Iron Age economy: Phoenician glass - a face pendant of an African man. 400-200 BC Traders in the Mediterranean The rise of the Assyrian empire (in modern Iraq) and of the Phoenicians (in modern [...]
Castor and Pollux - the Dioscuri - on a votive plaque from Tarentum in southern Italy Who are Castor and Pollux? Castor and Pollux were originally Greek gods, but when the [...]
Villanovan cremation urn with helmet on top (ca. 900 BC) Italy's history in antiquity mostly followed the changes that were happening in West Asia a little earlier. The first modern people arrived in Italy [...]
Etruscan tomb sculpture: the Etruscans liked fancy tombs From Villanovans to Etruscans Around 700 BC, the Bronze Age people we call the Villanovans started to get ideas from the Greeks and Phoenicians who were sailing around the [...]
A gold cup from northern Italy (ca. 1800 BC) is like Bronze Age gold cups from Germany and England and may show that there was trading going on all across Bronze [...]
Ur was an early city-state. This is the Standard of Ur, from West Asia (2000 BC) What is a city-state? A city-state is like a very small country, with just [...]
History of cats: Sumerian clay head of a cat (Iraq, ca. 3000-2000 BC) Evolution of cats Wildcats first evolved from earlier mammals in Europe during the late Tertiary period, about [...]
Fresco painting from Thera, Greece (about 1600 BC) Why are they called frescos? Fresco is the Italian word for "fresh", and that's because painters do fresco painting on fresh, wet plaster [...]
What is bronze? this is the bronze head of an Akkadian king (ca. 2300 BC) What is bronze? Copper and tin Bronze smiths make bronze by melting two different metals [...]
