The top photograph shows the mummified remains of the 15-year-old Inca child, known as the "Llullaillaco Maiden," who was sacrificed with two other children, a boy of seven years old, shown in the photograph below, and a six-year-old girl, whose mummy had been struck by lightning and was charred. The children had walked or been brought to the top of Mt. Llullaillco, in northern Argentina, elevation 22,000 feet (6706 meters), a volcano near the Chilean border today. According to archaeologists and cultural historians, the children were victims of a sacrificial ritual called capacocha. The children were chosen for their beauty and possibly nobility, honored by their selection, and well-fed and cared for before their ritual deaths. According to Inca beliefs, such children were to serve as guardians over their villages from the heights of the mountains, joining the ancestors and honored in death. Before their deaths, they had participated in ceremonies at Cuzco, possibly walking hundreds of miles. They were taken to the top of Mt. Llullaillaco. Their deaths may have been painless, as they were given chicha, a strong alcoholic beverage made from maize. The older girl had pieces of coca leaves on her mouth. They would have fallen asleep from intoxication before they were placed in burial niches where they froze to death in the thin air.

The children wore shoes or slippers as well as colorful clothing elaborately decorated with metal, bone, and cords. The children were not wrapped into bundles, but loosely wrapped in shawls. They sat cross-legged or crouched as they would have fallen asleep. The older girl’s face, which showed red ochre markings, was creased from the place it rested on her shawl. The girl’s long hair was plaited into fine braids that are still fully intact. Among the artifacts placed with them were figurines donning headdresses decorated with colorful bird feathers.

According to Vedic philosophy, the life span of each person is divided into four stages, or ashrams. The word ashram means "shelter," referring to the protective nature of these phases against the turmoil of life. These stages are Brahmacharya, Grahasta, Vanaprastha and Sanyasa, each of which has a specific purpose and guidelines defined in the Vedas, and are intended to order the lives of male members of the highest three castes.

The ashram called Brahmacharya is the stage of the celibate student. Entry into this phase involved initiation, which was prescribed for Brahmins (priestly caste) between age 5 and 16, for the Kshatriyas (warrior caste) between age 6 and 22, and for the Vaisyas (merchant caste) between age 8 and 24. Failing to undergo initiation during these age spans would mean loss of caste, or social status.

The Brahmacharya stage was a rigorous time of learning, when the high-caste boy was expected to acquire both religious knowledge and a craft or trade. A boy would wear the sacred cord around his chest to signify that he had entered Brahmacharya, and he would live in the teacher's house, serving him and treating him with utmost respect. In return, the boy's development was the responsibility of the guru. The student was to remain celibate so as not to be distracted from study. Among the goals of learning during this stage, memorization of Vedic texts was a priority, but archery, astrology, music, martial arts, and music were included. This selection is from a text that may date to the 5th century B.C.E. that prescribes proper behavior during each life stage.

The photographs depict a Hindu cremation site, or burning ghat, in the city of Calcutta in 1944. The first photo shows the men of the family, including the deceased's sons, seated in front of the corpse, which lies shrouded and bedecked with flowers on a bier. The child sitting on one of the men's laps at the head is the youngest son, a child of no more than 4-6 years old. The photographer, U.S. airman Robert Keagle, stated that it was the duty of the youngest to light his father's funeral pyre. In the first photo the boy is wearing a shirt and some form of waist covering. In the second photo, the boy's head has been freshly shaven and he wears a white loin cloth. The photographer's annotation states that the turbanned man assisting the young child is his grandfather. The photographs are two in a series of over a half-dozen photographs taken on the same occasion by three different servicemen. This fact requires the viewer to imagine what is outside the camera's viewfinder; at least three foreign servicemen in uniform are snapping pictures of the same solemn scene, which appears to proceed as if no outsiders were present. Further, the photographer's annotation states, “Family assembles for photo with deceased relative before cremation at burning ghat.” The presence of the foreigners may have added a very untraditional element to the ritual occasion. We do not know whether the family received a print of the photos. These U.S. servicemen were stationed in South and Southeast Asia during World War II, were reconnaissance photographers for the military who often accompanied one another on photo excursions among civilians, and had access to darkroom facilities. Keagle stated that the prints were shipped home to the United States as personal possessions of the photographer.

The hadith, or narrated report, reflects the Islamic custom of sacrificing a sheep upon the birth of a child, sharing the meat with extended family members, and donating some of it as charity (sadaqa). This practice of the people of Madinah mentioned in Al-Muwatta is based on the precedent of Muhammad in establishing the custom as an Islamically appropriate one. Several aspects of the hadith and the interpretation are noteworthy: the sacrifice was made for both boys and girls, the animal must be a healthy and sound one, and the pagan custom of smearing blood on the child is deemed un-Islamic. This may refer to a pre-islamic custom, like denying this ceremony to a girl child. Part of the aqiqa ceremony is naming the child and cutting its hair (or shaving the baby's head) and weighing the hair so as to give an equal amount of silver as charity.

