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MesopotamiaIshtar Gate: Which Animals Appear, and Why?
Bulls for Adad, dragons for Marduk, lions for Ishtar: which god each animal served, and why.
MesopotamiaLamassu of Khorsabad: The Five-Leg Illusion Explained
From the front it stands still, from the side it walks: why Assyrian gate guardians have five legs.
MesopotamiaThe Stele of Hammurabi: What It Says and Shows
A god, a king and 282 laws on one block of basalt: what the stele says and what it shows.
MesopotamiaWhat Is a Ziggurat? The Stepped Base of a Temple
A solid stepped tower with a god's house on top: what a ziggurat was, and what it was not.
MesopotamiaZiggurat of Ur: What Makes It Unique?
Three stairways, a fired-brick skin and 4,000 years of repairs: what sets the Ziggurat of Ur apart.
PrehistorySu Nuraxi di Barumini: How to Read Sardinia’s UNESCO Nuraghe
A grassy hill until 1949, now a UNESCO site: how to read Sardinia's best-known nuraghe on a visit.
PrehistoryNuraghi of Sardinia: Bronze Age Towers Explained
About 7,000 Bronze Age towers of dry stone, on one island: how nuraghi were built and what they were for.
PrehistoryPrehistoric Materials: Stone, Bone, Wood, Clay and Pigment
Wood, earth, reed, bone and ochre: what prehistoric people built and made with, and why repairs mattered.
PrehistoryMegaliths Explained: Menhirs, Dolmens and Stone Circles
Menhirs, dolmens and stone circles: what each one is, how they were raised and where to see them.
PrehistoryPrehistoric Dwellings: How the First Homes Were Built
Huts, pit houses, longhouses and a stone village a storm uncovered: how the first homes were built.
PrehistoryPrehistoric Architecture: From Shelters to Monuments
From notched logs half a million years old to Stonehenge: how prehistoric people learned to build.
PrehistoryVenus of Willendorf: What We Know and What We Guess
Eleven centimetres of stone probably from Lake Garda, carved about 30,000 years ago: what we know about it.
PrehistoryHand Stencils: How Prehistoric People Made Them, and Why
A hand pressed to the rock and pigment blown around it: how stencils were made, whose hands they were.
PrehistoryPrehistoric Sculpture: What the First Figurines Tell Us
Ivory lions, limestone women, clay animals that exploded in the fire: the first sculptures and how to read them.
PrehistoryPrehistoric Symbols: What Do Hands, Dots and Grids Mean?
Hands, dots, grids and spirals repeat across the world's rock art. How to read them without inventing a code.
PrehistoryPetroglyphs vs Pictographs: How to Tell Them Apart
Carved into the rock or painted onto it? The side-light test, and what each kind tells you.
PrehistoryHow Was Rock Art Made? Pigments, Tools and Light
Ochre, charcoal, a breath of pigment and a flickering lamp: how prehistoric painters made images in the dark.
Prehistory