Ancient World
Hyksos in Egypt: Foreign Kings of the Second Intermediate Period
A dynasty of West Asian origin ruled northern Egypt for about a century before being driven out by the Theban kings around 1550 BC.
Era · c. 3000 BC – AD 500
Ancient World
The first cities, empires and written records, from the pyramids of Egypt to Greece and the Roman Empire.
Ancient World
Hattusa: Capital of the Hittite Empire in Central Anatolia
Seat of the Hittite kings for some 450 years; its archives of about 30,000 tablets made the rediscovery of Hittite history possible.
Ancient World
Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa: Babylonian Astronomy and Dating
A record of Venus's appearances that underpins the competing high, middle and low chronologies of the ancient Near East.
Ancient World
Edwin Smith Papyrus: Ancient Egypt's Surgical Textbook
A practical manual of 48 cases of injuries that is the oldest known surgical text and an early example of systematic medical observation.
Ancient World
Grave Circle A and the Mask of Agamemnon (c. 1600 BC) at Mycenae
Six shaft graves of an early Mycenaean elite were found packed with gold, revealing the wealth of Greece's first Bronze Age rulers centuries before the age of Agamemnon.
Ancient World
Nebra Sky Disc: Bronze Age Europe's Map of the Heavens
Recovered in a police sting in 2002, the disc is now in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle and on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
Ancient World
Akrotiri (c. 1600 BC): The Bronze Age Town Buried by Thera
A prosperous Cycladic town preserved under volcanic ash, revealing multi-storey houses and some of the finest wall paintings of the Aegean Bronze Age.
Ancient World
Minoan Eruption of Thera (c. 1600 BC): Santorini's Great Blast
The island of Thera was buried in pumice and ash, its caldera enlarged and the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri entombed; Minoan Crete was affected but survived.
Ancient World
Olmec Civilization: Rise of Mesoamerica's First Great Culture
The Olmec created the first great art style, monumental centres and elite networks of Mesoamerica, influencing the Maya, Zapotec and later cultures.
Ancient World
Zhengzhou Shang City: An Early Bronze Age Capital in China
The largest known city of the early Shang period, it shows the scale of royal power and bronze production before the move to Anyang.
Ancient World
Hittite Sack of Babylon (1595 BC): End of Hammurabi's Dynasty
Babylon was plundered and the First Dynasty of Babylon ended; the Hittites withdrew and a Kassite dynasty later took control of the city.
Ancient World
Book of the Dead: Ancient Egyptian Spells for the Afterlife
The standard collection of funerary texts in Egypt for some 1,500 years, giving the best-known picture of Egyptian beliefs about judgement and the afterlife.