Cool stuff from history

A Viking era ring inscribed with the words 'for Allah', found in the grave of a woman who was buried 1200 years ago in Birka, 25 km west of modern-day Stockholm. The ring constitutes a unique material evidence of direct contact between the Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate [2000x1357]

A 2000-year-old Roman silver dagger, that was discovered by an archeology intern in 2019 in Germany, before and after nine months of careful restoration work [2154x2011]

X-ray scans of Carreño de Miranda's 1681 portrait of the King Charles II of Spain reveal that the artist painted over an earlier portrait of the King when he was much younger [1200x1145]

A very well preserved 3,000-year-old bronze sword was recently discovered in the southern Bavarian town of Nördlingen in Germany [1136x1704]

Head of a man with tight, curly hair. Egypt, 2nd century BC [1110x1380]

A gun hidden within a bible, made for Francesco Morozini, Doge of Venice (1619-1694). The owner of the bible could pull the silk bookmark to shoot while the book was still closed. Now on display at the Museo Correr in Venice [811x705]

Robe and Axe of Giovanni Battista Bugatti, who was the official executioner for the Papal States from 1796 to 1864. During his tenure he executed 514 people [540x853]

A cabin on board the Aachen, a 19th-century steamship hit by a torpedo in July 1915. Now located at the bottom of the Baltic Sea [2250x1500]

Head of Dionysus, the god of wine, have been uncovered in an archaeological dig in the ancient city of Aizanoi, Turkey [1120x840]

Detail of the Hercules armor of the Emperor Maximilian II of Austria. Made in 1555, it's now on display at the Kunsthistorisches museum in Vienna [1500 x 1174]

"You used to always say to me, 'Let’s live together until our hair turns white and die on the same day.' So how could you go ahead and leave me behind?" Letter by a woman to her deceased husband, discovered in the man's grave along with a lock of her hair. Korea, 1586. [1024x621]

The 3800-year-old Princess of Xiaohe discovered in China. She's one of the Tarim mummies who, because of their Caucasian body features, were thought to be migrants from West Asia, but a new research revealed that they were actually direct descendants of a local Ice Age population [1920x2150]

Les Saltimbanques - painting by Gustave Doré depicting family of street performers mourning their child who is critically wounded after an accident during tightrope walking, France, 1874 [1172x1432]

Joseph Ducreux (1735-1802) a French painter famous for his unorthodox self portraits [2099x1802]