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Babylon
7 photos
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Chaldea
19 photos
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Ancient Persia
7 photos
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Ancient Rome
78 photos
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Ancient Egypt
135 photos
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Ancient Greece
92 photos
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Assyria
33 photos
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The world as known to Herodotus is shown by the white part of this map, indicating the limited range of ancient geographical knowledge.
235 visits
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Image 8393
159 visits
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The mode of drinking from the ἀμφορεύς, bottle or amphora, and from a wine skin, is taken from a painting on an Etruscan vase.
268 visits
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That they [the Hittites] thoroughly cherished wine may be seen from the accompanying illustration, which represents one of their deities, who appears to be a compound of Bacchus and Ceres, and aptly illustrative of the two good things of those countries, corn and wine, which, with the olive and honey, made an earthly Paradise for the inhabitants thereof. It shows how much they appreciated wine, when they deified it.
286 visits
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The Hittites had been a powerful and civilized nation when the Jews were in an exceedingly primitive condition, and Abraham found them the rightful possessors of Hebron, in Southern Palestine (Gen. xxiii.), and so far recognised their rights to the soil, as to purchase from them the Cave of Machpelah for “four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.” Their power afterwards waned, as they had left Hebron and taken to the mountains, as was reported by the spies sent by Moses, four hundred years afterwards (Num. xiii.), but they have left behind them carvings which throw some light upon their social customs. For instance, here is one of two ladies partaking of a social glass together. Unfortunately, we do not know at present the true meaning of their inscriptions, for scholars are yet at variance as to the translation of them.
216 visits
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Image 6526
386 visits
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Image 6525
300 visits
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Image 6524
323 visits
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Image 6523
239 visits
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Image 6522
252 visits
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Image 6520
216 visits
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Image 6521
204 visits
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Phoenician patera, from Idalium, showing a religious ritual dance before a goddess in a temple around a sun emblem.
From the Phoenicians we have illustrated examples, but no record, whereas from their neighbours the Hebrews we have ample records in the Scriptures, but no illustrations.
610 visits
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Cyprian limestone group of Phoenician dancers, about 6½ in. high. There is a somewhat similar group, also from Cyprus, in the British Museum. The dress, a hooded cowl, appears to be of great antiquity.
476 visits
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The first and primaeval musical instruments must have been of the simplest kind.
A hollow reed, uttering, when blown with the mouth, one monotonous sound would be the first successful attempt at such an invention. The next step was to vary the sound by perforating it with holes, like to our " Penny Whistle."
920 visits
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The flutes of the Etruscans were not unfrequently made of ivory; those used in religious sacrifices were of box-wood, of a species of the lotus, of ass’ bone, bronze and silver. A bronze flute, somewhat resembling our flageolet, has been found in a tomb; likewise a huge trumpet of bronze. An Etruscan cornu is deposited in the British museum, and measures about four feet in length.
700 visits
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The African elephant (Elephas Africanus) with rider mounted on its back. The drawing is an enlarged representation of an ancient Carthaginian coin.
431 visits
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Perhaps the earliest people to form real cities in this part of the world, or indeed in any part of the world, were a people of mysterious origin called the Sumerians. They were neither Semites nor Aryans, and whence they came we do not know. Whether they were dark whites of Iberian or Dravidian affinities is less certainly to be denied.[103] They used a kind of writing which they scratched upon clay, and their language has been deciphered.
761 visits
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Scythians ... as portrayed by a Greek artist....
One of the Few Existing Representations of the Ancient Scythians. From a Greek Electrum Vase.
566 visits
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Samnite Warriors (From painted vases)
The Romans completely beaten by the Samnites at the battle of the Caudine Forks
847 visits
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Macedonian Warrior
494 visits
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The irruption of the Ephthalites is memorable not so much because of its permanent effects as because of the atrocities perpetrated by the invaders. These Ephthalites very closely resembled the Huns of Attila in their barbarism; they merely raided, they produced no such dynasty as the Kushan monarchy; and their chiefs retained their headquarters in Western Turkestan. Mihiragula, their most capable leader, has been called the Attila of India. One of his favourite amusements, we are told, was the expensive one of rolling elephants down precipitous places in order to watch their sufferings. His abominations roused his Indian tributary princes to revolt, and he was overthrown. But the final ending of the Ephthalite raids into India was effected not by Indians, but by the destruction of the central establishment of the Ephthalites on the Oxus (565) by the growing power of the Turks, working in alliance with the Persians.
755 visits
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At her zenith Carthage probably had the hitherto unheard-of population of a million. This population was largely industrial, and her woven goods were universally famous. As well as a coasting trade, she had a considerable land trade with Central Africa,[126] and she sold negro slaves, ivory, metals, precious stones and the like, to all the Mediterranean people; she worked Spanish copper mines, and her ships went out into the Atlantic and coasted along Portugal and France northward as far as the Cassiterides (the Scilly Isles, or Cornwall, in England) to get tin. About 520 B.C. a certain Hanno made a voyage that is still one of the most notable in the world. This Hanno, if we may trust the Periplus of Hanno, the Greek translation of his account which still survives, followed the African coast southward from the Straits of Gibraltar as far as the confines of Liberia. He had sixty big ships, and his main task was to found or reinforce certain Carthaginian stations upon the Morocco coast
678 visits
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Etruscan painting of a Ceremonial Burning of the Dead
664 visits
