some rituals, people would wear masks of key deities, including carved skulls representing death, to transform themselves into supernatural beings. But because this particular mask of Mictlantecuhtli has no eye holes, it was probably affixed to a post or statue rather than worn, according to The Walters Art Museum, making it a rare example of a sculptural Aztec mask.

Mictlantecuhtli was a formidable part of the Aztec pantheon. He was said to be at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall and wore a necklace made of human eyeballs. When his full body was depicted, Mictlantecuhtli was shown with his arms raised, ready to tear apart the dead who entered his domain of Mictlan, the Aztec underworld. People who worshipped Mictlantecuhtli even practiced ritual cannibalism at his temple on occasion, according to Michael E. Smith, an emeritus archaeologist at Arizona State University.

One key myth featuring Mictlantecuhtli, according to University of California, Riverside archaeologist emeritus Karl Taube, involves the creation of the generation of people living in the world today. In this origin myth, the feathered serpent deity Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of earth, water and wind, among other things, must go to the underworld to retrieve the bones of all the deceased ancestors who had been turned into fish by a massive flood. Mictlantecuhtli agrees to give up the bones if Quetzalcoatl can blow a conch shell trumpet while journeying around the underworld.

Mictlantecuhtli secretly gives Quetzalcoatl a shell without holes, but Quetzalcoatl quickly fashions it into a trumpet, completing the task. Mictlantecuhtli is enraged and doesn't want to hand over the bones, but Quetzalcoatl takes them anyway. He brings them to Cihuacoatl, the fertility goddess, who grinds down the bones and places them into a sacred container. All of the Aztec gods gather around the vessel and shed their blood into the bone meal, creating humans.

This myth demonstrates that, although Mictlantecuhtli was associated with the dead in Aztec mythology, he was also connected to the concepts of regeneration and resurrection.

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Archaeologists have discovered thousands of preserved shoes at Vindolanda, an ancient Roman fort along Hadrian's Wall. But this one is quite possibly the world's oldest example of a shower shoe.

The "bath clog" — which consists of a wooden platform sole and a leather upper — was a version of the kind of slip-on shoe people today wear in locker room showers or at a nail salon to avoid issues like foot fungus. But the Romans wore the platform clogs — which they called "sculponeae" in Latin — to protect themselves from the hot, slippery floors of the bath house.

Roman bath houses were communal gathering places, according to English Heritage, a historic trust that conserves artifacts and heritage sites. A bather would undress then move from a cold room to a warm room to a hot room, then back to the first room for a cold plunge. One of the most important inventions in Roman bathing was the hypocaust system, which involved stoking a furnace underneath a raised floor to heat the warm and hot rooms and their baths. This radiant heat system also made the floor incredibly hot to the touch.

Because Roman shower shoes were made from perishable materials, the oldest and best-known examples come from Vindolanda, a Roman fort in Northumberland, England, where organic remains have been preserved in oxygen-free layers of mud. Archaeologists have found over 5,000 Roman shoes at Vindolanda — around 50 of which are bath clogs, according to Elizabeth Greene, an archaeologist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

Most of the bath clogs feature a wooden platform 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) high and a leather strap across the top. According to Greene, some of the clogs were plain and others were decorated with geometric patterns or representations of toes cut into the surface.

Whether or not the Vindolanda bath clogs are the world's earliest shower shoes is up for some debate.

Archaeologists have found much earlier examples of sandals, including King Tut's, dated to 3,300 B.C. in Egypt, for example. And the Etruscans had metal-framed sandals as early as the sixth century B.C., Elizabeth Semmelhack, the director and curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada, told Live Science. "But they were not for bathhouse wear."

Two wood-soled children's shoes were discovered in 2025 at Isarnodurum, a Roman-era archaeological site in France that slightly predates Vindolanda. If these are confirmed to be bath clogs, they would be the oldest ones in the world.

One research angle Greene is pursuing is questioning whether bath clogs were only used in bathing. A few centuries after the Romans left Europe, medieval people invented similar looking footwear that functioned as a type of overshoe (a shoe strapped or worn over another shoe) to protect their feet from mud, water or snow on the ground. Some of the wooden clogs found at Vindolanda may have served an overshoe purpose — or they could have pulled dual-duty two millennia ago as shower shoes and overshoes.

This bath clog from Vindolanda can be seen from now until September 2027 at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto as part of their Unearthing Vindolanda exhibit.

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In April 2011, excavators working on a natural gas pipeline in northern Germany unearthed one of the largest gold hoards from prehistoric Europe. Dated to about 1300 B.C., the Gessel gold hoard consists of 117 artifacts that together weigh over 3.7 pounds (1.7 kilograms).

The hoard was discovered in the village of Gessel near the town of Syke and is now the centerpiece of the Forum Gesseler Goldhort museum. Around 3,300 years ago, someone placed the gold objects in a linen bag, secured the bag with six bronze pins, and buried it in the dirt — but archaeologists aren't sure why.

The Gessel gold hoard includes 82 spiral rings linked into eight chains of 10 rings and one chain of two rings. An additional 32 spirals of various sizes were also in the hoard. Rather than jewelry, these spirals were likely a form of currency in the Middle Bronze Age and were crafted from recycled gold, according to prehistoric archaeologist Babette Ludowici.

Only three items in the hoard were personal accessories: a large, gold bracelet; a twisted armband; and a brooch. While the two armbands appear to have been unfinished, the brooch was elaborately decorated.

Originally, the brooch was about 6.3 inches (16 centimeters) long, but it was bent and the pin was removed prior to burial in the hoard. An artisan created a ladder-band pattern around the top and bottom of the clasp. The main part of the clasp features five raised sun symbols and six sets of concentric rings stamped into the metal. According to a 2012 study, it is the only ancient brooch made of solid gold to have been found in Central Europe.

Although the Gessel gold hoard is the first scientifically excavated hoard from prehistoric Germany, its burial is still a mystery. The fact that the objects were tightly compacted and that some were bent before burial led archaeologist Stefan Winghart to suggest they were deliberately collected into a hoard rather than hastily thrown together.

Excavations near the hoard's discovery did not reveal any evidence of a contemporaneous settlement or grave, but experts think the hoard may represent a collection of personal wealth or be part of a metalsmith's collection.

A new research project announced in spring 2026 will attempt to determine where the gold came from, as an initial analysis suggested a possible Central Asia origin. Experts will also try to figure out who owned the Gessel gold hoard and why they buried it over three millennia ago.

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Ancient Egyptians wove impressively detailed nets of colored beads to create funeral shrouds around 2,500 years ago. The popular bead nets were placed on top of mummies wrapped in linen and symbolized the transformation of the deceased into Osiris, the god of fertility and the sovereign of the dead.

This beaded funerary shroud is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), which purchased it in the late 19th century from Rev. Chauncey Murch, the director of the American Presbyterian Mission at Luxor, who was an avid collector of ancient Egyptian art. The shroud measures 18 inches long and 15.8 inches wide (45.7 by 40 centimeters), meaning it can easily cover a person's head and upper chest.

The bead-net shroud has three main components: a human face, a winged scarab and a broad collar, according to Egyptologist Emily Teeter, who published a close analysis of the artifact for the museum.

The person's face has been crafted primarily from dark-blue beads, while their facial features and eye makeup are abstractly depicted with black, red and yellow beads. A false beard similar to the famous example on the mask of Tutankhamun has been added in teal beads. The use of numerous blue beads may be a nod to the sky goddess Nut, whose body was sometimes depicted as a series of stars in a field of blue, Teeter wrote.

Just under the face is a winged scarab rendered in multicolored beads. It probably invokes Khepri, a scarab-faced sun god who represented creation and renewal, according to the AIC. While scarab amulets were often added to mummies during the wrapping process, this artwork depicts the scarab in beads on the shroud itself.

Below the scarab is a collar made of dark-blue, red, yellow, black and light-blue beads that create a series of yellow lotus flowers and red floral pendants.

Bead-net shrouds were typically placed over red linen that covered the wrapped mummy, according to Teeter. The shroud would have been held in place with ties that wrapped around the back.

"Together, the shroud and net imitated the wrappings of Osiris, hence symbolizing the assimilation of the deceased to the god," Teeter wrote. The goddess Nut also appeared frequently on mummies' chests. "Just as the arms of Nut encircled the deceased, the bead net enveloped the mummy," she wrote.

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Centuries before the Romans took over southern Italy, the heel of the peninsula was occupied by the Daunians, whose unique pottery and grave markers are some of the only remains of this enigmatic group. One common archaeological discovery is the Daunian kyathos, a one-handled, painted piece of pottery that may have functioned as a ladle for mixing wine.

The Daunians did not leave any literary records, so much about their culture is unknown. They were first mentioned in ancient literature in the seventh century B.C., and they were taken over by the Romans around 275 B.C., after the end of the Pyrrhic War. The Daunians were mainly farmers and animal breeders who traded with the Greeks and the Illyrians across the Adriatic Sea in what is now Croatia.

Archaeologists excavated the Daunian city of Herdonia, in the present-day province of Foggia, for four decades and discovered that the city was one of the primary places where Daunian potters produced the "extraordinary" vessels "that rank among the finest products of pre-Roman Italian ceramics," Popular Archaeology reported.

The Daunians' unusual style of ceramic decoration can be seen in their take on the single-handled cup that art historians call a kyathos. The base is a small, rimmed plate about 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) in diameter, and a human figure with raised arms and wide-open eyes has been attached to the side as a handle. The figure is decorated with geometric designs, and a stylized, bird-like figure is in the middle of the base. This kyathos was found at Herdonia and is in the collection of the Civic Museum of Foggia.

A number of Daunian ceramics are also kept in the Herdonia Archaeological Museum, whose logo includes a similar human-handled kyathos, as well as in international collections at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the British Museum in London.

Although the exact purpose of the Daunian kyathos is unknown, there are two main ideas. One is that it served as a wine ladle. The ancient Greeks used a vessel called a kyathos, which was a cup with a tall vertical handle, to dip into containers of wine and mix with water at feasts. But the Daunian examples slightly predate the common use of the kyathos in Greece and look more like a bowl than a cup, so it is unclear if they served the same function.

A second hypothesis is that many Daunian ceramics were used in religious and healing contexts. In a 2023 research study, scientists tested a series of Daunian ceramics and detected opium alkaloids in most of them, supporting the idea that some vessels were used to create opium mixtures, perhaps to induce religious trances or to aid in pain relief. It is not clear, though, if the distinctive appearance of Daunian ceramics can be explained by opiate use.

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In 1987, the Cleveland Museum of Art acquired an unusual pendant depicting a lion's head carved out of amethyst on a gold base decorated with baboons. But one part was much older than the other and was originally carved as a game piece.

The lion's head pendant was crafted out of an ancient Egyptian gemstone as far back as 3,500 years ago. Then, around 2,700 years ago, an artisan in Sudan set the much-older Egyptian gemstone into a new metal mount made of eight seated baboons to create a magical religious object.

According to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the pendant measures about 1.4 inches (3.5 centimeters) tall. A hole just under the lion's chin pierces the pendant, which would have been suspended on a string.

The purple amethyst and gold frame are a unique combination. The lion is similar to pieces found in the ancient Egyptian game senet, in which players would move their pawns across a board with 30 squares. The amethyst likely dates to the New Kingdom period (circa 1550 to 1070 B.C.), according to a 1996 study of the artifact. But the gold mount was added considerably later, likely in the Napatan period (circa 750 to 300 B.C.), named for the town that was used as the religious center of Nubia.

