Cloister at Moissac (ca. 1100 AD, southern France) Where do cloisters come from? Cloisters were a medieval kind of building that developed out of Greek and then Roman peristyles. What is [...]
The Romanesque Abbaye aux Hommes, in Caen (about 1050 AD) Vikings settle in Caen Caen is a port town in north-western France, on the Atlantic Ocean. When the Vikings invaded France in the 700s AD, [...]
Early Japanese religion: Ujigami Shinto Shrine (Japan, 1300s AD) Where did the Shinto faith come from? The earliest people in Japan probably brought with them ancient religious ideas from Africa. [...]
Court attendants (Takamatsuzuka Tomb, ca. 600s AD) Now that Japan had declared independence from China, Empress Suiko and her successors built a new government for Japan. They wanted Japan's government to be just [...]
Takht-i Bahi, a Buddhist monastery in eastern Pakistan (about 50 AD) where Buddhist monks could study Holy men and women While Gautama Buddha was still alive, about 500 BC, he had many followers. [...]
Buddhism in India - Buddha Reincarnation and the wheel In the 500s BC, during the later part of the Vedic period in India, the idea of reincarnation became very strong among Hindus. Most people [...]
Silkworms and silk history Silkworms make silk People make silk from the cocoons of silkworms. Have you ever seen a butterfly cocoon? It is just like that. You have to [...]
Three Kingdoms architecture: Mogao Caves (366 AD and later) First Buddhist temples in China Beginning in 366 AD, people in China built the earliest Buddhist temples in China. These first Buddhist temples [...]
