Art & other works

In-depth guides that start simply enough for children and go deep enough for researchers.

30 articles

• History · c. 3350–3200 BCECuneiformCuneiform is one of the world’s first writing systems: invented in southern Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq) more than 5,000 years ago, it was written by pressing a reed pen into wet clay to make little wedge-shaped marks, and it was used for over 3,000 years to write many different languages.Map
• Art · c. 3100–3000 BCENarmer PaletteThe Narmer Palette is a shield-shaped slab of dark green stone, carved about 5,000 years ago, that shows King Narmer wearing the crowns of both Upper and Lower Egypt and defeating his enemies, and it is one of the earliest objects to combine Egyptian royal art with hieroglyphic writing.Map
• History · c. 1754 BCECode of HammurabiThe Code of Hammurabi is a list of about 280 rules for judging cases that King Hammurabi of Babylon had carved on a tall black stone almost 3,800 years ago, to show that he was a fair and just king.Map
• Art · c. 1350–1340 BCEBust of NefertitiThe Bust of Nefertiti is a painted limestone portrait of an Egyptian queen, made about 3,350 years ago in a sculptor’s workshop at Amarna, found by German archaeologists in 1912 and now one of the most famous – and most argued-about – artworks in the world.Map
• Art · c. 1323 BCEMask of TutankhamunThe Mask of Tutankhamun is a shining gold face that was placed over the mummy of a young Egyptian king about 3,300 years ago, to protect him and help him live forever in the afterlife.Map
• Art · c. 1200–900 BCEOlmec Colossal HeadsThe Olmec colossal heads are seventeen giant stone faces, some as tall as a ceiling and as heavy as a truck, carved about 3,000 years ago by the Olmec people of Mexico’s Gulf Coast, probably to show their rulers.Map
• History · 539 BCECyrus CylinderThe Cyrus Cylinder is a barrel-shaped clay object, about 22.5 cm long, on which the Persian king Cyrus the Great had his conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE described in Babylonian cuneiform, presenting himself as a just king chosen by Babylon’s god Marduk.Map
• History · c. 300 BCE – 1697Maya scriptMaya script is the writing system that the Maya of Mexico and Central America used for about two thousand years, mixing picture-like signs for whole words with signs for syllables, and scholars have learned to read most of it only in the last seventy years.Map
• Art · c. 246–209 BCETerracotta ArmyThe Terracotta Army is a buried army of thousands of life-size clay soldiers and horses, made more than 2,200 years ago to guard the tomb of China’s first emperor.Map
• History · c. 205–70 BCEAntikythera mechanismThe Antikythera mechanism is a hand-cranked bronze gear device made by Greek craftsmen in the second or early first century BCE and found in a Roman-era shipwreck in 1901; it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and probably the planets, predicted eclipses and tracked calendars, and is often called the world’s oldest known analogue computer.Map
• History · 196 BCERosetta StoneThe Rosetta Stone is a broken slab of dark stone carved in 196 BC with the same priestly decree in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic and Greek, and after its discovery in 1799 it became the key that let scholars read ancient Egyptian writing again.Map
• Art · c. 750–850 CEBook of KellsThe Book of Kells is a richly painted Latin manuscript of the four Gospels, made by Columban monks in Ireland or Scotland around the year 800, and is often called the greatest masterpiece of early medieval book art in Britain and Ireland.Map
• History · 1145Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms)The Samguk sagi is the oldest surviving history of Korea, a 50-volume book written in 1145 by a team led by the scholar-official Kim Busik that tells the story of the ancient kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla.Map
• Art · c. 1200–1400Ife headsThe Ife heads are lifelike sculptures in copper alloy and terracotta made in the Yoruba city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, in today’s Nigeria, mostly between about 1200 and 1400, and they are among the most celebrated works of art ever created in Africa.Map
• History · 1215Magna CartaMagna Carta is the charter that King John of England agreed with rebel barons at Runnymede in June 1215; it failed as a peace treaty, but its reissues, especially the promise that no free man may be punished except by lawful judgement or the law of the land, became a lasting symbol of the rule of law.Map
• Heritage · 1237–1248Tripitaka KoreanaThe Tripitaka Koreana is a complete collection of Buddhist scriptures carved onto more than 81,000 wooden printing blocks in thirteenth-century Korea, while the country was at war with the Mongols, and it is still kept, almost perfectly preserved, at Haeinsa Temple.Map
• Art · c. 1300–1897Benin BronzesThe Benin Bronzes are thousands of brass plaques, heads, figures and other royal artworks made over several centuries for the court of the Oba (king) of Benin in what is now southern Nigeria, most of which British forces looted in 1897 and whose return is today one of the world’s most debated questions about museums and colonial history.Map
• History · 1377JikjiJikji is a Korean Buddhist book printed in 1377 at a temple near Cheongju, and it is the oldest book in the world that still exists that was printed with movable metal type.Map
• History · 1392–1865Veritable Records of the Joseon DynastyThe Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty are an official day-by-day history of Korea’s kings from 1392 to 1863, written by court historians whom even the king was not allowed to overrule.Map
• History · 1443–1446HunminjeongeumHunminjeongeum, “the correct sounds for teaching the people”, is the Korean alphabet created under King Sejong in 1443 and the name of the 1446 book that explained how its letters work.Map
• History · 1452–1455Gutenberg BibleThe Gutenberg Bible is a huge Latin Bible printed in Mainz, Germany, around 1454–55 in the workshop of Johannes Gutenberg, the first major book in Europe made with movable metal type.Map
• Art · 1503–1519Mona LisaThe Mona Lisa is a small portrait of a Florentine woman, Lisa Gherardini, that Leonardo da Vinci began around 1503 and kept working on for years, and it has become the most famous painting in the world.Map
• Art · 1508–1512Sistine Chapel ceilingBetween 1508 and 1512 Michelangelo covered the vaulted ceiling of the pope’s chapel in the Vatican with more than 300 painted figures, telling the Bible’s story from the creation of the world to Noah and surrounding it with prophets, sibyls and the ancestors of Christ.Map
• History · c. 1545–1577Florentine CodexThe Florentine Codex is a 16th-century encyclopedia of Nahua (Aztec) life, written in parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish and painted with nearly 2,500 images by Nahua scholars, elders and artists working with the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, and completed at Tlatelolco in Mexico in 1575–1577.Map