Jinsha Site Museum. Dancing Figure. Date: Probably 12th—13th century. Tashilhunpo monastery Tibet founded in by the First Dalai Lama. Only monks remained.

Culture Art and Design. Image: Asian Civilisations Museum. Now smell this Your Penhaligon's or Diptyque diffusers don't have anything on this 18 th -century beauty. Not only is this incense burner an assembly of three different components, it's an embodiment of the early exchange of ideas and design favoured in Europe's Baroque and Rococo periods: The Chinese porcelain horse was made in the Kangxi reign in the s Qing dynasty, the incense compartment a joining of two Japanese lacquer bowls from the 18 th -century Edo period, while the gilded mounts that hold the structure up are made in France in the mid 18th-century. Treasure trove Every woman has that one box where she stores her little treasures and trinkets — be it jewellery, letters from former lovers or old ticket stubs. For the 16 th and 17 th century women of India, their prized possessions were likely found in this mother-of-pearl casket. The iridescent pink and blue hues cover its teak body, which is flanked with an embellished central plaque of floral motifs.

The extraordinary bronze pleasure devices have never been on public display before but feature in an exhibition called Tomb Treasures at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Rare pictures of the bronze pleasure devices have been released amid speculation they could have belonged to Chinese royals. Curator Zhang Fan said the two artifacts "could be worn and used" - and that they both illustrated an "almost modern appreciation for the body's needs and wants".

It was among the most significant Russian archaeological findings of the late 20th century. Natalia Polosmak and her team discovered the Ice Maiden during the summer of , when she was a senior research fellow at the Russian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk. It was Polosmak's fourth season working on the Ukok Plateau where the Institute was continuing its research into the early habitation of southern Siberia. The Ice Maiden was a representative of the Pazyryk culture that thrived between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC in the Siberian steppe. The plateau, part of the Eurasian Steppes, is characterized by a harsh, arid climate.