Ink Before Dust
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Rise and Fall

How empires grew, peaked and fell.

  • 18th-century Cusco School portrait of Atahualpa, the fourteenth Inca, wearing a sun-disc headdress

    The Inca Empire

    Built the largest empire in the Americas in under a century, then fell to Pizarro amid a civil war and epidemic.

  • 19th-century engraving of Hannibal's army crossing the Rhône, with a war elephant on a raft

    Carthage

    Rome's great rival, from Hannibal's Alps crossing to the city's destruction in 146 BC.

  • Jacques-Louis David's painting of Napoleon on a rearing horse, crossing the Alps

    Napoleon's Empire

    From Corsican officer to master of much of Europe, undone after Russia in 1812.

  • Albrecht Dürer's portrait of Emperor Charlemagne, crowned, beside the imperial eagle and fleurs-de-lis

    The Holy Roman Empire

    Nearly a thousand-year patchwork of states, dissolved in 1806 under pressure from Napoleon.

  • Page of the Codex Mendoza showing an eagle on a cactus, the sign of Tenochtitlan

    The Aztec Empire

    Tenochtitlan's rise on a lake, and its fall in 1521.

  • Ravenna mosaic of Emperor Justinian I and his court

    The Byzantine Empire

    Rome's eastern half, which lasted nearly a thousand years after the West fell.

  • The Djinguereber Mosque, traditionally said to have been commissioned by Mansa Musa around 1327 and rebuilt many times since.

    The Mali Empire

    Mansa Musa's gold, Timbuktu, and the slow decline that followed.

  • Terracotta warrior from Pit 1 of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang

    Qin China

    The first emperor unified China, and his dynasty collapsed four years after he died.

  • Winged genie relief, palace of Ashurnasirpal II

    The Assyrian Empire

    One of the ancient world's first great military empires, and how quickly Nineveh fell in 612 BC.

  • 1868 engraving of the west front of Angkor Wat

    The Khmer Empire

    The builders of Angkor, and why the capital moved away from Angkor.

Also on the ballot

A battle and an era.

  • Hans Dahl's painting of Leif Erikson and his crew landing on a rocky shore

    The Viking Age

    Raiders and traders who reached North America, then settled down as kingdoms and dukedoms like Normandy.

  • Philip James de Loutherbourg's painting of burning ships at the defeat of the Spanish Armada

    The Spanish Armada

    How the 1588 invasion fleet failed against England and the weather.

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Image credits

  • The Inca Empire: Atahualpa, Fourteenth Inca (Cusco School, c. 1750–1800), Brooklyn Museum. Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • Carthage: Henri-Paul Motte, Hannibal's Army Crossing the Rhône (1878). Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • Napoleon's Empire: Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800–01), Malmaison. Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Holy Roman Empire: Albrecht Dürer, Emperor Charlemagne (1511–13), Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Aztec Empire: Codex Mendoza, fol. 2r: the founding of Tenochtitlan (c. 1541), Bodleian Library. Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Byzantine Empire: Mosaic of Emperor Justinian I and his court, San Vitale, Ravenna (c. 547). Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Mali Empire: The Djinguereber Mosque, traditionally said to have been commissioned by Mansa Musa around 1327 and rebuilt many times since. Photo: Edmond Fortier, Timbuktu (postcard, c. 1905–06). Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • Qin China: Terracotta warrior, Pit 1, Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, Lintong (late 3rd century BC). Photo: Gary Todd, CC0. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Assyrian Empire: Winged genie relief from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Nimrud (c. 883–859 BC), Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Levi Clancy, CC0. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Khmer Empire: Angkor Wat, west façade, engraving after John Thomson, Illustrated London News (1868). Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Viking Age: Hans Dahl, Leif Erikson Discovers America (undated). Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The Spanish Armada: Philip James de Loutherbourg, Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 8 August 1588 (1796), Royal Museums Greenwich. Public domain. Source on Wikimedia Commons.

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