Recycling of old stone carvings was common among the ancient Nubians, who lived in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan. In the early first millennium B.C., Nubian rulers viewed themselves as descendants of Ramesses II (who reigned from 1279 to 1213 B.C.) and repurposed and retrofitted semiprecious gems into new gold mounts to show their Egyptian connections. Under the later Kushite kings (circa 712 to 664 B.C.), this practice continued in Napata as the rulers incorporated Egyptian customs into their own culture.

Both the lion and the baboon were sacred in Kushite religion. The lion was associated with the god Amun, who was tasked with protecting the state and who merged with the sun god, Ra, and became known as the powerful creator deity Amun-Ra. The baboons were connected to the sun and the moon and were often depicted with their arms raised. In this pendant, the baboons lift the representation of Amun.

The lion's head pendant was meant to be worn in life, rather than as a funeral gift, and it demonstrates the ancient Nubians' clever use of Egyptian heirlooms to create new and religiously charged jewelry.

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In 1868, soldiers from an Imperial Prussian Army regiment discovered a hoard of dozens of ancient silver artifacts while constructing a new shooting range near the city of Hildesheim in central Germany. The Hildesheim treasure included elaborate and expensive tableware, including the Athena bowl, that may have belonged to Publius Quinctilius Varus or another Roman military commander who fought against Germanic tribes in the first century.

The Athena bowl, also called the Minerva bowl after the goddess's Roman name, is one of four bowls in the hoard with an ornate central emblem. According to the Altes Museum in Berlin, which has the Hildesheim treasure in its collection, the silver Athena bowl is roughly 10 inches (25.3 centimeters) in diameter and weighs a hefty 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) ‪—‬ about as much as a 9-inch (23 centimeters) cast-iron skillet.

Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and youth, is seated on a rock with a shield under her arm and a plumed helmet on her head. Her famous aegis (shield) hangs like a sash to protect her while she gazes behind. In front of Athena is a rock encircled by an olive wreath, with her sacred owl perched atop. While most of the bowl is silver, there are gold accents on her dress, aegis and owl, as well as on the two rock formations, according to archaeologist Gertrud Platz-Horster.

The Athena emblem was likely crafted in the second century B.C., according to the Altes Museum, and a new bowl was created for the emblem in the first century A.D. Many of the Hildesheim treasure vessels had traces of wear and repair, according to Platz-Horster, which suggests that the tableware was collected over time.

Given the first-century date for the hoard and its discovery in central Germany, some experts think the tableware once belonged to an important Roman military commander, who may have hidden it from the enemy. (Or the hoard may represent booty that the Germanic tribes stashed after stealing it.)

Perhaps the most famous Roman general fighting Germanic tribes under Emperor Augustus was Publius Quinctilius Varus, who lost three entire Roman legions at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in A.D. 9. The Roman historian Suetonius reported that Augustus was so upset about the loss that he yelled, "Quintili Vare, legiones redde!" — meaning "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!" After the loss, Varus died by suicide rather than facing his ruined political career, and Augustus ended his campaign of expansion into Germany.

Regardless of whether the Athena bowl belonged to Varus, the Hildesheim treasure is renowned for being the largest collection of Roman silver found outside the imperial frontier.

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This figurine of a small male camelid was made by the Inca as a "huaca" — a sacred being, site or object revered by their society. The quadruped was probably intended to be a llama (Lama glama), but it may represent the other camelid species domesticated by Andean people: the alpaca (Lama pacos or Vicugna pacos).

According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has the statue in its collection, the llama stands about 2 inches (5.1 centimeters) tall and was crafted from an alloy of silver, gold and copper. After casting, an Inca artist added the creature's features, including eyes, nostrils, toes and a wry smile.

The Inca raised llamas and alpacas for a wide variety of purposes. They were used to carry goods long distances, and people ate the animals' meat, wove clothes from their wool, turned their bones into musical instruments, sewed hides to make shoes, collected their droppings for fuel and fertilizer, and consumed their fat for medicinal purposes. Llamas were also key to some ancient rituals.

This figurine may have been created for the Inca ritual called "capac hucha," a Quechua term meaning "royal obligation," according to The Met. This annual celebration in Cuzco, which was founded around the 12th century as the capital of the Inca Empire, involved sacrifices of llamas, maize and children to mark important events such as a drought, the death of a ruler, or the expansion of the empire.

Among the artifacts that archaeologists have discovered at capac hucha sites are metal and shell figurines, some of which had been "dressed" with textiles and feathers and were thought to have been imbued with sacred power. And one of the three "Children of Llullaillaco" — Inca child mummies discovered in 1999 — was buried with 11 camelid figurines made from silver, gold and shell, revealing the importance of llama effigies in death.

The close association between llamas and the Inca can even be seen in contemporary cinema. In Disney's "The Emperor's New Groove" (2000), a ruler named Kuzco is transformed into a llama that looks more than a bit like the 600-year-old miniature camelid effigy.

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In the early 1930s, archaeologist Porphyrios Dikaios was excavating in the village of Pomos on the northern coast of Cyprus when he chanced upon a cross-shaped figurine carved from local greenish stone. Now known as the Idol of Pomos, the carving is the best-preserved example of a Copper Age fertility figurine from Cyprus and has become a symbol of the country.

The Idol of Pomos is 6 inches (15.3 centimeters) tall and was carved from picrolite, a soft, green, metamorphic rock native to the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus. During the Copper Age, or Chalcolithic period (circa 3900 to 2500 B.C.), the people of ancient Cyprus shifted from living in small agricultural villages to creating a more complex society with hierarchies, a unique artistic tradition and metallurgy.

During the Middle Chalcolithic (circa 3400 to 2800 B.C.), ancient Cypriot artists began producing a wide variety of human-shaped sculptures. The most common of these figurines that archaeologists have found are cruciform, or cross-shaped.

Chalcolithic cruciform figurines from Cyprus share a few characteristics: The body and the arms form a cross shape, and the figure's knees are depicted slightly drawn up or bent. Many of the figurines have small breasts, and some have another figure carved horizontally in the figure's arms, leading scholars such as archaeologist Edgar Peltenburg to suggest that they might be birth charms or fertility deities.

The Idol of Pomos is unusual because its face includes eyes, a nose and a cap-like covering with ears, unlike other examples that are faceless. Although this statuette does not have protruding breasts, it is assumed to represent a female figure. The figurine also wears a miniature version of herself around her neck, suggesting that these small idols may have been worn as jewelry 5,000 years ago.

Given the abnormally long neck and the flat back, the Idol of Pomos originally may have been suspended or hung on a wall, according to Joan Mertens, who wrote about the figurine while she was an assistant curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But many details about the cruciform figurines and their meaning remain a mystery.

Today, the Idol of Pomos is on display at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia. The figurine, which has come to represent Cyprus' contribution to prehistoric civilization, has also been featured on the country's 1- and 2-euro coins since Cyprus' adoption of the euro in 2008.

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Archaeologists discovered this beaded ensemble in the Old Kingdom tomb of a female contemporary of King Khufu in Giza in 1927. The linen string holding the 7,000 beads together had disintegrated, but based on where the beads were found and how this type of dress has been depicted in ancient Egyptian art, experts have been able to reconstruct the intricate garment.

According to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which has this dress and several other examples of beadnet objects in its collection, the net was made from linen string and faience — a glazed ceramic made from finely crushed quartz. In this case, before firing, the faience paste was mixed with copper, which turned the beads blue and blue-green to mimic the semiprecious stones lapis lazuli and turquoise.

The midi-length beadnet features a diamond-patterned skirt and an empire-waist bodice made with rows of vertically strung faience beads. The dress is topped with a neckline of beads in concentric circles, and the bottom features a beaded fringe of mitre shells (sea snails). The completed beadwork net was likely draped over a linen dress or sewn directly onto it, rather than worn by itself.

Since Egyptian faience beads are quite fragile, the dress may have been worn only on special occasions, or it might have been made specifically for the woman's funeral, according to Tom Hardwick, an Egyptologist at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The blue and green on the dress may symbolize the Nile River and springtime, both of which were tied to the Egyptian idea of resurrection in the afterlife, according to Hardwick.

This beadnet dress is the earliest surviving example of the style, according to MFA Boston. Only about two dozen beadnet dresses exist in museums around the world. Two have been reconstructed at MFA Boston, and one has been reconstructed at the Petrie Museum at University College London. When ancient Egyptian clothing specialist Janet Johnstone, a clothing consultant who specializes in the interpretation and construction of ancient Egyptian clothing, reconstructed the Petrie Museum beadnet dress, she discovered that it was far too heavy to be worn regularly. (For anyone who wants to test their own beadnet sewing skills, Johnstone has provided a basic DIY guide.)

In the New Kingdom period (1550 to 1070 B.C.), the beadnet dress appears to have gone out of fashion while simpler beaded nets rose in popularity as grave goods. These "bead cloaks" have been found on top of New Kingdom mummies, revealing that beaded accessories remained an important part of ancient Egyptian funeral rituals for centuries.

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Half a millennium after a solid-gold Renaissance necklace was forged, a metal detectorist spotted it poking out of a dried-up pond in central England. The necklace's heart-shaped pendant — which features the red-enameled initials H and K, as well as a rose and a pomegranate — is one of only a few Tudor-period jewels to survive the bitter divorce of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. (The queen's name is often spelled "Catherine," but she usually signed it "Katherine" while at court in England.)

The Tudor Heart necklace is made up of three parts. The 24-karat gold chain, which consists of 75 links, is 17.1 inches (43.4 centimeters) long and weighs 9.4 ounces (267 grams). A clasp in the shape of a hand coming out of a cloud serves to close the necklace and suspend a heart-shaped pendant. The pendant is 2.3 inches (5.9 cm) long and weighs 1.8 ounces (50 grams). But it's the decoration on the pendant, rather than the necklace itself, that makes the artifact historically significant.

On the front of the Tudor Heart, a white-and-red rose is entwined with a pomegranate tree, which represent the House of Tudor dynasty, headed by Henry VIII, and the Spanish homeland of Queen Katherine of Aragon, respectively. The back of the heart pendant is decorated with their initials joined by a tasseled cord. Katherine had originally married England's Prince Arthur, but she was widowed after just five months of marriage. Later, she became the first wife of Henry VIII (who ruled from 1509 to 1547), and their marriage lasted from 1509 until they were divorced in 1533.

Both sides of the Tudor Heart carry the motto "toujours," French for "always." But the motto may actually be a bilingual pun, according to the British Museum, since the spacing of the word makes it sound like "tous" ( French for "all") "yours" when read aloud.

Experts at the British Museum have confirmed that the composition of the gold and the style of the jewelry are consistent with an early-16th-century manufacture date, meaning the accessory was likely crafted during Henry VIII's marriage to Katherine. But because the necklace is not listed in inventories of royal jewels from the early 16th century, it's unlikely that either monarch owned it. This raises the question of why or for whom the necklace was made.

One possibility is that the heart was created to celebrate the betrothal of Princess Mary (later Queen Mary I) in 1518. Mary was the only child of Henry and Katherine to survive infancy and was initially promised to Francis III, the Dauphin of France, when she was just 2 years old. The betrothal plan fell through a few years later.

Another possibility is that the necklace was made for someone of high standing, who would have worn it to show allegiance to the monarchs. Elements of the necklace suggest that, although it was made of high-quality gold, the workmanship was not of the same caliber, according to the U.K. Portable Antiquities scheme. If the object was made to be viewed from afar, it may have been given as a prize for winning a royal joust or other equestrian event.

