Antiquities Exhibits

Produced in around 150 BCE, this headdress from the Crimean Peninsula probably served as a burial object. It is composed of multiple separately crafted pieces: The lower part is dominated by a Hercules knot made up of garnet and gold elements. The ends on both sides are encased in sheaths made of gold plating to which the two half-arches of the diadem are attached by means of hinges. The half-arches are covered with a meshed scaly pattern made up of engraved leaf ornaments the edges of which are decorated with gold wires and beads. Inlaid garnets present a sensational play of colours. On the right and the left, the half-arches are finished off with decorative capsules with rich scrolled and cord trimmings. The front section of the headdress is decorated with tasselled pendants, all of which have the same structure: an array of rosette-studded discs, garnet pearls flanked with hemispheric flower bowls, and bundles of chains, to which gold beads and garnet, carnelian and white-banded sa...

Lycurgus was the quasi-legendary lawgiver of Sparta who established the military-oriented reformation of Spartan society in accordance with the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. All his reforms promoted the three Spartan virtues: equality (among citizens), military fitness, and austerity and were contained in an oral constitution known as the Great Rhetra. According to Herodotus, at some time before the reigns of Leon of Sparta and Agasicles about 590 BCE, the Spartans "had been the very worst governed people in Greece" until Lycurgus consulted the Delphic oracle and was provided with an entire constitution which Lycurgus took back and implemented. Lycurgus was the younger son of the Eurypontid king, Eunomus. He was thus passed over for the throne in favor of his brother, Polydectes, but the latter died. Although Lycurgus was offered the throne, his dead brother's wife was pregnant so Lycurgus became regent for the child when it was born. But Polydectes' wife and her rel...

The shape of this triple-necked oinochoe with globular belly is paralleled in a great number of other examples discovered in southern Etruria and the Faliscan region around Civita Castellana (Falerii Veteres). This oinochoe was probably made in this area in the early Orientalizing period, circa 710-670 BC. It was shaped by hand and is made of a heavy, unrefined clay that is quite a coarse brown in color. Standing on two feet wearing ankle boots, the belly is decorated with geometric motifs and figures scratched into the surface of the clay; this type of decoration is denoted 'incavo' in Italian. Meander patterns and elongated rectangles occupy the upper portion of this vessel. The lower part of the belly is decorated with four monsters or four horses with schematic human figures riding them or above them. The rest of the decoration consists of five catlike creatures with speckled fur and two large birds with spread wings. The geometric motifs fall within the decorative tradi...

The son of the first king of the Odrysian Kingdom,  Sitalces, proved to be a good military leader and built roads to develop trade and a powerful army.  In 429 BCE.  Sitalces allied himself with the Athenians and  the Greek alphabet was adopted as a new Thracian script.  Sitalces also organized a vast army from independent Thracian and Paeonian tribes that, according to Thucydides, included as many as 150,000 men to defend Thrace against the Macedonians, now led by the ambitious Philip II of Macedon.  But, Odrysian military strength was based on intra-tribal elites, making the kingdom prone to fragmentation and as a result of the intertribal unrest, the Odrysian kingdom split into three parts.  Philip II of Macedon then invaded and conquered much of Thrace. Some Odrysian kings and other Thracian tribes submitted and paid taxes at times during different periods to Philip II, Alexander the Great and Philip V. Two of the three kingdoms were forced in...

Ancient Thrace was a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. Today it comprises southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and the European part of Turkey (East Thrace). It's name was based on Greek mythology, derived from the heroine and sorceress Thrace, who was the daughter of Oceanus and Parthenope, and sister of Europa. Greek mythology also provided the Thracians with a mythical ancestor Thrax, the son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homer's Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas and Peiros. Later in the Iliad, Rhesus, another Thracian king, makes an appearance. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is also given as a Thracian king. In fact, Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus...

Ancient Rome and the Han Dynasty of China exchanged goods, not only over the famous Silk Road but by sea as well. Unfortunately, intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans, seeking to maintain lucrative control over the silk trade, initially inhibited direct contact between Rome and China. Although ancient Chinese geographers demonstrated a general knowledg e of West Asia and Rome's eastern provinces, Roman histories of the 1st century BCE offer only vague accounts of China and the silk-producing Seres people of the Far East. In classical sources, the problem of identifying references to ancient China is exacerbated by the interpretation of the Latin term Seres, whose meaning fluctuated and could refer to several Asian peoples in a wide arc from India over Central Asia to China. But, by the 1st-century CE, geographer Pomponius Mela asserted that the lands of the Seres formed the centre of the coast of an eastern ocean, flanked to the south by India and to the ...