OpenGlyph — Catalogue of the American Public DomainJurisdiction: United StatesRev. 2026.08
Images / art

Two archives, queried live.

Every record below comes from The Met or Smithsonian Open Access and was filtered on that archive’s own rights field before it reached this page. 16 shown for “Ceremonial Ax” — 64 records examined, 36 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-28 13:20 UTC · fetched live for this request

Object
Public domainThe Met’s isPublicDomain field is true for this object.
CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian’s metadata_usage.access reads CC0 — a waiver, not an expired term.
Not shownAnything failing its archive’s rights field is dropped server-side and never appears here.
Ceremonial Ax

Ceremonial Ax

Artist not stated in the record · 13th–11th century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Fragment of a ceremonial axe

Fragment of a ceremonial axe

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1050-771 BCE

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ceremonial ax

Ceremonial ax

Artist not stated in the record

Public domainThe Met
Axe (fu 斧)

Axe (fu 斧)

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 2000-1700 BCE

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ceremonial Ax

Ceremonial Ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 500 BCE–300 CE

Public domainThe Met
Axe (fu 斧)

Axe (fu 斧)

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1600-1050 BCE

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ax

Ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1450–1500

Public domainThe Met
Axe-shaped ornament

Axe-shaped ornament

Artist not stated in the record · 1736-1795

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ceremonial Object in the Shape of an Ax

Ceremonial Object in the Shape of an Ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 100 BCE–300 CE

Public domainThe Met
Ceremonial ax

Ceremonial ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 500 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Ceremonial dagger-ax (Ge)

Ceremonial dagger-ax (Ge)

Artist not stated in the record · 13th–11th century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Crescent-Shaped Ax Head (Chandrasa)

Crescent-Shaped Ax Head (Chandrasa)

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 500 BCE–300 CE

Public domainThe Met
Ceremonial dagger-ax

Ceremonial dagger-ax

Artist not stated in the record

Public domainThe Met
Ceremonial dagger-ax?

Ceremonial dagger-ax?

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 500 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Ceremonial dagger-ax (Ge)

Ceremonial dagger-ax (Ge)

Artist not stated in the record · 13th–11th century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Pair of Dagger-Axes (Ge)

Pair of Dagger-Axes (Ge)

Artist not stated in the record · 4th–3rd century BCE

Public domainThe Met
What was queried

Where these records came from.

Two archives are wired, and only two. Each one is filtered on its own rights field — never on a title match, and never on the presence of an image file.

  • The Met Collection API (Open Access)Rights field: isPublicDomain. 49 matched · 24 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.12 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 16707 matched · 40 examined · 36 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.4 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-08-28 13:20 UTC, during this request. A completed pass is kept for 24 hours and replayed for an identical search, which is what keeps repeated queries inside Smithsonian’s 30-requests-per-hour allowance. A pass in which either archive failed to answer is never kept — an outage must not be replayed as though it were a finding about the catalogue.

Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress are deliberately not wired. Wikimedia was confirmed, on a live query, to return CC-BY material inside the same result set as genuine public domain works, and filtering it safely has not been designed yet. loc.gov was blocked by bot detection during the source evaluation, so its rights vocabulary has never been observed — and nothing here is built on a field nobody has read.

An image file is a rights claim. It never travels without its field.