The Tudor Heart pendant is a rare example of early Tudor dynasty jewelry and is on display at the British Museum, which raised 3.5 million British pounds ($4.7 million) in early 2026 to buy the artifact.

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Over 11,500 years ago, people in what is now southern Turkey began crafting life-size human statues for the first time. Urfa Man, also known as the Balıklıgöl statue, is the oldest example of this sculptural tradition, but much about it remains a mystery.

According to the Şanlıurfa Archaeological Museum, which owns the statue, Urfa Man was discovered accidentally during construction work in the Balıklıgöl district of Şanlıurfa in 1993.

Urfa Man was carved out of limestone and stands 5 feet, 11 inches (180 centimeters) tall. His face features deep-set eye sockets filled with chunks of black obsidian, a partially broken nose and no mouth. The V-shaped lines around his neck likely represent a necklace. Aside from this accessory, Urfa Man is completely nude. His hands are clasped in front of him, holding his erect penis. Instead of legs, Urfa Man has a U-shaped lower half, likely designed to fit into a recess.

According to archaeologist Bahattin Çelik, the statue probably came from a Neolithic settlement that archaeologists call Yeni Mahalle, after the modern district in Şanlıurfa. Excavations at Yeni Mahalle in 1997 revealed the remains of two circular buildings with floors made from terrazzo — a cement-like material filled with chips of granite, quartz, glass or other material — along with flint arrowheads, sickle blades and obsidian flakes. Using radiocarbon analysis of carbonated plant remains, archaeologists dated the site to around 8600 B.C.

Whether Urfa Man is related to other ancient sites with life-size male statues is unclear.

Located about 10 miles (16 kilometers) northeast of Şanlıurfa, the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe is known for having the world's oldest temples, which consist of monumental communal structures with distinctive T-shaped limestone pillars and numerous animal carvings. A ritual human statue was discovered at the site in 2025.

Archaeologists have also uncovered statues of men holding their phalluses at nearby sites that date back 11,000 years, including Karahan Tepe and Sayburç. One interpretation of the human statue at Karahan Tepe is that the person depicted is dead and represents an important ancestor associated with the building. This also may be the case for Urfa Man, as archaeoastronomer Alistair Coombs has argued.

"The feature of his absent mouth," Coombs wrote in a 2016 study, "forms part of a stylistic design that symbolically insinuates the presence of the dead." Urfa Man's lack of a mouth is clearly intentional and may convey that he was intended to depict "a communicator from a supernatural world of the dead to the world of the living in a realistically human shape," according to Coombs.

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The tradition of depicting emperors on horseback as a symbol of leadership was common in ancient Rome. But only one equestrian statue of a pagan Roman emperor has survived into the present: the larger-than-life-size bronze depiction of Marcus Aurelius, who reigned from A.D. 161 to 180.

Housed in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, the statue towers 13.9 feet (4.24 meters) above the ground. Part of the Antonine dynasty, Marcus Aurelius presided over the Roman Empire at the end of the Pax Romana, a 200-year period of relative peace. However, there was still unrest, with ramped-up Christian persecution. And the Roman army under Marcus Aurelius fought numerous wars on the outskirts of the empire. It's thought that when Rome's forces returned home during his reign, they brought the "Antonine plague" with them, leading to an outbreak from 165 to 180 that killed over 5 million people.

According to the Capitoline Museums, the equestrian statue was likely erected in 176 to commemorate Marcus Aurelius' victory over Germanic and Sarmatian tribes in the Marcomannic Wars, but it is possible it was erected in 180, shortly after his death.

Marcus Aurelius is depicted in a very specific pose called "adlocutio" — raising his right arm to show he is in the middle of giving an address to his troops. But unlike many other "adlocutio" sculptures that depict leaders wearing armor and carrying weapons, this equestrian statue shows Marcus in another light: Absent this military garb, he is portrayed as a bringer of peace rather than a victorious general. He also rides the horse without the help of stirrups, an invention that had not yet been introduced to the West by Central Asian horseback-riding peoples.

Although at least two dozen giant bronze equestrian statues — also called "equi magni" — are known to have decorated the public squares of ancient Rome, none of the other equestrian statues of pagan emperors survived, likely because they were melted down in the late Roman Empire or early Middle Ages for coins or other sculptures.

But the statue of Marcus Aurelius survived this purge, possibly because he was mistaken for Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who legalized Christianity during his reign from 306 to 337. While both of these emperors are typically depicted with curly hair, Marcus Aurelius was also notable for wearing a full beard, which signified his intelligence and his role as a philosopher king. Marcus' "Meditations" — a collection of his personal thoughts on self-improvement and other Stoic philosophy ideals — are still read today.

The location of the Marcus Aurelius equestrian statue was first recorded in the 10th century, when historical records mentioned it in the Lateran Palace, which was originally a Roman structure but was later used as the main residence of the popes for 1,000 years. In the 16th century, the statue was moved to the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and Michelangelo was commissioned to refurbish the statue and to redesign the Piazza del Campidoglio.

Today, the equestrian statue is kept in the Capitoline Museums, while a replica made in 1981 stands in the middle of Michelangelo's piazza.

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The Asante Empire (also known as the Ashanti Empire) ruled the Gold Coast of West Africa in what is now Ghana for two centuries (1701 to 1901). One of the most powerful symbols of the Asante rulers was the ceremonial sword, which was decorated with a cast gold ornament often shaped like an animal. This one-of-a-kind spider ornament belonged to one of the last Asante kings, Kwaku Dua II.

The Asante spider ornament was made from a gold-copper-silver alloy, according to the Dallas Museum of Art, which purchased the item from a Texas family in 2014. The spider measures 4 by 2.9 inches (10.2 by 7.3 centimeters) and may have once been affixed to an Asante ceremonial sword. It was likely taken out of Ghana in the late 19th century, along with hundreds of other royal gold objects, during one of the Anglo-Ashanti wars as Britain expanded its control over the Gold Coast.

In 1884, Sir Samuel Rowe, the British governor of the Gold Coast, was visited by Bosommuru, the chief spokesman of the Asante royal court in Kumasi, the imperial capital. During the state visit, Bosommuru gave Rowe the gold spider as a mark of friendship from Kwaku Dua II. According to Roslyn Walker, a curator at the Dallas Museum of Art who researched the history of the spider, Bosommuru said the spider was a symbol of wisdom and only the king was allowed to wear the spider emblem on his sword.

But Rowe decided to return the gold spider to the king, as it was illegal for British officials to accept gifts ‪—‬ so he sent it back to Kumasi with a British envoy, Robert Low Brandon-Kirby. It is unclear how Brandon-Kirby ended up owning the gold spider, but he brought it with him to the U.S., where he partnered with a Scot named James Cree to buy land in the Southwest — and incensed the locals, who found Brandon-Kirby to be incredibly pompous and rude.

Walker noted that, according to a family story told by Charles Cree, "B.K. made himself unpopular among the local population. Word reached him that a lynching party was on the way to kill him, so he quickly sold out at a bargain price to my grandfather [James], and allowed himself to be smuggled out of the country in a pickle barrel." The gold spider was handed down over generations of Cree family members before being purchased by the Dallas Museum of Art.

The well-traveled royal Asante spider ornament is one of a kind, according to Walker, and "no other cast gold spiders have surfaced in [Asante] collections to date."

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On a hot summer day in 1897, a farmer in Elche, a city on Spain's Mediterranean coast, discovered a life-size painted limestone bust of a mysterious-looking woman among a pile of seemingly discarded stones. The statue — now known as La Dama de Elche or the Lady of Elche — is a mishmash of ancient artistic styles and may represent a goddess or priestess.

Shortly after the discovery of the bust, French archaeologist Pierre Paris purchased it and brought it to the Louvre in Paris, where the Lady of Elche was displayed for several decades. During World War II, the bust was returned to Spain. The sculpture is now in the collection of Spain's National Archaeological Museum.

The Lady of Elche is 22 inches (56 centimeters) tall and weighs just over 143 pounds (65 kilograms). Carved from a block of limestone, the bust depicts a woman richly adorned with a pointed tiara and a forehead diadem covered by a veil. The strap of the headdress ends in giant rosettes at her ears.

The woman wears a cape-like cloak secured by a small pin; it opens in the front to reveal three necklaces with amulets. Earrings and ribbons bedeck the sides of her face. Traces of paint remain on her lips and parts of her face and clothing. On the back of the bust is a large hole, which suggests it may have been used as a funerary vessel to hold cremated remains.

The unique appearance of the Lady of Elche — which blends Iberian, Greek and North African styles — contributed to accusations that the bust was a fake. In a 1995 book, art historian John F. Moffitt suggested that the bust may have been made in the late 19th century by well-known Spanish art forger Francisco Pallas y Puig. However, subsequent scientific analyses revealed that the pigments on the Lady of Elche were indeed antique and that ashes remaining in the back of the bust were from an ancient cremation.

While the Lady of Elche has been proved to be more than 2,400 years old, experts still debate whether the sculpture was originally a bust or a part of a standing figure. It is also unclear whom the Lady of Elche was meant to depict. One suggestion is that she was associated with Tanit, the chief deity of ancient Carthage, showcasing religious similarities between Iberian and Punic people.

The National Archaeological Museum, however, says "the figure's identity is a mystery." The Lady of Elche is thought to have both human and divine attributes and "has most recently been interpreted as a highborn Iberian lady who was deified by her descendants."

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More than 1,000 years ago in dynastic China, many young girls had their toes tightly bound in gauze strips to create the illusion of dainty feet. The oldest preserved example of their petite footwear, called "lotus shoes," dates to the 13th century, but the practice of foot-binding — known as "chanzu" in Chinese — lasted until the mid-20th century.

Foot-binding was a type of body modification practiced mainly by the Han Chinese on young girls. Between the ages of about 4 and 8, a young girl would have her feet wrapped in bandages or gauze by her mother. The goal was to create extremely tiny-looking feet by bending all four little toes under the sole of the foot and bringing the front and back of the foot as close together as possible by breaking the bones of the arch of the foot. The practice, which is reported to have been severely painful, was at various times a marker of high status, a representation of feminine beauty and a way to restrict women's physical movement.

"The bandages that women used for footbinding were about 10 feet long, so it was difficult for them to wash their feet," Chinese writer Yang Yang, whose mother had bound feet, told NPR. "They only washed once every two weeks, so it was very, very stinky."

The earliest known archaeological examples of lotus shoes come from the Song dynasty (960 to 1279) in China. According to experts at the Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden, Netherlands, six pairs of shoes were found in the tomb of Lady Huang Sheng, who lived from 1227 to 1243, and they averaged just 5 inches (13 centimeters) long. Several other tombs dated to the 13th century also revealed evidence of foot-binding, suggesting it was an upper-class practice and a prerequisite for a woman's "proper" marriage.

There are surviving examples of numerous types of lotus shoes, including daytime boots, wedding shoes and sleeping socks. Lotus shoes were commonly made from cotton, wool or silk and were often intricately embroidered with flowers and birds. The smallest example of a lotus shoe in the TRC Leiden exhibit measures just 2.4 inches (6 cm) long.

By the late 19th century, the practice of foot-binding was falling out of favor in China due to fights for women's rights, as the binding significantly deformed women's feet and caused pain. But foot-binding was practiced in some areas until 1949, meaning that a few elderly women with bound feet can still be found today. The last factory that made lotus shoes closed in 1999, although some smaller shops continued even after that.

