Metal Plate from Ay Khanoum This spectacular metal plate, made in the Bactrian city of Ay Khanoum in the second century B.C.E., probably depicts the goddess Cybele being pulled in a chariot by lions with the sun-god above. Worship of Cybele, an earth-mother goddess, spread into Greece from the east, and was then spread by her Greek followers as they traveled and migrated.

(National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul/Pictures from History/Bridgeman Images)