Objects, manuscripts, monuments

What the sources
actually say.

Explore seven distinct pieces or categories of ancient evidence and learn how historical claims are evaluated.

Etruscan

The Piacenza Liver

The Piacenza bronze liver is divided into labeled regions, providing rare material evidence of Etruscan divinatory classification.

Roman

Rome's cult of Vesta illustrates how sacred space, priestly office and civic continuity could be joined.

Greek

Delphi illustrates the institutional and geographical importance of a sanctuary in Greek religion.

Egyptian

Egyptian funerary imagery presents the weighing of the heart as a powerful account of judgment and the afterlife.

Norse

Viking-Age hammer-shaped pendants provide material evidence of a symbol associated with Thor.

Mesopotamian

Cuneiform texts preserve changing relationships among divine names, cities and religious traditions.

Persian

Achaemenid royal inscriptions offer direct evidence of the ways Persian kings invoked Ahura Mazda.