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Around two millennia ago, Tumaco-Tolita potters living in what is now Colombia and Ecuador began crafting hyperrealistic sculptures of their revered elders. This figurine of an older man, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, may have been a religious specialist, shaman or other leader in his community.

The artifact, which is 25 inches (63.5 centimeters) tall, depicts an elderly person with deep facial creases, baggy skin beneath the eyes, a handful of teeth, and chin stubble. The man's head appears flattened, likely indicating that his skull had been shaped or modified when he was an infant in a cultural practice that signaled his ethnic identity or rank, according to archaeologist Hugo Ikehara-Tsukayama, who wrote about the sculpture in 2022.

The statue has small holes in the nose, ears and nipples, suggesting that gold adornments once decorated the figurine. (Marked nipples were more commonly used to depict women in Tumaco-Tolita art, Ikehara-Tsukayama noted, but the statue is not wearing a long skirt typical of depictions of women, so the gender is unclear.)

The figurine was crafted from gray clay paste that was commonly used by the Tumaco-Tolita people (also spelled Tumaco-La Tolita and Tolita-Tumaco), and it would have taken several days to complete due to the complexity of the design. It was likely polished and painted in antiquity, but the colors have worn away over time.

This elderly man was depicted sitting on a stool, which was a symbol of authority in the ancient Americas. He also may have been a shaman who helped connect people with supernatural beings. The old man's prominent spine and dry, wrinkled skin evoke those of an iguana, according to Ikehara-Tsukayama, and this animal connection could have been one key to the shaman's power.

This sculpture is one of the earliest known depictions of a seated leader from this area of Ecuador and Colombia, according to the Met. Male leaders who held religious and secular power in ancient American societies were sometimes called caciques.

The statue of the cacique was likely displayed or carried in important ritual ceremonies, Florencio Delgado Espinoza, an archaeologist at San Francisco University in Quito, Ecuador, explained in an audio interview posted on the Met's website, but the figurine's exact function is unknown.

"People love these caciques, but also they really were scared of them because they have the power — so it's love and fear," he said.

The Tumaco-Tolita were also well known for their metalworking. They lived in an area rich in natural gold and crafted impressive figurines out of the precious metal. But the group disappeared from their coastal homeland by A.D. 500, likely dispersing to other parts of South America.

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When British archaeologist Howard Carter and local Egyptians excavated the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922, they found thousands of artifacts buried with the young pharaoh. These sandals were one of the dozens of pairs of footwear that carried Tut to the afterlife, but the depiction of defeated enemies on their insoles makes them unique.

According to Carter's original object card, these sandals measured 11.2 by 3.6 inches (28.4 by 9.2 centimeters), making them roughly a U.S. men's size 11.5 shoe (EU 45). Carter discovered them lying underneath a basket in the tomb. However, it was not clear if that was their original location, as many objects had been moved around and some were looted in antiquity.

The sandals were made of wood and covered with a veneer of bark, green leather and pieces of gold foil on top of a layer of white paint. In the arch area of each sandal, there are depictions of two people bound with lotus and papyrus. Each sandal also has eight bow weapons — four near the toes and four at the heel — as well as a strap in the shape of a bow. Together, these made up the Nine Bows, the collective symbol for the enemies of Egypt.

The sandals are on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. An information card notes that the bound captives refer to King Tut's power and that the Nine Bows are "situated so that the king's feet step on them, reifying the trampling of Egypt's enemies by the monarch."

When his mummy was discovered, Tut was found to be wearing gleaming gold sandals and gold toe covers. It is unknown, though, whether King Tut ever wore any of the sandals discovered in his tomb during his life or if they were made specifically for his afterlife attire.

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In 1796, while scampering through fields behind his house in Ribchester, England, a young boy stumbled upon a hoard of over 30 metal artifacts in a hollow. The most unique and impressive item in the hoard was a bronze helmet with a face mask dating to the early Roman Empire.

The Ribchester Helmet entered the collection of the British Museum in 1813, where it has been on display ever since. The helmet consists of two main parts: a helmet bowl decorated with a martial scene, and a mask shaped like the face of a young man. Together, the parts of the mask weigh 2.9 pounds (1.3 kilograms). It is one of only three helmets with face masks ever found in Roman Britain.

The helmet bowl has been highly decorated with a scene of apparent combat between six cavalry and 11 infantry soldiers. Although the cavalry troops are outnumbered, they seem to have the upper hand, as two infantrymen lie dead. Two palmettes symbolizing victory are also depicted on the helmet bowl, in addition to a shield and spears signifying armor captured from the enemy. Holes in the nape of the neck suggest streamers were once attached to the helmet.

On the face mask, the young man has an expressionless and beardless visage. His hair curls turn into four serpents' heads — likely a visual reference to the myth of Medusa and the Gorgons, which has been found on other Roman military equipment. Atop the youth's hair rests a diadem in the form of the "corona muralis." This crown, shaped like a city wall, was one of the highest forms of Roman military decoration. But the mask has very small eye and nostril holes, making it impractical to wear in actual combat.

In a 2019 study published in the journal Arms & Armour, archaeologists Jamie Kaminski and David Sim explained the purpose of the Ribchester Helmet as special equipment worn during "hippika gymnasia" (cavalry tournaments), a type of military exercise that doubled as entertainment for troops and visiting dignitaries.

"The events included mock battles between the élite riders of the unit, in which both men and horses were bedecked in flamboyant suites of equipment often in the guise of Greeks, Trojans and Amazons," Kaminski and Sim wrote.

The helmet was likely being stored in a box or chest, along with the rest of the military equipment, for future use or for scrap purposes near the Roman fort of Bremetennacum Veteranorum, which was once located in the present-day village of Ribchester. The fort was abandoned in the late second century, and the hoard was likely forgotten until a curious young boy dug it up 17 centuries later.

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In the fall of 1972, workers in the coastal Bulgarian city of Varna accidentally stumbled upon an ancient cemetery filled with treasure. The burial ground contained more than 3,000 gold artifacts that date to between 4600 and 4300 B.C., making them the oldest gold artifacts in the world.

Over a 20-year period of excavations, archaeologists recovered gold objects from 62 of the around 300 graves in the Varna cemetery. But one-third of all the gold finds came from one burial, Grave 43, which also contained the skeleton of a man who was over 60 years old when he died nearly six millennia ago.

The man in Grave 43, who may have been a metalsmith, was buried with a variety of gold artifacts, including beaded gold necklaces, bangles, earrings and pendants; small, gold discs that were once attached to his clothes; an ax with a gold-wrapped handle; as well as a gold penis sheath.

In total, archaeologists found more than 13.2 pounds (6 kilograms) of gold in the Varna cemetery. At up to 6,600 years old, this treasure trove boasts the oldest evidence of humans crafting gold anywhere in the world. (A tiny gold bead discovered in 2016 at Tell Yunatsite, another site in southern Bulgaria, may be a century older, but that date has not been confirmed.)

Archaeologists are still unsure why gold-working was invented in the Balkans more than six millennia ago during the Copper Age (roughly 4500 to 3000 B.C.), although it might be related to a number of innovations in mining, metallurgy and long-distance trade that occurred during this era, according to the Varna Museum of Archaeology, which houses the collection of gold.

"The Varna cemetery illustrates the early stage of the emergence of a class-segregated society, a proto-type of social and political structure," Museum of Archaeology representatives wrote. "As attributes designating the social status of their owners, gold objects were sacred and symbolic rather than indicators of wealth."

The handful of people buried in the Varna cemetery with extraordinary amounts of gold, such as the man in Grave 43, were likely the society's leaders, according to the museum, making Varna possibly one of the world's earliest civilizations.

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The Nebra Sky Disc was discovered in an artifact hoard in 1999, when metal detectorists illegally excavated it from an ancient religious site on a hill near Nebra, a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. After police recovered the disc in 2002, archaeologists studied the unique object, revealing it's up to 3,800 years old and the world's oldest depiction of astronomical phenomena. (The next oldest is a star map on the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian tomb from about 3,500 years ago.)

The Sky Disc was crafted from about 8.8 pounds (4 kilograms) of bronze, according to the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany, where the object is on display. The bronze was flattened into a disc 12.6 inches (32 centimeters) in diameter and then decorated with 1.8 ounces (50 grams) of gold inlay representing a boat, a crescent moon, a full moon or a sun, and a series of stars.

Based on the style of the axes and the carbon dating of wood in the hilts of swords recovered along with the disc in the metal hoard, experts think the Sky Disc was buried around 1600 B.C., during the Early Bronze Age, but it may have been created two centuries earlier.

Some research has questioned the disc's authenticity, saying that it probably didn't come from Nebra and was about 1,000 years more recent, based on a soil and chemical analysis of the artifact. A subsequent study countered those claims and found that the disc was authentic and from Nebra but that it was made in several stages.

Close examination of the disc revealed that it was made in at least five phases. Initially, the bronze disc included the full moon or sun, the crescent moon and 32 stars. Then, two arcs were placed on each side of the disc. A third arc, perhaps representing a boat, was then added to the bottom. In the fourth phase, the rim of the disc was perforated, suggesting it may have been attached to a support, like a pole for ceremonial use. Finally, the left arc was removed before the disc was buried with the metal hoard. But experts don't know exactly when the disc was made or how much time passed between the phases of decoration.

The Nebra Sky Disc appears to represent the night sky, with several stars forming the Pleiades, or "Seven Sisters," star cluster. The golden arcs on each side of the disc may represent the horizons, marking the summer and winter solstices, and the boat may be a mythical one that brought the sun across the sky from east to west in the daytime and back at night.

By aligning the Sky Disc with the plateau on Mittelberg Hill, where it was found, the western horizon arc aligns with the Brocken, a high mountain that the sun disappears behind on the summer solstice. This suggests the Sky Disc may have been used to keep track of important astronomical dates in prehistory.

But who used the Sky Disc and who buried it are still mysteries, partly because it was recovered by treasure hunters and not in a scientific excavation. The treasure hunters damaged the gold sun or full moon, scratched the surface, and cleaned it improperly. Given the numerous well-furnished burial mounds of important people that dotted the landscape of central Germany as early as 2000 B.C., however, perhaps the Sky Disc once belonged to a Bronze Age chieftain.

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In 1981, a clay sculpture called the "Great Mother" was discovered in an ancient village in North Macedonia known as Tumba Madžari. The unusual cube shape of the woman's lower half is thought to mimic the design of the Stone Age houses that she was intended to protect nearly 8,000 years ago.

The terracotta Great Mother measures 15.4 inches (39 centimeters) tall. The top half of the sculpture depicts a human figure with a prominent nose, belly button and breasts, as well as linear eyes positioned beneath arched eyebrows. The woman's arms are bent downward at the elbows, and her hands are placed flat on her boxy bottom half. Her hair is gathered into a ponytail or braid on the back of her head, and traces of brown paint remain on her forehead, perhaps suggesting bangs.

The Great Mother was found in a house in the Tumba Madžari settlement, which archaeologists believe was in use between 5800 and 5200 B.C. The square structure measured about 26 by 26 feet (8 by 8 meters) and was built in a traditional Neolithic style: Wooden posts were interwoven with branches and covered by a layer of clay. Near the center of the house, which contained a hearth and an oven, archaeologists found the Great Mother statue, along with dozens of complete ceramic pots, cups and jugs.

The Great Mother's lower half is as box-shaped as the house where she was found. She appears to be rising above the house; this positioning suggests she is watching over the home, which is also a part of her. The hollow bottom hints that the sculpture was used as a kind of altar where incense, dried herbs or grain offerings were burned.

