Back Home
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages

More results

Menu
  • Start here
    • Explore art
    • First things first
    • Tools for understanding art
    • Tools for understanding religion in art
    • Tools for understanding museums
    • For the very beginner
    • Close
  • Art histories
    • Prehistoric
      • Paleolithic
      • Neolithic
      • Close
    • Africa
      • East Africa
      • West Africa
      • North Africa
      • Southern Africa
      • Central Africa
      • Close
    • The Americas
      • North America to 1500
      • North America c. 1500 – 1900
      • South America to 1500
      • South America c. 1500 – 1900
      • Close
    • Asia
      • Hinduism and Buddhism: a beginner’s guide
      • China
      • Japan
      • Korea
      • India
      • Afghanistan
      • Southeast Asia
      • The Himalayas
      • Close
    • Ancient Mediterranean
      • Ancient Near East
      • Egyptian
      • Aegean
      • Greek
      • Nabataean
      • Etruscan
      • Roman
      • Palmyra
      • Close
    • Medieval Europe + Byzantine
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Christianity and art
      • Judaism and art
      • The medieval book
      • Early Christian
      • Byzantine
      • Carolingian
      • Ottonian
      • Romanesque
      • Gothic
      • The Crusades
      • Close
    • The Islamic World
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Early Period
      • Medieval Period
      • Later Period
      • Close
    • Europe 1300-1800
      • Italy: 14th century
      • Italy: 15th century
      • Italy: 16th century
      • Northern Europe: 15th century
      • Northern Europe: 16th century
      • Spain: 15th and 16th century
      • Reformation & Counter-Reformation
      • Baroque: 17th century
      • Rococo: early to mid 18th century
      • Neoclassicism: late 18th century
      • British: 18th century
      • Close
    • Europe 1800 – 1900
      • Romanticism
      • Early photography
      • Victorian Art
      • Realism
      • Second Empire
      • Impressionism
      • Post-Impressionism
      • Symbolism/Art Nouveau
      • The Peredvizhniki
      • Close
    • Oceania
      • Lapita people
      • Polynesia
      • Melanesia
      • Micronesia
      • Australia
      • Close
    • Modernisms 1900-1980
      • A beginner’s guide
      • Cubism + early abstraction
      • Dada + Surrealism
      • German art between the wars
      • Latin American Modernism
      • American art to World War II
      • Postwar American Art
      • Post Minimalism
      • Postwar Europe
      • Conceptual + Performance Art
      • Global vanguards
      • Architecture + design
      • Close
    • Global Cultures 1980 – now
      • Appropriation and ideological critique
      • Identity and the body
      • Banality and Kitsch
      • Ritual, spirituality, and transcendence
      • Histories, real and imagined
      • Close
    • Close
  • Themes + topics
    • Seeing America
    • ARCHES (At Risk Cultural Heritage Education Series)
    • Across cultures
    • Creating + conserving
    • For teachers
    • AP Art History
    • A-level Art History
    • Contribute an essay!
    • Smarthistory video creation guide
    • Close

