Introduction: A history of looking -- Part 1: The body in question -- Prologue: Heads and bodies -- A singing statue -- Greek bodies -- The look of loss: from Greece to Rome -- The Emperor of China and the power of images -- Supersizing a pharaoh -- The Greek revolution -- The stain on the thigh -- The revolution's legacy -- The Olmec wrestler -- Part 2: The eye of faith -- Prologue: Sunrise at Angkor Wat -- Who's looking? "Cave art" at Ajanta -- Who or what was Jesus? -- Questions of vanity -- A living statue? -- The artfulness of Islam -- Bible stories -- The scars of battle -- Hindu images, Islamic idioms -- Faith in civilisation -- Afterword: Looking at civilisation