According to the Archaeological Museum of the Republic of North Macedonia, where artifacts from Tumba Madžari are on display, "the role of woman as child bearer and mother was equated with a fertility cult or the cult of the Great Mother goddess."

Other "Great Mother" figurines have been found at Neolithic European and Near Eastern archaeological sites. However, the unusual shape of the Tumba Madžari sculpture that reflects a symbiotic relationship between the mother goddess and the house is found only in the Balkans.

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In 1693, a farmer ploughing his field in North Petherton in southwest England found an intriguing medieval jewel made from gold, enamel and rock crystal. But it is the remarkable inscription around the edge that sets the piece apart from others. The jewel reads "AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN," an Old English sentence that means "Alfred ordered me to be made."

The Alfred Jewel, which is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, is assumed to have been made between 871 and 899, during the reign of King Alfred the Great. Alfred initially ruled as king of the West Saxons (Wessex), one of seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms at the time. In 886, he expanded his power to the entirety of England and has thus been considered the first English king.

The jewel measures 2.4 by 1.2 inches (6.2 by 3.1 centimeters). Its design consists of dozens of small cells filled with colorful enamel paste and accented by thin strips of gold. It depicts a person from the mid-thighs up. The Old English inscription in capital letters around the edge of the jewel's bezel connects it to Alfred the Great.

King Alfred had a reputation as a savvy military leader since he helped fight off Viking invasions in the ninth century. He was also a highly educated man who had numerous religious texts translated from Latin into Old English. According to the Ashmolean Museum, Alfred distributed these religious manuscripts to bishops in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom along with an aestel, which was a kind of bookmark or pointer to help keep one's place while reading. The Alfred Jewel is likely the end of an aestel.

At the base of the jewel, in what looks like the mouth of a dragon or snake, experts have noticed a cylindrical socket. This was likely where the pointer itself was once connected.

The Alfred Jewel was found near Athelney Abbey, originally a tiny fortification. Alfred reportedly hid from Danish Vikings for several months at Athelney before launching a successful counter-attack in 878 that helped him expand his influence across southern England. Alfred then returned to establish a monastery at Athelney and to appoint its first abbot.

Because of its ties to England's first king, the Ashmolean Museum has called the Alfred Jewel "among the most significant of royal relics."

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Covered wagons are often associated with the Old West. But the best-preserved example of an ancient covered wagon was actually found in a Bronze Age grave in Armenia, where it had been buried for 3,500 years.

The remains of six oak wagons were excavated from an elite cemetery in Lchashen, Armenia, and were dated to the 15th to 14th centuries B.C., or the Late Bronze Age. Each wagon had four wheels arranged on two axles. But while two of the wagons were open, the other four had a complex frame structure on top. One of these wagons is considered the best-preserved example of an early covered wagon.

On display at the History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan, the Lchashen wagon was made of at least 70 parts joined together by a mortise-and-tenon system involving slotted pieces of wood and bronze fittings. The frame of the canopy required at least 600 mortise holes, archaeologist Stuart Piggott wrote in a 1968 study, indicating the precise workmanship that went into creating the wagon.

The wagon measures approximately 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length. Each wooden wheel was made of two slabs of wood joined together and measured a whopping 63 inches (160 centimeters) tall, historian Christoph Baumer wrote in "History of the Caucasus" (Bloomsbury, 2021).

The Lchashen wagon was discovered in the 1950s, when construction workers from the Soviet Union drained part of Lake Sevan in Armenia to help irrigate a nearby plain. They found a Late Bronze Age cemetery that contained more than 500 burials, along with hundreds of grave goods. One distinctive feature of the Lchashen necropolis is the presence of two- and four-wheeled wagons, as well as bronze models of war chariots, archaeologist L.A. Petrosyan wrote in a 2016 study.

Although some claim the Lchashen wagon is the "oldest in the world," there is abundant evidence of both wagon technology and covered wagons that predate this example. The exact invention dates are still being debated, but humans likely first invented the wheel and wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia in the Copper Age, between about 4500 and 3300 B.C.

But the Lchashen wagon is a very early — as well as the best-preserved — example of a covered wagon with spoked wheels on axles, demonstrating innovation in early wheeled vehicles. Whether this technology was invented in Armenia or came from Mesopotamia to the south or the Russian steppe to the north is still being investigated.

According to the History Museum of Armenia, burials with wheeled vehicles arose in the Middle Bronze Age (2400 to 1500 B.C.) in Armenia but became most popular in the Late Bronze Age, when they were used as vehicles for physically and metaphorically transporting the remains of a deceased leader into the next life.

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In 2009, Israeli archaeologists uncovered a massive stone in an ancient synagogue near the Sea of Galilee — and it had an ancient menorah carved into it. Only a handful of depictions of menorahs exist from the Second Temple period, which ended in A.D. 70 when the Romans destroyed both the temple and Jerusalem, and the Magdala stone may be the earliest of them all.

During an archaeological excavation ahead of construction, archaeologists discovered the ruins of a synagogue at the site of Magdala (also called Migdal), an ancient city said to be the birthplace of Mary Magdalen. The synagogue was in use from about A.D. 50 through its abandonment and collapse around A.D. 80.

Within a small room thought to have held Torah scrolls, archaeologists found a unique rectangular block of limestone set on four stone feet, now known as the Magdala stone. Five sides of the stone were decorated with raised carvings of objects in a synagogue. One of these carvings — a seven-branch menorah — has been the focus of much discussion since the stone's discovery.

The Magdala stone measures about 23.6 by 19.7 by 15.7 inches (60 by 50 by 40 centimeters). The long sides of the stone are carved with a series of round arches separated by columns, while the top includes floral imagery. On one of the narrow ends, a menorah rests on a square box flanked by amphoras, or clay jugs. The menorah's seven branches reflect the menorah used in rituals in the Second Temple.

Archaeologist Mordechai Aviam wrote in a study that the Magdala stone may have served as the base for a Torah reading table and that the decorations depict the Holy of Holies shrine — where God's presence is said to dwell, according to Jewish tradition. This Holy of Holies shrine was in the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Following the sack of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Romans took the gold menorah from the Second Temple and paraded it through Rome, eventually memorializing their military triumph on the Arch of Titus.

The discovery of a carved representation of the Second Temple outside of Jerusalem suggests that a pilgrim saw the Holy of Holies shrine and its gold menorah before the Second Temple was sacked. This pilgrim likely commissioned a representation of them for the Magdala synagogue prior to the destruction, making the Magdala stone the oldest image of the Second Temple's seven-branch menorah ever found.

This year, Hanukkah began after sundown on Dec. 14. The Festival of Lights lasts for eight days. Nowadays, Jewish people typically use a nine-branch menorah, called a hanukkiah, that celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C., after the Maccabees revolted against the Seleucid rulers of Syria. The Seleucids had outlawed Jewish practices and brought pagan worship to the Second Temple.

After ousting the Seleucids, the Maccabees ritually purified and re-dedicated the Temple. Scholars of Judaism disagree about the significance of why Hanukkah lasts eight days. Some say the Maccabees found a flask of oil that unexpectedly burned for eight days, while others suggest that people were observing a delayed Sukkot, which celebrates the fall harvest.

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This round, silver pendant was found in a 10th-century elite woman's burial in Sweden in 1920 and is the only known depiction of a pregnant Viking.

The artifact, known as the Ash Pendant, is in the collection of the Swedish History Museum. It is about 1.5 inches (4 centimeters) in diameter and made out of gilded silver. A ring partially encloses a female figure, who stands with her legs spread and hands clasped under her pregnant belly. Although the top of the pendant is worn down, lines above the woman's head suggest a crown or headdress. The woman wears a cloak buttoned at the neck and a pearl-like beaded accessory.

The pendant was discovered by Swedish archaeologist T.J. Arne in his 1920 excavation of several burial mounds at the site of Aska. Dozens of artifacts were found in the grave, including eight other pendants, four silver rings, a bone game board and an Islamic silver coin. Based on the presence of rivets and nails, the excavators suspected the woman was buried in a wooden casket that decomposed over time, and her bones suggest she was a young or middle-aged adult. It's unknown if she was pregnant or giving birth when she died.

There is some disagreement about what the unique Ash Pendant may signify about the deceased Viking woman.

According to the Swedish History Museum, the pendant may depict the Norse goddess Freyja, who was associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Freyja wore a special necklace called the Brísingamen, the descriptions of which closely match the button clasp and rows of beads on the Ash Pendant. The pendant may therefore have been a talisman for the woman in the grave.

But the Aska site also features a large, flat-topped mound that might have been the foundation for a "royal hall," according to archaeologist Martin Rundkvist, meaning the people buried in the graves were "petty royalty." They appear to have passed down the silver pendants, including the Ash Pendant, as heirlooms over several generations.

Given the range of artifacts discovered in the woman's grave, including a wolf-headed iron staff and the series of heirloom pendants, the woman may have held a prominent role as a practitioner of magic or ritual, archaeologist Neil Price has argued.

And because later graves in the Aska area lack similar ritual objects, according to a study by archaeologist Hide Gustafsson, this may mean that the Viking woman buried in the mound was the last pagan practitioner of her kind before the introduction of Christianity to the region, and that her Freyja pendant was buried with her.

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This sun hat was made from different colors of felted wool in Egypt during the early Christian or Coptic period. It is one of only three such hats that has survived the ages and the best preserved of them. The sun hat was donated to the Chadwick Museum in Bolton, England — later called the Bolton Museum — by Sir Flinders Petrie, the English Egyptologist who found it in 1911.

Petrie discovered the hat at the site of Lahun (also called Illahun), a town and pyramid complex in Egypt's Fayum region, along with numerous other garments that showcased stunning Coptic textile work.

According to the Bolton Museum, where the artifact is housed, the conical hat was stitched together from four quarters, with a knob in the center. Most of the hat, which measures roughly 15.5 inches (39.5 centimeters) in diameter, was made from brown felt, with a wide brim of red felt. Green woolen cloth was used to bind the edges, which were finished in a blue woolen fabric, and the hat was lined in white felt. The hat seams were slip-stitched with decorative chain stitches on the outer edges.

According to a statement by the local government of Bolton Council, experts think the hat may have been made for a member of the Roman military's occupying force, since it looks similar to earlier, third-century Roman hats. However, it may have been adapted from a Roman design to better shield its wearer from the harsh Egyptian sun and sandstorms.

Egypt's Coptic period began around A.D. 395, when the Roman Empire broke up. Emperor Constantine had already been promoting Christianity throughout the empire, and in the mid-fourth century, the Egyptian-inspired Coptic language emerged among the Christians of Roman Egypt. Coptic textiles discovered in early Christian burials in the Fayum area are marked by their colorful yarn, intricate woven patterns, and a mix of iconography, including the Egyptian ankh (a cross with a loop at the top that symbolized life), Roman gods and Christian saints.

In August 2025, the Bolton Museum put the sun hat on display for the first time following conservation. Jacqui Hyman, the expert textile conservator who worked on this "very rare felt hat," said in a statement that moths had damaged the felted wool, but she stabilized the hat with hand-dyed fabric and re-created the hat's original shape.

"This hat was made to be worn," Hyman said, "but if only it could talk and tell us who made it and who wore it."

