Art and artifacts

Paintings, sculptures and objects that changed what we know about the past.

3 stories

Black and red paintings of bulls and horses across a pale cave ceiling

No. 002 · Art and artifacts

Lascaux: The Teenagers Who Found Ice Age Paintings Under a Fallen Tree

In September 1940, four teenagers squeezed through a hole in a French hillside and found a cave covered with paintings of horses, bulls and deer, made around 17,000 years ago. Their discovery was so popular it nearly destroyed the cave.

5 min read

A pale, eroded marl outcrop in a desert ravine with dark cave openings cut into its face

No. 010 · Art and artifacts

The Dead Sea Scrolls: How Bedouin Shepherds Found the Oldest Bible Manuscripts

In the winter of 1946 to 1947, Bedouin shepherds climbed into a cave above the Dead Sea and found clay jars holding ancient scrolls. Over the next decade, eleven caves gave up the remains of some 900 manuscripts, including the oldest known copies of books of the Hebrew Bible.

5 min read

Visitors, including two schoolboys in blazers, look at a large dark inscribed stone set at an angle in a metal cradle behind a rail

No. 009 · Art and artifacts

The Rosetta Stone: How a Slab in a French Fort Unlocked Egypt's Hieroglyphs

In July 1799, French soldiers rebuilding a fort near Rashid pulled an inscribed stone out of a wall. It carried the same decree in three scripts, and it set off a 23-year race to read the writing of the pharaohs.

6 min read