Facade of the “Porcelain House”, built by Chinese collector Zhang Lianzhi, on November 1, 2008 in the Heping district of Tianjin, China. Over 400 million porcelain fragments, 5,000 ancient vases, 4,000 antique china dishes and bowls, over 20 tons of crystalline rocks and agate, 400 white marble stone carvings were incorporated in the five year refurbishment of the unique French styled house. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Male is the capital and most populous city in the Republic of Maldives. The city is geographically located at the southern edge of North Malé Atoll (Kaafu Atoll). Administratively, it is a city-class constituency and is governed by the Malé City Council. Traditionally it was the King's Island, from where the ancient Maldive Royal dynasties ruled and where the palace was located. The city was then called “Mahal”. Formerly it was a walled city surrounded by fortifications and gates (doroshi).

A large Mantle or Desk Clock featuring a fossil ammonite at its center, carved from the South American wood Keolbra with radiating Walnut spines. The clock hangs on a round, Plexiglass back supported by a wood base (Bubinga). The clockworks is a quartz, high-torque movement that runs on a single AA battery.

Shuichi Mizoguchi is the forerunner of Japanese digital graphic art. He is known for his fantastic Japanese feminine beauty imagery. SHU can get the best of his talent to use various colors freely and uniquely to create fantastic imagery of ancient scenery, robots on top of the Japanese feminine beauty. His imagery has been captivated by Japanese young and middle class generations.

A monkey is being fed by a foreign tourist during the annual Monkey Banquet at Phra Prang Sam Yod ancient temple in Lopburi, some 180km from Bangkok, central Thailand, 24 November 2024. The annual gala has been organized since 1989 by Lopburi's entrepreneur Yongyuth Kitwatananusont, offering all-you-can-eat fruits, vegetables, and desserts for monkeys to honor the long-tailed macaques to attract tourists to visit the town to promote tourism. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA)

A cat looks on near the Victory Pillar at the ruins of the Serapeum of Alexandria, an ancient Greek temple dating to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (246 BC – 391 AD) dedicated to the city's protector deity Serapis, in Egypt's northern coastal city of Alexandria on November 24, 2023. The giant Corinthian column, commonly misidentified as “Pompey's Pillar”, is a Roman triumphal column set up in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian (298–302 AD), and originally supported a colossal porphyry statue of the emperor in armour. (Photo by Amir Makar/AFP Photo)

A photo made available on 14 March 2016 shows a Thai villager takes selfie photograph on drought parched land at the dried up Mae Chang reservoir in Lampang province, northern Thailand, 12 March 2016. The ruined village including ancient temple had been underwater for 34 years since the Mae Chang reservoir was built in 1982, the area has now re-emerged after water in the reservoir dried up caused by the severe drought. Thailand is facing the worst drought in decades hardest hit by El Nino phenomenon combined with seasonal hot weather. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA)

This handout photo taken and released on August 1, 2025 by Indonesia's Geological Agency shows Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki spewing lava and volcanic ash up to approximately 10 kilometres high during its eruption as observed from the monitoring post in East Flores, in East Nusa Tenggara province. A volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted on August 1, belching an ash tower 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) into the sky, the country's volcanology agency said, weeks after another huge eruption triggered dozens of flight cancellations to and from Bali. (Photo by Indonesia's Geological Agency/AFP Photo)