Ancient Mesopotamia, a region that mainly corresponds to modern-day Iraq, has a record of human activity dating back nearly fifteen thousand years. Writing was invented in Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth millennium BCE, and urbanization reached...

From about 2000 BCE onward, Egypt served as an important nexus for cultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean, importing and exporting not just wares but also new artistic techniques and styles. Egyptian, Greek, and Roman craftsmen imitated one a...

This volume accompanies a major international loan exhibition featuring some three hundred works of art rarely or never before seen in the United States. It traces the development of gold working and other luxury arts in the Americas from antiquity u...