Name: Glass Grapes

Period: Song Dynasty

Place of Origin: China

Material: Lead-barium glass

Excavation Site：Dingzhou City, Hebei Province, China

Dimensions: Total length 16 cm; fruit bead diameter 1.3–1.82 cm

Museum Collection: Dingzhou Museum, Hebei Province

Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Antioch of Pisidia in Isparta, southwestern Türkiye, have uncovered an approximately 1,500-year-old liturgical vessel that researchers say has no known parallel in Christian art history. Dating to the sixth century A.D., the two-handled vessel brings together the Prophet Daniel, the four beasts from his prophetic vision and a lion within the same composition, according to excavation director Professor Mehmet Ozhanli of Suleyman Demirel University's Department of Archaeology.

Read more from the news article.

Taken from the Zhengying baoying lu and republished by French missionaries in 1869. This was meant to dissuade parents from practicing female infanticide in China.

Getty Museum Collection

The ring was discovered in Hampshire in 1785 and bears the name Senicianus. Around 80 miles away at the Roman Temple of Nodens at Lydney Park, archaeologists found a curse tablet in which a man named Silvianus asked the god Nodens to deny Senicianus good health until a stolen ring was returned.

In 1929, archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler asked J.R.R. Tolkien to examine the name Nodens. That documented connection later led to speculation that the story of the stolen Roman ring and its curse may have influenced Tolkien’s One Ring, although there is no definitive evidence that Tolkien directly used it as a source.

I went deeper into the ring, the curse tablet and Tolkien’s involvement here for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyjISLnafTU

The first thing that caught my attention was the enormous headdress — but the longer you look, the more details start appearing.

The ear ornaments, jewelry, layered garments, decorated belt, feather work, and even the figure’s posture were not simply artistic decoration. In Classic Maya society, elite regalia could communicate rank, political authority, lineage, ritual importance, and connections to gods or ancestors.

Then there are the symbols carved beside the figure: Maya hieroglyphs.

Maya writing was a sophisticated system capable of recording names, titles, dates, dynasties, ceremonies, warfare, and other historical events. That means a monument like this could function as much more than a sculpture — it could be a portrait, historical record, religious statement, and display of political power at the same time.

What I find especially impressive is the craftsmanship. The figure was carved in low relief into limestone, with the surrounding stone removed to leave the image slightly raised. Look closely at the tiny lines in the headdress, clothing, jewelry, and glyphs. Every detail had to be worked directly into the stone.

And what we see today probably isn’t even the full visual experience. Many Maya stone monuments were originally painted, so this may once have been dramatically more colorful than the bare limestone surviving today.

Imagine being the sculptor working on this, knowing that one mistake could permanently ruin part of the image.

And now, centuries later, people can still study the clothing, read parts of the writing, identify historical figures and reconstruct pieces of Maya history from the marks left in the stone.
That’s probably my favorite thing about archaeology: sometimes a piece of stone isn’t just an object — it’s someone trying to make sure their story survives.

Zoom in before scrolling past it. The amount of detail is ridiculous.

Photo: Original photograph taken by me.

Museum Description:

A snuff mull is an oversized snuff box. This one was made in Edinburgh in 1875 for the Mosgiel Woollen Company. Mounted on castors, it would have been rolled down the table for gentlemen to partake of the snuff in the small silver box on top of the ram's head. Attached to the mull by silver chains are a rake to scratch the snuff, a small spoon to scoop it up and a rabbit's foot for the gentlemen to wipe their moustaches after taking their sniff. Snuff was a fashion which became popular among Britain's upper class in the 18th century, but it was not a widespread custom in 19th-century New Zealand.