History of the World

Many objects have come to us from ancient times through
the rituals surrounding death. Our knowledge of the
ancient Egyptians, for example, would be much poorer
but for their habit of burying personal possessions with
the dead. The exquisite decoration and furnishing of
palaces and places of worship has been another rich source
of surviving artifacts. We are also beholden to the desire
of people to record the great events of their own time,
which has given us Trajan’s column in Rome and the
Norman Bayeux Tapestry. Some objects were created to
celebrate heroes or gods, like the statues of ancient Greece
and Rome. Some are exquisite craft work, such as Japanese
Samurai armor and the gold figurines of the West African
Asante. Others are famous puzzles, such as the Rosetta
Stone, which eventually allowed scholars to decipher
Egyptian hieroglyphs.