The people of ancient Greece believed in the powers of a variety of gods.  This sculpture shows Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

In their Olympic Games, ancient Greeks celebrated the physical abilities of people. This vessel shows a young althete.

Greek gods were a lot like people. It was important to please them. This oil or wine vessel shows Poseidon, the god of the sea, driving a chariot.

The ancient Greeks believed that Zeus created the world.  Here we see him with an eagle in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other. 

This vessel shows Athena, the goddess of wisdom, driving her chariot.  If you zoom in, you can see that the horses are controlled both by the reins she holds and by the man standing in front of them with his hand on one horse's neck.

[Move your cursor over the image to zoom. Use the pop-up scale on the left to choose how close in you want to zoom. A highlighted square appears in a small, pop-up version of the image. Drag the square to the part of the image you want to see up close.]

Confucius (551-479 BCE), the Buddha, (563-483 BCE), and Lao Tse (c. 570-498 BCE) were great thinkers whose ideas greatly influenced Chiniese history and art.

In Taoist art, people do not conquer or control nature but live in harmony within it.

Can you find the two men and the building in this painting? You may need to zoom in to find them.

If you zoom in very close to this painting you can also see two men and a building. 

Chinese art often celebrates things in nature, like this swan with her baby riding on her back.

Or this branch with seed pods.