Al-Muwatta is among the earliest written compendia of legal interpretations based on the two pre-eminent sources of Islamic knowledge, the Qur'an, or scripture, and the hadith, or reports of the sayings and deeds of Muhammad. Al-Muwatta, compiled and edited by Malik ibn Anas (c. 711 – 795 CE), means "well-trodden path" for its authoritative documentation of legal opinion and practices in Madinah, the city where Islam was established. The hadith covers both religious duties and social practices such as contracts, family matters, civil and commercial matters, and customs.

Italian noblewomen presented soft, absorbent, linen towels with indigo woven borders to birthing mothers during the 14th century and later. The cultural context of the towels is illustrated in Italian paintings of the period depicting childbirth customs such as presentation and use of the towels. For example, this fresco by Paolo di Giovanni Fei, Birth of the Virgin Mary (1380) displays several uses for the towels. Women used these soft, fringed cloths as head coverings, tablecloths, and for wrapping household items. The towels were originally imported from Egypt, a center for linen and indigo dye production and weaving. Weavers finished the white body of the towels with fringe and woven border designs featuring Arabic inscriptions called tiraz. Tiraz bands alternated with geometric, plant, or animal designs. Like other luxury textiles from the East, imported Egyptian towels were copied by Italian weavers, eventually becoming a specialty of Perugia and other weaving centers. In place of the tiraz, pseudo-Arabic and then Latin lettering with Christian motifs appeared in the European border designs.

This public building of Mamluk Cairo in Egypt has two functions. Its lower level housed a sabil, or fountain, for dispensing water to thirsty travelers and denizens of the city, and its upper level was a public primary school for the teaching of Qur'an, called a kuttab. Kuttab schools taught basic literacy skills such as arithmetic and grammar along with recitation of the Qur'an needed to perform Islamic prayers. The building was open to air and light on three façades. The sabil featured copper grillwork windows through which cups of water could be passed by an attendant inside, or passers-by could enter the cool interior with decorative tiles.

Pupils entered the building and climbed a stone stairway to the kuttab. They entered the rectangular schoolroom to sit on woven mats while the teacher likely sat on the raised platform that surrounded the room on three sides. A balcony projects slightly over the street, shaded by a large wooden awning. Delicate, turned-wooden pillars form 15 arches connected by balustrades and carved wooden screens called mashrabiyya. Clay water jugs cooled the drinking water in the breeze created by the mashrabiyya, a typical Middle Eastern architectural feature. The schoolroom walls were open to the street but screened from the sun and activity, making it an inviting, pleasant place to learn. Passers-by could take pleasure in hearing the children recite the Qu'an in unison. The construction of this significant building in 1748 CE is credited to Abd al-Rahman Katkhuda, Overseer of Awqaf (Charitable Endowments), who was associated with many Cairo monuments of the period.

This panel painting represents an innovation in the history of western European painting and a moment in religious iconography: depiction of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus in Byzantine icons was traditionally symbolic. In the past, the figures were not humanized, but represented the qualities of divine beings and episodes in sacred history. This painting from the late 13th century by Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsega, in contrast, expresses the emotions of love and tenderness between mother and child. The infant Jesus returns the Madonna's placid but intense gaze. The painter depicted Jesus in a life-like, natural pose with his toes touching his mother's hand, one foot slightly raised as he reaches up to play with the folds of his mother's veil, almost touching her cheek. The artist retained many of the features of iconographic painting, including the use of gold background, the basic composition of the two figures, but added a humanizing element. Although the figure of the Christ child in this panel is more playful than in previous artistic depictions, his physique is still more that of a middle-aged man than a baby. This typical representation of children also donning adult clothing is what led to the widespread assumption that childhood as a separate stage of life did not exist. However, recent research that draws upon a wide range of primary sources—iconography, archaeology, letters, romances, pedagogical texts, miracle accounts, and law codes—reveals that children were regarded as vulnerable and in need of special protection. Examinations of the everyday lives of children demonstrate, for example, that orphans were protected from abuse by medieval laws and that sick children received different medical treatments than adults.

In 1847, at the height of Rosas's power, 19-year-old Camila O'Gorman, the daughter of a prominent merchant in the Buenos Aires community, and Ladislao Gutiérrez, a young Catholic priest, fell in love. On December 12, 1847, they eloped and fled the city. As reports surfaced about the actions of Camila and Ladislao, Adolfo penned the following letter to Juan Manuel de Rosas as a plea for his daughter's life. Adolfo portrayed his daughter not as an accomplice or an active participant in the elopement but as a passive young girl who was seduced by Ladislao.

Camilla's father, Adolfo O'Gorman y Perichón Vandeuil, has often been portrayed as a cruel and overbearing patriarch. María Luísa Bemberg's movie Camila (1984) perpetuated that image. However, modern scholars have re-evaluated his actions, seeing in this letter his effort to save his daughter's reputation, as well as his own. The patriarch's letter to Rosas was not the only request to spare Camila. Antonio Reyes, the prison warden, listened to her confession and advised her as she appealed for clemency. Even Manuelita Rosas, the dictator's daughter, reportedly made a plea to her father. All of these efforts failed, however, and Camila and Ladislao were executed on August 18, 1848.