‘Shared stories’ brings Eurasia’s interwoven civilisations to life at Humayun’s Tomb Museum

Borders may divide the modern world, but history tells a deeper story. “Shared stories: An art journey across civilisations beyond boundaries”, an ongoing exhibition at Humayun’s Tomb Museum in New Delhi, reveals how cultures across Eurasia were shaped not by isolation, but by centuries of movement, exchange and mutual influence.

Open to the public until May 30, 2026, the exhibition invites visitors to trace a vast, interconnected cultural landscape that stretches from the Mediterranean to East Asia.

Presented by the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre in New Delhi in collaboration with MUCIV-Museo delle Civiltà, Rome; the Aga Khan Trust for Culture; Centrale Montemartini; and Museo Barracco, the exhibition is curated by archaeologist Laura Giuliano and conceived by Andrea Anastasio, director, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, New Delhi.

Drawing from the rich Asian collections of the Museo delle Civiltà, “Shared stories” brings together over 120 artefacts from 20 countries, spanning more than two millennia, from the centuries before the Common Era to the 19th century.

Delving into the central idea behind the exhibition, Anastasio said ancient Eurasia was defined by circulation rather than separation.

From the Silk Road, Spice Route and Golden Road to the bustling caravan emporia, merchants, monks, diplomats and artisans exchanged not only goods but also ideas, beliefs and visual languages.

“The exhibition is not about who invented a motif first,” he said. “But about how widely shared these forms were, how they travelled, and how each culture reshaped them with new meanings.”

This philosophy is visible throughout the exhibition: bowls, tiles, textiles, architectural fragments, sculptures and paintings reveal striking similarities in iconography across distant geographies.

Birds appear repeatedly — kissing, back-to-back, holding pearls, ribbons or snakes — in objects ranging from Roman floor mosaics and Seljuk ceramics to Indian temple architecture.

These recurring motifs, Anastasio said, reflected the deep and enduring human impulse to use animals as symbolic carriers of meaning across both sacred and everyday spaces.

Mythological creatures such as griffins, sphinxes, winged horses and bi-corporate lions form another visual thread linking Mesopotamia, the Greco-Roman world, Gandhara, Iran, China and Japan.

Displayed side by side, artefacts from vastly different regions reveal how these powerful symbols retained their narrative force even as styles, materials and scales changed — from intimate household objects to monumental architectural elements.

One of the exhibition’s most fascinating sections focuses on the motif of the ‘three hares’.

Arranged in a circular rotation and sharing their ears, the hares create the illusion of completeness through interconnection. Originating in Asian cosmological traditions, the motif travelled from Central Asia to China, Iran and the Near East, eventually reaching medieval Europe via the Islamic world.

In Asia, the hare was associated with the moon, immortality and spiritual renewal, a link found in Indian astronomy, Buddhist texts and Taoist symbolism.

In Europe, the motif likely acquired new interpretations within Christian contexts.

Its remarkable consistency between the 7th and 15th centuries highlights the resilience of shared visual ideas across cultures.

Another narrative traces the journey of polo — from the Central Asian steppes and Persian courts to India, East Asia and, eventually, the West.

More than a sport, polo emerges as a symbol of aristocratic culture, military training and literary metaphor. Persian poetry, for instance, used the game to reflect on fate, love and mortality, underscoring how customs travelled alongside ideas.

Afghanistan occupies a central place in “Shared stories”, presented as a historical crossroads of Eurasia.

Artefacts from Ghazni and the Swat Valley reveal cultural continuity across the Shahi and Ghaznavid periods, even amid political and religious change. Gandharan reliefs further demonstrate how Greek, Iranian and Indian traditions merged to create a cosmopolitan artistic language in Buddhist contexts, where classical deities were reimagined and Brahmanical figures appeared as companions of Buddha.

The exhibition also challenges conventional hierarchies of art by highlighting the importance of scale, material and reproduction. From cast moulds to small domestic objects, the exhibition shows how visual culture functioned as a form of early popular art — widespread, accessible and embedded in both private and public life.

Ultimately, “Shared stories” offers more than an art historical survey — it presents a vision of the past as a shared human experience, shaped by dialogue, adaptation and exchange.

In doing so, it invites visitors to reflect on how deeply interconnected our histories are — and how these ancient conversations continue to shape the present.