Ancient Mediterranean, 3500 BCE–300 CE

Each culture's beliefs and way of life shaped its art. You'll connect Mesopotamian temples and votive statues to Sumerian religion, Egypt's pyramids and tomb art to beliefs about the afterlife, and Greek and Roman works like the Athenian agora and the Pantheon to city life, politics and worship.

Ancient artists borrowed from their neighbors and from the past. The Anavysos Kouros, a statue of a standing young man, shows Egyptian influence on early Greek sculpture, Polykleitos's Doryphoros set a Greek ideal of proportion that Romans copied, and the Augustus of Prima Porta and the Colosseum show Rome adapting Greek forms for its own purposes.

Many ancient works were made to send a message to a particular audience. The Code of Hammurabi shows the king receiving authority from the god Shamash, Hatshepsut's temple and Tutankhamun's coffin served royal power and the afterlife, and works from Persepolis, Athens, Pompeii and Rome spoke to subjects, citizens and guests.

Some ancient works survive only in pieces, so scholars rebuild them from evidence. The Temple of Minerva at Veii is reconstructed from its foundations and the Roman writer Vitruvius's description of Etruscan temples, and its Apollo is sometimes linked to the workshop of Vulca, the only Etruscan sculptor named in ancient texts; the Winged Victory of Samothrace was found in fragments and is thought to have marked a naval victory.