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In the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire, it was fashionable to make necklaces, bracelets, belts and rings out of gold coins to showcase one's wealth, power and association with the emperor. This pectoral, or neck ring, which was found in Egypt but was likely made in Constantinople, is "one of the most intricate pieces of gold jewelry to survive from the mid-sixth century," according to Stephanie Caruso, an assistant curator at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The gold pectoral is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. A total of 14 gold coins and two gold discs have been set into a gold, lattice-like framework and attached to a bent gold tube to create the piece of jewelry. The pectoral weighs three-quarters of a pound (about 340 grams) and measures roughly 9.5 inches (24 centimeters) in diameter. Originally, a medallion, which is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, was attached to the bottom.

On each side of the large central disc are seven gold coins called "solidi" and one gold "tremissis," which was worth one-third of a solidus. These pure-gold coins were introduced in the waning days of the Roman Empire, and they were struck in a mint in Constantinople. Each solidus — from which we get the French "sou" and the Italian "soldi" — was made of 0.16 ounces (4.45 grams) of gold, which is equivalent to roughly $580 today.

Byzantine citizens who could afford to lose a solidus might turn one into a pendant with a simple loop attachment or a hole poked through it. But many coins were inset into much more complicated settings, which allowed the wearer to visually represent their connection to the emperor and to protect themselves from misfortune, as historical records suggest that coins were often used as talismans.

All of the gold coins in The Met's pectoral are relatively rare, Caruso wrote; bronze and silver coins were more common in everyday transactions. All were struck between the fourth and sixth centuries, which means someone used a collection of coins spanning more than 200 years to create the pectoral. The large, gold disc in the middle is not an official coin, but it was created to look like one, complete with an emperor figure and a fake inscription. On the back of the disc is a personification of a city, perhaps Constantinople, along with a Christian cross.

The dangling medallion part of the pectoral that's now in the Smithsonian included an official commemorative coin issued by Theodosius I, the last emperor of the Roman Empire before it split into Eastern and Western sections.

"The inclusion of an officially struck medallion attachment on The Met's pectoral suggests that this pectoral belonged to not just a wealthy individual but to someone with imperial ties," Caruso wrote. Byzantine iconography suggests that pectorals were worn by military men, so this jewelry may have belonged to a socially connected individual, such as the emperor's bodyguard.

The main point of this elaborate gold necklace, according to Caruso, was "asserting the wearer's elite status and direct connection to the imperial court while simultaneously protecting against misfortune."

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About 200 years ago, while digging in a boggy field in Wales, a worker struck a rare, ancient bowl shaped like a ship. The Caergwrle Bowl, named after a nearby castle, showcases the importance of nautical travel in Great Britain's Middle Bronze Age (roughly 1500 to 1000 B.C.).

According to Museum Wales, which has the artifact in its collection, the Caergwrle Bowl was made from shale and tin from counties in southwest England; and gold from Ireland or Wales. About half the original artifact remains today, but when complete, the oval bowl was about 7.2 inches (18.2 centimeters) long and 3.1 inches (7.8 cm) deep.

The inside of the bowl is not decorated, but the exterior and the rim have been ornamented with gold-foil-covered tin in a variety of shapes.

"We think the zig-zags around the base are waves and the long triangles are oars," Museum Wales representatives wrote. "The eye symbol protected sailors. The circles are the shields of its heroic voyagers."

But a slightly different interpretation was put forward by nautical archaeologists in a 1980 study of the bowl.

Rather than seeing the concentric circles on the gold rim as shields, researchers argued that the closest parallel can be found in Bronze Age sun symbolism, such as the Nebra Sky Disc — which may also depict a boat — and the Nordic "Sun Chariot." And instead of the zigzag lines representing waves, the lines could depict the boat's wooden frame showing through the skins that were stretched over it.

Regardless of the exact meaning of the designs on the Caergwrle Bowl, its discovery in a boggy field near the River Alun, which flows toward the Irish Sea, strongly suggests it was created as a representation of a boat, according to Museum Wales. And considering many Bronze Age sun artifacts have been found in bogs as offerings to the gods, the Caergwrle Bowl was likely meant to be an ancient votive offering, perhaps by sailors seeking a safe sea journey.

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In 1906, archaeologists discovered this wig of an Egyptian woman known as Merit when excavating her tomb, which she shared with her husband Kha, in Luxor (known in ancient times as Thebes). Archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli wrote that the wig, made from dark-brown human hair, was still shining from the perfumed oils that had been applied to it more than three millennia before it was found.

Schiaparelli discovered the wig in a tall acacia wood box that was inscribed with Merit's name. Within the box, two wooden, linen-covered stands supported the wig. The richly furnished tomb also included the bejeweled mummies of both Kha — an architect for the New Kingdom pharaoh Amenhotep II — and Merit, as well as her stocked cosmetic chest, a basket of her hairpins, razors and wooden combs. Most of the 500-plus artifacts from the Tomb of Kha and Merit are in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy.

Merit wore her center-parted, crimped wig on top of her own shaved or closely cropped hair. The small waves were likely made by braiding the hair when wet and then taking out the braids when dry.

According to the Egyptian Museum, "this type of hairdo was often decorated with flowers and diadems, which were very fashionable in the mid-18th dynasty, as can be seen in paintings and statues of the period."

Wigs were commonly worn by elite men and women in ancient Egypt. They allowed people to have elaborate hairstyles but also protected them from direct sunlight and from head lice. Some people shaved their heads fully before donning a wig, while others wore their natural hair cropped short underneath the wig.

In a 2016 study of Merit's wig, researchers used gas chromatography mass spectrometry — an analysis method that identifies and measures chemical compounds in a sample — to figure out more details about Merit's original hairstyle and grooming regime. They found evidence of plant oil on the hair, which may have been used to keep it smooth and in good condition, like ancient hair gel. They also detected evidence of cholesterol — a compound found in the human scalp — on one of the combs, suggesting that Merit used the comb during her lifetime.

Based on this analysis, the researchers concluded that Merit "combed her own hair flat, smoothing it down with an application of the plant oil, plant gum, balsam and beeswax mixture that was also found between the comb's teeth."

A number of wigs and extensions have been preserved from ancient Egypt, with the earliest known example dating back to 3400 B.C., according to Egyptologist Joann Fletcher. The topic of Egyptian hairstyles has gained popularity in the past few decades, according to Fletcher, so there is still a lot to be learned from preserved wigs like Merit's.

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The stunning Memento Mori mosaic was found in a Roman house that doubled as a shop in Pompeii and is one of the most recognizable pieces of artwork from the ill-fated city.

The mosaic, which was excavated in 1874, measures 18.5 by 16.1 inches (47 by 41 centimeters) and is made from hundreds of small, colorful square tiles. In the middle of the mosaic is an obvious skull — perhaps from a monkey — but the rest of the imagery is often overlooked.

According to the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, which has the mosaic in its collection, above the skull is a level with a wire supporting a dangling plumb bob — a tool used to ensure construction is horizontally or vertically level. A colorful butterfly rests underneath the skull, possibly a metaphor for the soul. Beneath them, there is a wheel that likely symbolizes fortune. Flanking the skull, tied to the ends of the level, are a scepter and purple cloak on the left and a beggar's stick and a saddlebag on the right. This juxtaposition suggests that power and wealth on the one hand are in perfect balance with poverty on the other.

"The mosaic's subject represents a warning to the homeowner," according to a translated explanation in Italian from the museum. "One can be rich or poor, but in the end, facing death, we will all be equal."

The mosaic was found in the triclinium, or dining room, of a house that had been converted into a leather tanning business. Based on a charcoal inscription near the entrance, the property may have belonged to a man named M. Vesonius Primus. In addition to the tannery, which was the only one found in Pompeii, Vesonius owned a fullery, which dealt with cleaning and dyeing clothes. The mosaic may have encouraged Vesonius to memento mori — remember that you will die.

Skull art depicting Memento Mori continued to be popular in Europe for millennia. For instance, archaeologists have found a gold Memento Mori ring dating to Tudor England and a Renaissance-era Memento Mori ring from Germany.

Although Vesonius, like thousands of other Romans, likely escaped the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, his guard dog was discovered in the rubble, contorted as if trying to free himself from his collar and chain.

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This gilt-copper nose ornament, discovered at the archaeological site of Loma Negra in northern Peru, depicts the important Moche deity Ai Apaec, also known as the Decapitator. The ornament is inlaid with accents of turquoise and black stones for his pupils.

In Moche mythology, Ai Apaec was the supreme creator, a deity who had the power to subdue and restore order. In art from the time, he is commonly depicted with a human face, jaguar fangs, and a spider-like body, along with a ceremonial knife called a tumi in one hand and a decapitated human head in the other to represent his power to subdue.

The Moche, also known as the Mochicas, lived on the coast of northern Peru from A.D. 200 to 900, prior to the rise of the Inca Empire. This piece of jewelry was found at Loma Negra, a rich Moche site near the Ecuadorian border. Hundreds of gold, silver and copper artifacts were looted from tombs at Loma Negra in the late 1960s, but many of them, including this ornament, were eventually donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The Decapitator ornament measures 2.8 by 3.9 inches (7 by 10 centimeters) and was made out of a sheet of gilded copper. Semiprecious stones accentuate the Decapitator's eyes, earrings and belt. Ai Apaec also wears a large, silver nose ornament. The tiny figurine was likely attached to a piece of silver so that someone could wear it as a nose ornament. But because most of the Loma Negra artifacts were looted from graves, it is unclear whether this ornament was associated with a specific person.

Archaeologists have found that the Moche practiced human sacrifice to honor their gods. This ritual was performed for political reasons, such as the killing of captured enemies, but recent research has shown that family members were also sometimes sacrificed to their high-status relatives.

The Decapitator is closely associated with spiders in Moche iconography, but experts are unsure exactly why. According to The Met, "perhaps the manner in which spiders trap their prey in a web and liquefy their internal organs was considered analogous to the Moche practice of prisoner capture and sacrifice by bloodletting."

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This set of carved figurines was discovered in the parish of Roos, on England's east coast. The carvings, which have been carbon-dated to the Late Bronze Age, may have been offered to the god Odin.

When laborers were digging a drainage ditch in 1836, they discovered a set of eight human figures, two miniature boats and an assortment of arms and tiny weapons underneath a layer of blue clay. Three of the figures and one of the boats were in poor condition and unable to be removed.

The Roos Carr figurines have been studied for decades at the Hull and East Riding Museum of Archaeology, where they were originally donated in the late 19th century. Carved from yew wood, the human figures range from 14 to 16 inches (35 to 41 centimeters) tall, and their heads are inset with quartzite eyes. The sea serpent-headed boat includes partially drilled holes that could support up to four figurines.

Although a handful of similar figurines exist in England and Ireland, their meaning continues to elude experts. According to a 1990 study, one of the earliest theories put forth was that the eight original Roos Carr figurines represented the eight people on Noah's Ark. Another early theory suggested that the carvings were "sinister cult figures."

But the figurines may have actually been deposited in some sort of ritual related to the god Odin or his earlier incarnation called Ull, according to the Hull and East Riding Museum of Archaeology. A wizard and a shape-shifter, Odin is associated with yew trees. He also had only one good eye, having sacrificed the other one to see the future. The quartzite eyes of the wooden figurines are noticeably different sizes.

An additional clue is found in the figurines' groins. Small curved pieces of wood can be put into the drilled holes, making them detachable or "removable genitalia," according to the museum. But when the pieces are absent, the figurines can be seen as female. Odin was known to shape-shift into female form as well as into the form of a sea serpent.

The Roos Carr figurines "challenge our modern day conception of gender identity and gender roles," according to the museum, because the figures also have shields and clubs with them, which are usually associated with male warriors.

