Artifacts

In 1855 (the year of this daguerreotype), rocking horses symbolized middle-class affluence. Today, hand-carved horses are largely for the wealthy.

Happy Trails

As freshly carved toys or treasured heirlooms, well-bred rocking horses ride high in the affections of kids and collectors alike

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Unearthing Athens' Underworld

Throughout the decade-long construction of the city's new metro, archaeologists have found a trove of treasures

The eye-catching cigarette packages in Johnson's collection served as advertisements as well as containers, testaments to legions of company artists. English Craven A's, American One-Elevens and Scottish Cuba Blends are from the first half of the 20th century.

Pack Rat

First Virgil Johnson gave up smoking. Then he gave up his breathtaking collection of tobacco-nalia

One of the most striking arrays of Neolithic monuments in Britain, the Ring of Brodgar is on the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. Dating from about 2500 B.C., the ring's stones form a perfect circle 340 feet in diameter. (The tallest of the surviving stones is 14 feet high.) A ditch surrounding the ring, dug out of bedrock, is 33 feet wide and 11 feet deep. Archaeologist Colin Renfrew, who partially excavated the site in 1973, estimates the ditch would have required 80,000 man-hours to dig.

Romancing the Stones

Who built the great megaliths and stone circles of Great Britain, and why? Researchers continue to puzzle and marvel over these age-old questions

Archaeology at Largo di Torre Argentina, Rome

Downtown Digs

One step ahead of bulldozers, Urban archaeologists pull historic treasures from America's cityscapes

George Gustav Heye

A Passionate Collector

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The Man Who Invented Elsie, the Borden Cow

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Moving Down the Line

It's pulled and jimmied, tied and lifted —but the 20-ton Jupiter engine finally reaches its new home

The complete duplicating outfit including Edison's electric pen

A Wizard's Scribe

Before the phonograph and lightbulb, the electric pen helped spell the future for Thomas Edison

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Turn-of-the-Century Views

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The Object at Hand

A bejeweled box from a sorely beset emperor leads to a Yankee dentist, and how he rescued the beautiful empress Eugénie from a Paris mob

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Rising From the Sea, the Mysterious Handwork of Giants

On the tiny Mediterranean islands of Malta, massive megaliths constitute a singular treasure: the oldest freestanding stone monuments

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Around the Mall & Beyond

Protecting museum treasures - paintings by the masters, the delicate wings of a tropical beetle - requires the strictest climate control, right?

Arthurian knight

A Pilgrim's Search for Relics of the Once and Future King

Ancient stones and much-loved stories yield both hints and guesses about Arthur and his Camelot

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The Dying Tecumseh and the Birth of a Legend

A sculpture in the Smithsonian collection reveals much about how the Indians of the West were viewed in the early ages of the United States

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