Exhibits

A cast copper alloy brooch of the La Tène Celtic tradition, ca. 600 BCE, displaying the fluid curvilinear ornament that characterises Iron Age Celtic art across Europe — a supreme example of pre-Roman European metalwork.

A cast copper alloy round box brooch with selectively applied silver foil from the Viking Age, Norway, 1000–1100 CE — the type of personal ornament worn by Viking women to fasten their layered linen and wool garments.

A moulded earthenware tile with cobalt painting on opaque white glaze, powdered with gold under a transparent glaze — from Andalusia (Muslim Spain) in the second half of the 15th century. A rare survival of Nasrid-period architectural tilework.

A large pressure-flaked obsidian blade from the Mexica (Aztec) tradition, Central Mexico, 13th–16th century CE — among the most technically demanding stone tools ever produced, with an edge sharper than modern surgical steel.

A carved jadeite bird pendant from the Maya Classic period, 300–700 CE — among the most precious objects in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, where jade surpassed gold in value and sacred significance.

A hammered silver and gold-alloy miniature camelid (llama) figurine of the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu), 1400–1535 CE — among the most sacred objects of the Inca state religion, buried as capacocha offerings at high-altitude mountain shrines.

A carved Māori hei-tiki pendant in nephrite pounamu (New Zealand greenstone), with shell inlaid eyes, 19th century — the most sacred object of Māori culture, accumulating the mana (spiritual power) of all who wore it across generations.

A Maya ceramic whistling vessel from the Early Classic period, 400–500 CE, producing a resonant tone when liquid is poured — used in ritual contexts to call upon spirits and deities. One of the most ingenious forms of pre-Columbian ceramic art.

From 1861 to 1865, the United States fought the bloodiest conflict in its history, a war that killed 620,000 soldiers and ended with the abolition of slavery and the question of what kind of nation America would be.

Fought between 1914 and 1918 across three continents, the First World War killed 20 million people and dismantled four empires, replacing the 19th-century world order with one that no one had wanted or planned.

Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazi regime systematically murdered six million Jewish people alongside millions of Roma, disabled people, and others, in the most documented genocide in human history.

On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 80,000 people instantly and inaugurating the nuclear age that continues to shape our world.