The fact that the figurines were discovered under a layer of clay suggests they were deposited in or near water around 2,600 years ago, according to the museum, which was a common place for ritual offerings in prehistoric times.

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This small, bronze skeleton is one of only a dozen known examples of an ancient Roman "larva convivalis" — a "banquet ghost" figurine given out as a party favor 2,000 years ago.

The skeleton originally had jointed arms and legs, but only a portion of its left leg remains today. Its skull features large, round eye sockets and a toothy grin. The bronze figurine measures roughly 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters) tall and is in the collection of the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, California.

According to a 1980 study by then-Getty curator Faya Causey Frel, the skeleton was a kind of "memento mori" — a symbol of the brevity of life and the inevitability of death. The spooky skeletons were probably handed out at dinner parties in a nod to Epicureanism, the philosophical system that considered that because death is humans' main fear, we should take pleasure in what life has to offer.

Banqueting and death were often linked in Roman art and literature, according to the Getty.

In the novel "The Satyricon," written in the late first century A.D. by Petronius, a man named Trimalchio was hosting a dinner party. The narrator tells of "a slave brought in a silver skeleton, so contrived that the joints and movable vertebra could be turned in any direction. He threw it down upon the table a time or two, and its mobile articulation caused it to assume grotesque attitudes."

Trimalchio, the host, then exclaims that "this skeleton before us here is as important as we ever were! Let's live then while we may and life is dear."

The Getty example of the banquet ghost lacks scientific accuracy. "It was perhaps more important that the bony specters were lively," Causey Frel wrote.

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This carved stone head was discovered in 1855 in the Irish town of Drumeague, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Dublin. The three-faced (also called tricephalic or janiform) head was likely created by the Celts in the first century in celebration of a pagan ritual.

According to the National Museum of Ireland, where the sculpture is housed, the Corleck Head is 13 inches (33 centimeters) tall and the "finest of its type." The faces have heavy brows, a broad nose and a slit-like mouth, and one mouth has a small hole in the center. The bottom of the head also contains a small hole, possibly to secure it to a pedestal.

In a 1960 study of tricephalic stone heads, archaeologist Anne Ross wrote that the "cult of the head" was a deep-rooted tradition in Celtic society connected to the concepts of divinity and supernatural power. The idea of the cult originated with ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who wrote in the first century B.C. that the Celts were fond of cutting off their enemies' heads and displaying them fastened to the necks of their horses.

But the exact meaning of the Corleck Head continues to be debated.

In a 2023 lecture, historian Jonathan Smyth laid out several possible meanings for the enigmatic sculpture. It may have been a representation of the Celtic god Lugh, displayed on a pillar as a phallic symbol of fertility. Lugh was a master craftsman, and the three faces may represent different technologies. This attribution would suggest that the Corleck Head was used in Lughnasa, the Celtic harvest festival.

According to Smyth, the Corleck Head may have even signaled the opposite: destruction. Drumeague, where the object was found, can be translated from Irish as the "Hill of Death," and the body of a sacrificed Iron Age man was discovered nearby. The man, like other bog bodies, had been killed in three ways: strangled, bludgeoned and slashed through the throat.

Regardless of whether the Corleck Head was associated with human sacrifice, archaeologists think medieval Irish people believed the pagan sculpture was cursed and, therefore, buried it sometime between the 10th and 13th centuries to suppress early Celtic religious traditions.

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These two eagle-shaped pins were discovered in central Spain and date to the early sixth century, when the Visigoth Kingdom ruled the area. A popular symbol among the Visigoths, the predatory bird represented power — and eagle pins are often found in Visigoth women's graves.

These brooches, currently in the collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, are made of gold-plated bronze and measure about 4.6 inches (11.8 centimeters) tall. The cells in the eagle outline are inlaid in the cloisonné technique with red and blue-green glass as well as white stones. The eagles' eyes are blue gemstones. On the reverse side, pieces of the pin's spring mechanism and clasp remain.

During the Migration Period in Europe (fourth to eighth centuries), the power of the Roman Empire waned and groups such as the Visigoths (Western Goths) moved west from Central Europe into the Iberian Peninsula. They set up a kingdom based in Toledo, Spain, and art and writing flourished in the Visigoth Kingdom in the sixth and seventh centuries.

A recurring theme in Visigoth art was the eagle — a symbol of the supreme being and embodied power, according to Katharine Reynolds Brown, an art historian at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. And these eagle pins are often found in pairs in women's graves, the authors of the textbook "Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages" (Cornell University Press, 2023) wrote. The pins were likely used to secure women's clothing at the shoulder, according to The Walters Art Museum.

In the mid-seventh century, the Visigoth king ordered the establishment of "the Visigothic Code," a set of laws that was quite progressive for the time. Women were allowed to inherit land and titles and could arrange their own marriages, according to historian Suzanne Fonay Wemple. However, only a handful of names of powerful Visigoth women — largely consorts of Visigoth kings — are known from historical records.

Although the eagle brooches suggest their owner was an influential woman, the lack of rigorous excavations at the Alovera cemetery a century ago means we may never know if they were actually the property of a Visigoth queen.

Ancient Romans are often depicted as toga-clad or heavily armored men going about the serious business of building and running an empire. But this bronze statuette of a comic actor making fart noises while thrusting out his backside shows the Romans' sillier side.

The statuette is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Pacific Palisades, California, and stands just 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) tall. The style of the figurine indicates it was made in the first or early second century A.D. in the Roman world.

The figurine depicts a chubby man wearing a comic mask and a bodysuit with a cross-hatch pattern. He squats, forcefully projecting his butt, which he grasps with his left hand. He sticks two fingers in the corner of his mouth, presumably to help him make a fart noise.

The bodysuit he wears is decorated with an embroidered anus as well as an enormous dangling phallus made out of cloth. This accessory was typical of actors in the Greek comedies of Aristophanes, as well as in Roman comedies, according to Mary Louise Hart, associate curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

The most successful comic poet in ancient Rome was Plautus (circa 254 to 184 B.C.), who started out working as a comic actor. Although he wrote at least 130 plays, only 21 have survived. Plautus penned many stock characters, including the bragging soldier and the old man in love. But this comic actor statuette more likely depicts a bit player rather than a key part of the cast.

Related: Pawnee Star Chart: A precontact elk-skin map used by Indigenous priests to tell an origin story

"We know from a number of statuettes that have remained that a lot of people really liked this character," Hart said. "They thought he was great fun and they wanted to have a statuette of him at home."

The Romans loved crude humor — including dirty jokes, self-mockery, absurdism and obscenities — just as much as people today do, according to the Getty Museum.

Other examples of Greek and Roman humor survive in a unique ancient joke book called Philogelos. In the fifth century A.D., someone collected 265 jokes, many of which feature "Goofus"- and "Gallant"-type figures — an unintelligent person and an overly confident one. And several include farting, such as joke 241, translated by classicist William Berg as follows:

A fool sits down next to a deaf guy and farts. The latter, noticing the smell, cries out in disgust. The fool remarks, 'Hey, you can hear alright! You're kidding me about being deaf!'

The Pawnee Star Chart is a series of crosses sprinkled around an oval piece of elk skin. Likely made in the early 17th century by the Skiri (also called the Skidi) band of the Pawnee Nation, the chart is a fairly accurate representation of the night sky, but the meaning of the chart is still debated.

According to amateur astronomer Ralph Buckstaff, who published a study about the chart in 1927, it was discovered in a sacred bundle in 1902 by Skiri anthropologist James Murie, who passed it on to the Field Museum in Chicago. At the time, the chart was estimated to be at least 300 years old. The piece of tanned elk skin measures roughly 15 by 22 inches (38 by 56 centimeters), and hand-drawn stars cover the surface.

Buckstaff interpreted the chart as a depiction of the night sky, separated into two halves by a centerline of very small stars possibly representing the Milky Way. On the left side, the stars line up into Northern Hemisphere winter constellations, while the right side features summer constellations. This suggested to Buckstaff that the Pawnee recognized the seasonal shift of the stars.

Although Buckstaff attempted to show that the Pawnee identified star patterns like the Pleiades and Ursa Minor in the same way as European astronomers did, this claim was refuted by astronomer Von Del Chamberlain in his 1982 book "When Stars Came Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America" (Ballena Press). Chamberlain examined Murie's early 20th-century journals and discussed the chart's potential ties to a Skiri Pawnee "star cult" first reported in a 1902 study. Chamberlain wrote that the chart was probably never intended for use as a star map but rather as a conceptual depiction of the heavens used perhaps by Skiri priests.

Related: Kneeling Bull: A 5,000-year-old hybrid creature from Iran with a mysterious purpose

In a 1985 response to Chamberlain, anthropologist Douglas Parks, an expert on the Pawnee, agreed with Chamberlain that the star chart was most likely made as a kind of mnemonic device. The chart may have been used by priests or knowledge keepers to recount the origin myth of the Skiri world, rather than being a precise recording of the position of stars, Parks wrote.

The exact meaning of the Pawnee star chart and its date of manufacture are still debated. But it remains an object of deep interest to anthropologists and astronomers alike because, "as a portrayal of stars in the heavens, it is unique for aboriginal North America," Parks wrote.

This 5,000-year-old silver figurine depicts a bull kneeling in a human-like pose and holding a spouted vessel. It was made in southern Mesopotamia by someone from the Proto-Elamite culture, the oldest civilization in Iran, and was likely used in a ritual or ceremony.

The bull is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It stands 6.4 inches (16.3 centimeters) tall and was made from 98.5% pure silver, according to a 1970 study by then-Met conservator Kate Lefferts. Inside the hollow figurine, Lefferts found five limestone pebbles, which were likely included by the artist to create a rattling sound. Fiber adhered to the statue was made from animal yarn.

In a 1970 study, Donald Hansen, then a fine arts professor at New York University, described the figurine as a remarkable blend of part-human and part-animal characteristics. The bovine head, complete with curved horns, rests atop human-like shoulders, and the creature is clothed in a decorated robe that covers its kneeling legs. The bull's outstretched arms are human-like but end in hooves that hold a vessel. The figurine does not have a flat base, Hansen noted, which means it could not have stood on its own on a hard surface.

Related: Haniwa Dancers: 1,500-year-old ghostly figurines thought to hold the souls of the dead

The figurine was made in Elam, an ancient region that corresponds to modern-day southwestern Iran. This area was the seat of the Proto-Elamite, an early Near East civilization in the Copper Age. The Proto-Elamites invented cylinder seals — cylinders that were engraved with figural scenes and were used for administrative purposes — many of which depict animals in human-like poses. The Kneeling Bull was likely made in this Proto-Elamite tradition of creating mythical-but-realistic-looking animal-human hybrids.

It is unclear why someone decided to make the Kneeling Bull five millennia ago. But the limestone pebbles inside the statuette and the fabric adhering to it suggest it was used in a ritual or ceremony, according to Hansen. It may have even been a "foundation figurine." These items were intentionally buried during the construction of Proto-Elamite temples to symbolically mark sacred ground. If the Kneeling Bull was created as a foundation figurine, it was never meant to be seen again.

During the Kofun period (300 to 710) of Japanese history, people buried the dead in large mounds with many grave goods. Scattered around the mounds were objects called "haniwa" — clay cylinders topped with clay figures, used in offerings for the dead.

These two haniwa, known as the "Dancing People" or "Haniwa Terracotta Dancers," are in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. They were discovered in 1930 during the excavation of an ancient cemetery in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, and are thought to have been made about 1,500 years ago.

