Antique Works of Art from Benin, West Africa: Black Heritage Library Collection

Gung-ho explorers of the age of discovery blasted, pillaged and hoarded antiquities from around the world. With the British Museum still controversially holding many of the world's ancient relics, including the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles, issues of repatriation are hotly debated.

Lord Byron and Percy Shelley were two of the greatest British poets of their time, but both died abroad - one of them whilst fighting for Greece independence. Was it only the Greco-Roman liberal attitude towards homosexuality that attracted them, or a deeper sense of culture and adventure?

A revolutionary style for a revolutionary time: as the 'Heretic Pharaoh' Akhenaten tried to implement his will of monotheistic worship to one god - the 'universal creator of life' Aten - he need an equally radical sea-change in art and architecture to match.