Best 2nd Century Bce
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The Nike of Samothrace is a marble Hellenistic sculpture dating to the 2nd century BC, depicting the Greek goddess of victory standing on the prow of a ship. Created to commemorate a naval victory, the statue is celebrated for its dramatic, wind-swept drapery and forward-leaning, dynamic pose. It wa...
The Mawangdui Han Silk Texts are a collection of 2nd-century BCE Chinese manuscripts discovered in 1973 in Tomb No. 3 at Mawangdui, Hunan. Written on silk, they contain early versions of classic philosophical works like the Dao De Jing, alongside historical, astronomical, and medical documents. They...
The Jade Burial Suit of Liu Sheng is a Han dynasty funerary garment excavated from the tomb of Prince Liu Sheng in Hebei province, China. Constructed during the 2nd century BCE, the suit consists of 2,498 jade plaques connected by 1.1 kilograms of gold wire. In ancient Chinese burial practices, jade...
The Great Isaiah Scroll is one of a collection of ancient Jewish religious texts discovered at Qumran in the Dead Sea region. Written entirely in Hebrew, it contains the complete Book of Isaiah dating back to the 2nd century BCE. These scrolls represent an unparalleled window into Second Temple Juda...
The Temple Scroll is the longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, surviving in a manuscript approximately eight metres long that was recovered from Cave 11 near Qumran. Written in Hebrew on thin animal skin, it presents laws concerning ritual purity, sacrifices, festivals, kingship, and an idealized Temple...
The Community Rule is an ancient Jewish sectarian text preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls and commonly identified by the manuscript designation 1QS. Found in Cave 1 near Qumran, it is also known as the Rule of the Community or Manual of Discipline. Its Hebrew text sets out admission procedures, co...
The Nash Papyrus is a small Hebrew manuscript fragment from ancient Egypt, generally dated to the second or first century BCE. Its text combines a version of the Ten Commandments with the Shema prayer from Deuteronomy, apparently for devotional or instructional use rather than as part of a complete...
Mawangdui is an archaeological site located in Changsha, Hunan Province, China, consisting of three tombs from the Western Han dynasty. Excavated between 1972 and 1974, the site dates to the 2nd century BCE and housed the remains of Li Cang, the Marquis of Dai, his wife Lady Xin Zhui, and another fa...
The Iguvine Tablets are seven bronze tablets discovered at Iguvium, the ancient city corresponding to modern Gubbio in central Italy. They preserve lengthy ritual regulations of the local priestly brotherhood in the Umbrian language, written partly in an indigenous Italic alphabet and partly in the...
The Piacenza Liver is a 2nd-century BCE Etruscan bronze model of a sheep liver inscribed with deity names, utilized by priests in Italy to teach and practice haruspicy divination.