According to the Tokyo National Museum, haniwa were made throughout the Kofun period and were used exclusively as tomb decorations. Originally simple clay cylinders, haniwa became more elaborate over time, as the cylinders were topped with figures that included humans, animals, houses, armor and boats. They were used to mark grave boundaries, and some haniwa were thought to hold the souls of the deceased.

The Dancing People haniwa are especially striking because of their simplicity. Their mouths and eyes are holes, which make them appear to be wide open. Their arms are stick-like, and their upper bodies end in a cylinder base below a thin belt. Their curving arms and open mouths have led some researchers to conclude they are singers or dancers.

Related: Malia Bee Pendant: A 3,800-year-old accessory found in a Minoan 'pit of gold'

In a 2008 study of the Dancing People, archaeologist Yoshio Negita suggested that the pair may be a man and a woman. The smaller one has clay on the sides of its head, suggesting a peasant hairstyle, so haniwa may represent a male farmer, Negita proposed. Another theory, put forward by archaeologist Yoshimichi Tsukada in a 2007 study, suggested that the haniwa may depict two male herders holding the reins of their horses.

Thousands of haniwa have been discovered from ancient Japanese graveyards, as each tomb was surrounded by many of these objects.

But video game enthusiasts may recognize haniwa from a 21st century context: In the game "Animal Crossing," the "gyroids" that a player can dig up are called "haniwa" in the Japanese version and are based on the ancient clay sculptures.

This gold pendant was discovered in 1930 at the cemetery of Chrysolakkos, which means "pit of gold," in the ancient Minoan town of Malia in Crete. Although the famed archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans suggested the jewelry depicted bees, the identity of the insects on the pendant and the meaning behind the design have been debated for nearly a century.

According to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete, where the pendant is on display, it is 1.8 inches (4.6 centimeters) long and weighs 0.2 ounces (5.5 grams) — about as much as a U.S. quarter. The ancient goldsmith combined several techniques to create the piece — filigree, granulation, repoussé and incised decoration — and the pendant is considered a "masterpiece of Minoan miniature art," according to the museum.

The pendant depicts two insects facing each other, with their heads and abdomens joined and their wings spread backward. Two legs of each insect appear to grasp a series of concentrically placed gold beads. Three small discs dangle from the wings and joined abdomens.

Some researchers suggest this accessory shows European honeybees (Apis mellifera) in the process of making honey, arguing that the bees are holding a honeycomb and have a drop of honey in their mouths.

"Honey and wax were important elements of the Minoan economy," according to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, "while bees also appear to have been important Minoan religious symbols."

But this interpretation does not account for the three dangling circles, a group of researchers led by botanist E. Charles Nelson wrote in a 2021 study. These circles may represent the fruits of the Mediterranean hartwort (Tordylium apulum), an edible herb that's common in Crete and produces clusters of disc-shaped fruit with beaded margins.

Related: Pazuzu figurine: An ancient statue of the Mesopotamian 'demon' god who inspired 'The Exorcist'

If the dangling discs represent this fruit, the insects being depicted may not be bees, the researchers argued. The insects on the pendant more closely resemble the mammoth wasp (Megascolia maculata), they said. When it feeds on flowering plants like the Mediterranean hartwort, the mammoth wasp appears to grab the pollen-producing parts of flowers, curling its abdomen around them, with its wings swept backward.

Exactly what the ancient goldsmith intended to represent with the pendant is still an open question. It's possible they wanted to depict bees and erroneously used wasps as a model. Regardless, experts agree that the pendant's creator was extremely skillful at working with gold.

"While the Malia pendant is often viewed as being associated with the craft of beekeeping," this may not be the case, Nelson and colleagues argued in the study. But in the end, "the jewel represents — indeed celebrates — the natural world of Crete."

This small, bronze figurine is the best-known depiction of the Mesopotamian god Pazuzu, who was the inspiration for modern demons featured in "The Exorcist" and "The Simpsons" — but apparently not the basis for the collectible toy Labubu.

On display at the Louvre, the 6-inch-tall (15 centimeters) winged figurine stands on a base with his right arm raised. But on his back is a bone-chilling inscription that likely contributed to the demon's infamy: "I am Pazuzu, son of Hampa, the king of evil spirits of the air who violently emerges from the mountains raging; it is I."

In ancient Mesopotamian religion, Pazuzu was a world-wandering wind demon. Although the depictions of him differ, Pazuzu typically has a dog-like face with huge, bulging eyes; an open mouth with sharp teeth; the talons and wings of a bird; the horns of a goat; and a scaly body with serpent-headed genitalia and a scorpion tail.

Ancient texts suggest that Pazuzu was responsible for summoning destructive winds, for bringing about droughts and famine and for introducing disease.

A huge number of Pazuzu figurines made from a variety of materials have been found on archaeological sites over the years, but Pazuzu didn't enter the modern cultural zeitgeist until half a century ago.

Related: Sabu Disk: A mysterious 5,000-year-old Egyptian stone sculpture that looks like a hubcap

The Mesopotamian "demon of the southwest wind" inspired a character in William Peter Blatty's 1971 book "The Exorcist," where the spirit possesses a little girl. In 2017, a character named Pazuzu showed up on an episode of "The Simpsons," where the statue possesses the family. And more recently, some people have taken to the internet to speculate that the furry collectible toy Labubu, with its enormous eyes and tiny fangs, is based on Pazuzu.

But Pazuzu has gotten a bit of a bad rap. In spite of his destructive nature, he was also seen as a protector of the domestic realm. His job was to repel other demons from people's homes, and he looked after pregnant women and mothers.

This delicate stone vessel was discovered in 1936 in the tomb of Sabu, an ancient Egyptian official buried in the Saqqara necropolis during the first dynasty period. When it was found, the disk was in pieces. It has since been reconstructed and is in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Sabu's mastaba, a rectangular tomb with sloping walls and a flat roof, was excavated by British Egyptologist Walter Emery. In his publication describing the Saqqara tombs, Emery wrote that the burial chamber had been looted for its jewelry and precious metals. But Sabu's skeleton was intact inside a wooden coffin, and his tomb was filled with dozens of stone and pottery vessels, flint and copper tools, the remains of two oxen, and a unique bowl.

Emery described the Sabu Disk as an ornamental tri-lobed bowl that measured 24 inches (61 centimeters) in diameter and 3.9 inches (10 cm) tall. The bowl was carved out of metasiltstone, a sedimentary rock that has undergone some metamorphism.

Related: Hornelund Brooches: Viking age gold ornaments mysteriously buried in Denmark 1,000 years ago

According to Egyptian archaeologist Ali El-Khouli, flat and wide stone bowls were common in the first to third dynasties of ancient Egypt. But this particular bowl found in Sabu's tomb is unusual because of the three thinly carved and curving wings that rise from the edge of the disk. When viewed from above, this decoration is suggestive of a modern steering wheel, propeller or hubcap.

The Sabu Disk's unique design has led to numerous theories about the item's purpose, ranging from part of a water turbine to a piece of a hyperdrive from an alien spaceship. One recent theory even suggests the disk was used as a "mash tun," a vessel that holds grain and hot water for making beer.

But the most likely explanation is that the Sabu Disk had a similar purpose as other wide, flat bowls in ancient Egyptian culture: It probably held food or oil. The delicate nature of the metasiltstone and carving, though, suggests that the bowl was not for everyday use and may have been placed in Sabu's tomb as an offering for the afterlife.

These two brooches were part of a small hoard discovered along with a gold arm ring in southwestern Jutland, Denmark. Dated to the Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066), the brooches are decorated with ornamental wire bent into delicate shapes.

Each gold brooch measures about 3.3 inches (8.5 centimeters) in diameter and weighs between 2.1 to 2.6 ounces (60 to 75 grams), according to a 1994 study by Lene Frandsen, curator at the Varde Museum. The designs on the brooches include examples of both Norse and Christian art, according to the National Museum of Denmark, where the accessories are on display.

One brooch includes four forward-facing animal heads in a Norse style, suggesting it was made locally by a Danish or Viking goldsmith. The other brooch has leaves and vines that may connect to Christianity, as grapevines were used in early Christian art to represent Jesus as the "true vine of life" and the idea of the resurrection.

During the Viking age, Jutland was an advanced center of goldsmithing. Still, the Hornelund brooches are "completely unique in the Danish jewelry collection," archaeologist Władyslaw Duczko wrote in a 1987 study. Some may have been made for export, as several similar brooches have been discovered in Sweden. And it's possible that the Jutland goldsmiths got their decoration ideas from jewelers in Slavic countries like Estonia, Duczko wrote, where similar swirling patterns have been found on accessories dated to the late 10th century.

Related: Meskalamdug's Helmet: One of the world's oldest helmets depicts a Mesopotamian prince's man bun

The Hornelund brooches, however, are somewhat mysterious even today. They were recovered by a servant tilling his landlord's field in 1892. Historical records show that the landowner turned the hoard over to the National Museum of Denmark and was paid 295 Danish krone — worth about $4,000 USD today.

But the farm was not archaeologically investigated at the time, and recent excavations there have yielded no new information on the hoard, according to Frandsen. So experts do not yet know if the jewelry came from a grave, a homestead or a hastily buried cache of wealth. They hope that one day excavations will yield more clues to the meaning of the Hornelund hoard.

This gold helmet, painstakingly decorated to look like the wavy hairdo and ears of its wearer, was found in 1927 by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley during excavations at Ur, an ancient city in Mesopotamia that is now part of Iraq.

The artifact was recovered from a tomb in the Royal Cemetery along with alabaster vases, gold daggers and golden bowls — one of which listed the name Meskalamdug, meaning "hero of the good land." But since the tomb was not as big or as richly furnished as other royal tombs, Woolley suggested the deceased was probably a prince rather than a king of Ur.

Two copies of the helmet were made within a few years of discovery, one going to the British Museum and one to the Penn Museum. The original helmet, which was hidden before the First Gulf War and protected from looting until it was recovered in late 2003, is at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.

Related: Vounous Bowl: A 4,000-year-old basin holding 4 miniature cows and 18 people — that was buried for mysterious reasons in a Bronze Age tomb in Cyprus

According to the Penn Museum, the helmet is 8.9 inches (22.7 centimeters) tall and 8.3 inches (21 cm) wide. And according to James Ogden, an early 20th century goldsmith who created the two exact replicas in 1928, the original helmet was made from one sheet of 15-karat gold.

Ogden described the helmet in his personal notes as "life size" and "perhaps a ceremonial headdress." The small holes around the rim were likely used to secure a quilted cloth lining, and Ogden noted that he found traces of it inside.

The hand-beaten gold was modeled and engraved to represent hair that was tied back with a ribbon and pulled into a small bun in the back. The ears had holes so that the wearer could hear through the helmet, and additional holes below the ears were probably for the attachment of a chin-strap.

Meskalamdug's helmet is quite different from the ordinary copper helmets that private soldiers wore, Woolley wrote in a 1928 report on Meskalamdug's tomb. But it is similar to the hairstyles and helmets worn by the Mesopotamian rulers Eannatum and Sargon the Great, also known as Sargon of Akkad, in the 25th and 24th centuries B.C. Meskalamdug's helmet is one of the oldest ever found.

While there is evidence from the Royal Cemetery that a man named Meskalamdug was a Sumerian king, this particular Meskalamdug was not identified as a king by the artifacts in his grave. The helmet may therefore have belonged to the eponymous son or grandson of King Meskalamdug, part of Ur's First Dynasty, whose second wife was Queen Puabi.