Ancient World
Hatshepsut: The Woman Who Ruled Egypt as Pharaoh
A female king of the 18th Dynasty whose peaceful, prosperous reign left major monuments, though her memory was later deliberately erased.
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
Unfinished Obelisk of Aswan: How Egyptians Quarried Obelisks
The giant obelisk cracked while still in the bedrock and was abandoned, leaving a unique record of ancient quarrying methods.
Ancient World
Hatshepsut's Expedition to Punt: Egypt's Great Trade Voyage
A successful trading voyage that brought myrrh trees, incense, ebony, ivory, gold and animals to Thebes, celebrated in the reliefs of Deir el-Bahari.
Ancient World
Battle of Megiddo (1457 BC): Thutmose III's Great Victory
Egyptian victory; after a siege of about seven months Megiddo surrendered and Egypt gained control of Canaan.
Ancient World
Tomb of Rekhmire: Vizier of Thutmose III and Daily Life Scenes
A richly painted tomb chapel that is a key source for Egyptian government, crafts and foreign contacts in the mid-18th Dynasty.
Ancient World
Cleopatra's Needles: Egyptian Obelisks in London and New York
Two ancient Egyptian obelisks, unrelated to Cleopatra, were re-erected in London in 1878 and New York in 1881, where they still stand.
Ancient World
Griffin Warrior Tomb (c. 1450 BC): Bronze Age Riches at Pylos
One of the richest intact Bronze Age graves found in Greece in decades, showing how early Mycenaean elites adopted Minoan art and ideas.
Ancient World
Linear B (c. 1450 BC): The Script That Revealed Mycenaean Greek
The decipherment showed that Linear B records the oldest known form of Greek, pushing written Greek back some five centuries before Homer.
Ancient World
Jebel Barkal: The Sacred Mountain and Temples of Napata
Jebel Barkal became the chief sanctuary of Amun in Nubia and the place where the kings of Kush claimed divine authority to rule.
Ancient World
Battle of the Ten Kings: The Rigveda's Account of a Tribal War
Victory of Sudas and the Bharata tribe over a confederation of ten kings, strengthening the Bharatas in the Punjab.
Ancient World
Trundholm Sun Chariot: Bronze Age Sun Worship in Scandinavia
The chariot became the best-known object of the Nordic Bronze Age and the key evidence for a cult of the sun in prehistoric Scandinavia.
Ancient World
Ugarit: Bronze Age Port City and Its Cuneiform Alphabet
Ugarit was destroyed around 1185 BC and never reoccupied as a city, but its buried archives transformed the study of the ancient Levant.