Non-Western Art

Mandala Art: The Word Predates the Picture by Two Millennia

Mandala first named the ten books of the Rig Veda, not a drawing. The earliest pictorial mandalas are Tibetan, and monks still build them only to sweep them away.

Aztec Art: The Sun Stone and Headdress Nobody Can Explain

Archaeologists still disagree on what the Aztec Sun Stone's central face depicts, and Vienna's feather headdress may not be Moctezuma's, or even a headdress, at all.

Mayan Art: The Murals That Broke the 'Peaceful Maya' Myth

Bonampak's 1946 discovery ended scholarly certainty that the Classic Maya were peaceful. A tomb found under the murals in 2010 still has no confirmed occupant.

Aboriginal Art: The Mural a Government Crew Painted Over

The 1971 mural that launched the Western Desert art movement was revised twice for showing too much, then erased in 1974. A curator called it cultural vandalism.

Sand Painting: The Navajo Weaving That Broke a Sacred Rule

Navajo sandpaintings are meant to be destroyed after the ceremony. A medicine man wove one into a rug anyway, and other singers demanded he destroy it too.