Artifacts
The objects that carry the end: manuscripts, monuments, and images, with their holdings.
Aztec Sun Stone (Piedra del Sol)
Late post-Classic Mexica basalt monolith, 3.6 metres in diameter, 24.6 tonnes. The centre shows Tonatiuh with the earthquake glyph Ollin, surrounded by the glyphs of the four previous suns and the 20 day-signs. Not a working calendar: a statement that the cosmos is a series of endings.
Bundahishn Manuscript (Pahlavi Cosmogony)
Ninth-century CE Pahlavi manuscript of the Bundahishn (Primal Creation), the primary source for Zoroastrian cosmogony and the Frashokereti renovation. Contains the 3,000+3,000+3,000 year timeline, the three saviors, the molten metal river, and the final battle against Angra Mainyu.
Dürer's Apocalypse (The Four Horsemen)
Albrecht Dürer's Apocalypse with Pictures (1498), fifteen woodcuts illustrating the Book of Revelation, the Four Horsemen among them. The most influential visualisation of the Christian end in European art, printed in Latin and German editions simultaneously.
Genshin's Ōjōyōshū (Essentials of Rebirth)
Heian-period manuscript of Genshin's 985 CE treatise, written on the eve of Mappō's calculated start. The text systematises the Pure Land path for the Latter Day, visualisation of hells, the nembutsu as sole practice, the nine grades of rebirth in Amida's Pure Land.
Hopi Message to the United Nations (1992)
Official UN document submitted by the Hopi delegation, 10 December 1992. Thomas Banyacya, designated messenger since 1948, read the prophecy of the Great Purification to the General Assembly, the first indigenous apocalyptic warning formally entered into the UN record.
Rök Runestone (Ög 136)
Granite runestone raised c. 800 CE in Östergötland, Sweden. The longest known runic inscription (760 characters) mentions twelve war-gods, the wolf's feast, and a reckoning with the sun, one of the earliest written correlates of Norse end-times tradition.
The Flood Tablet (Gilgamesh Tablet XI, K.3375)
Neo-Assyrian clay tablet, seventh century BCE, from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, containing the flood story of Utnapishtim. The fragment that made George Smith famous in 1872 and opened the modern study of the flood tradition.