Ancient Mediterranean

Browse this content
Ancient Near East
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Ancient Near East: Cradle of civilization
Cuneiform, an introduction
Writing Cuneiform
Cuneiform Tablets
Sumerian
Browse this content
Sumer, an introduction
White Temple and ziggurat, Uruk
Archaeological reconstructions
Warka Vase
Standing Male Worshipper (Tell Asmar)
Relief of Ur-Nanshe
Cylinder seals
Standard of Ur
Standard of Ur and the Royal Graves
Akkadian
Browse this content
Akkad, an introduction
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin
Cylinder seal with a modern impression
Neo-Sumerian/Ur III
Browse this content
Seated Gudea holding temple plan
Ziggurat of Ur
Babylonian
Browse this content
Babylonia, an introduction
Visiting Babylon
The Babylonian mind
Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi
The Ishtar Gate and Neo-Babylonian art
Towers of Babel
Kassite art: Unfinished Kudurru
Assyrian
Browse this content
Assyria, an introduction
Assyrian Sculpture
Lamassu from the citadel of Sargon II
Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions
Persian
Browse this content
Ancient Persia, an introduction
The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia
Capital of a column from the audience hall of the palace of Darius I, Susa
Persepolis: The Audience Hall of Darius and Xerxes
Ancient Egypt
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Ancient Egypt, an introduction
Ancient Egyptian art
Materials and techniques in ancient Egyptian art
The mummification process
Predynastic and Old Kingdom
Browse this content
Palette of King Narmer
The Great Pyramids of Giza
Pyramid of Khufu
Pyramid of Khafre and the Great Sphinx
Pyramid of Menkaure
King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen
The Seated Scribe
Middle and New Kingdom
Browse this content
Temple of Amun-Re and the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak
Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis
Standing Hippopotamus
Mortuary Temple and Statue of Hatshepsut
The tomb-chapel of Nebamun
Paintings from the Tomb-chapel of Nebamun
Bottle and toy: objects from daily life
House Altar depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Daughters
Portrait of Queen Tiye
Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti
Tutankhamun’s tomb (innermost coffin and death mask)
Head of Tutankhamun
Hunefer, Book of the Dead
Hunefer's Judgement in the presence of Osiris
Ptolemaic
Browse this content
Egyptian mummy portraits
Faiyum mummy portraits
The Rosetta Stone
Ancient Aegean
Browse this content
Cycladic
Browse this content
Male Harp Player from Keros
Akrotiri, Thera
Minoan
Browse this content
The Palace at Knossos (Crete)
Kamares Ware Jug
Snake Goddess
Bull's Head Rhyton
Harvester Vase
Octopus Vase
Palaikastro Kouros
Hagia Triada sarcophagus
Bull-leaping fresco
La Parisienne
Mycenaean
Browse this content
The "Palace" and Grave Circle A
Mask of Agamemnon
The Treasury of Atreus
Lion Gate
Ancient Greece
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Ancient Greece, an introduction
Introduction to ancient Greek art
Introduction to ancient Greek architecture
Greek architectural orders
Olympic games
Contrapposto
Pottery
Browse this content
Greek Vase-Painting, an introduction
Ancient Greek vase production and the black-figure technique
Making Greek vases
Dipylon Amphora
Terracotta Krater
Eleusis Amphora
Sophilos: a new direction in Greek pottery
Exekias, Attic black figure amphora with Ajax and Achilles playing a game
Exekias, Dionysos Kylix
Euphronios, Sarpedon Krater
Euthymides, Three Revelers
Niobid Krater
Daedalic and Archaic
Browse this content
Lady of Auxerre
Marble statue of a kouros (New York Kouros)
Anavysos Kouros
Peplos Kore
Ancient Greek Temples at Paestum
Sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi
Siphnian Treasury, Delphi
Early Classical
Browse this content
Pediments from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina
Kritios Boy
Contrapposto
Charioteer of Delphi
Artemision Zeus or Poseidon
Riace Warriors
Classical
Browse this content
Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)
Myron, Discobolus (Discus Thrower)
The Athenian Agora and the experiment in democracy
The Parthenon, Athens
Parthenon sculptures
Who owns the Parthenon sculptures?
Egyptian blue on the Parthenon sculptures
Plaque of the Ergastines
The Erechtheion
Caryatid and Ionic Column from the Erechtheion
Temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis
Nike Adjusting Her Sandal, Temple of Athena Nike, Acropolis, Athens
Grave stele of Hegeso
Late Classical
Browse this content
Capitoline Venus (copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos)
Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper)
Lysippos, Farnese Hercules
The Alexander Sarcophagus
Hellenistic
Browse this content
Barberini Faun
Dying Gaul and Ludovisi Gaul
Bronze statue of Eros sleeping
Nike (Winged Victory) of Samothrace
The Pergamon Altar
Apollonius, Boxer at Rest (or The Seated Boxer)
Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii
Athanadoros, Hagesandros, and Polydoros of Rhodes, Laocoön and his Sons
Nabataean
Browse this content
Petra: The rose red city of the Nabataeans
Petra: urban metropolis
Petra: rock-cut façades
Petra: UNESCO Siq Project
Etruscan
Browse this content
The Etruscans, an introduction
Bucchero
Temple of Minerva and the sculpture of Apollo (Veii)
Apulu (Apollo of Veii)
Sarcophagus of the Spouses (Louvre)
Sarcophagus of the Spouses (Rome)
Tomb of the Triclinium
The François Tomb
Tomb of the Reliefs
Chimera of Arezzo
Mars of Todi
Aule Metele (Arringatore)
Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia
Ancient Rome
Browse this content
A beginner's guide
Introduction to ancient Rome
Introduction to ancient Roman art
Ancient Rome (virtual reality tour)
Rome's history in four faces at The Met
Damnatio memoriae—Roman sanctions against memory
Digging through time
Pompeii, an introduction
The rediscovery of Pompeii and the other cities of Vesuvius
An introduction to ancient Roman architecture
Forum Romanum (The Roman Forum)
Imperial fora
Roman domestic architecture: domus
Roman domestic architecture: insula
Roman domestic architecture: villa
Roman funeral rituals and social status: The Amiternum tomb and the tomb of the Haterii
Looting, collecting, and exhibiting: the Bubon bronzes
Wall painting
Browse this content
Roman wall painting styles
Painted Garden, Villa of Livia
Still Life with Peaches
House of the Vettii
Villa of Mysteries
Republic
Browse this content
Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
Temple of Portunus
Maison Carrée
Capitoline She-wolf
Capitoline Brutus
Tomb of the Scipios and the sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus
Veristic male portrait
Head of a Roman Patrician
Early empire
Browse this content
Augustus of Primaporta
Ara Pacis
Gemma Augustea
Gem carving
Preparations for a Sacrifice
Portrait of Vespasian
The Colosseum
The Arch of Titus
The Spoils of Jerusalem, Arch of Titus
Shekel of the Second Jewish Revolt
Portrait Bust of a Flavian Woman
The Forum and Markets of Trajan
Column of Trajan
Middle empire
Browse this content
The Pantheon (Rome)
Bronze head from a statue of the Emperor Hadrian
A virtual tour of Hadrian's Villa
Hadrian: The imperial palace, Tivoli
Maritime Theatre at Hadrian's Villa
Pair of Centaurs Fighting Cats of Prey from Hadrian's Villa
Hadrian: Building the wall
Medea Sarcophagus
Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
The Lullingstone Busts
Severan marble plan (Forma Urbis Romae)
Battle of the Romans and Barbarians (Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus)
Late empire
Browse this content
Trebonianus Gallus — emperor or athlete? Rethinking a modern attribution.
Portraits of the Four Tetrarchs
Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine
The Colossus of Constantine
Arch of Constantine, Rome
Palmyra
Browse this content
Palmyra: the modern destruction of an ancient city
Temple of Bel
Palmyrene Funerary Portraiture
Temple of Baalshamin

Digging through time

by Dr. Darius Arya and Dr. Beth Harris
Cite this page as: Dr. Darius Arya and Dr. Beth Harris, "Digging through time," in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015, accessed October 21, 2018, https://smarthistory.org/digging-through-time-a-beginners-guide-to-ancient-rome/.

At Smarthistory, we’re on a mission to open museums and cultural sites up to the world. We’re creating world-class resources on art and cultural objects for learners from around the globe—for free.

  • Why Smarthistory matters
  • Contribute an essay
  • Content editors and contributors
  • Donate
  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Contact Us

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

· © 2018 Smarthistory · Designed by Press Customizr · Powered by ·