Ah Prehistoric Aagean And Ancient Greece

Front 1

fresco

Back 1

Painting on lime plaster, either dry or wet.

Front 2

citadel

Back 2

A fortress protecting a town, sometimes incorporating a castle.

Front 3

megaron

Back 3

The large reception hall and throne room in a Mycenaean palace, fronted by an open, two columned porch.

Front 4

cyclopean masonry

Back 4

A method of stone construction, named after the mystical Cyclopes, using massive, irregular blocks without mortar, characteristic of the Bronze Age fortifications of Tiryns and other Mycenaean sites.

Front 5

corbeled arch

Back 5

An arch formed by the piling of stone blocks in horizontal courses, cantilevered inward until the blocks meet at a keystone.

Front 6

relieving triangle

Back 6

In Mycenaean architecture, the triangular opening above the lintel that serves to lighten the weight to be carried by the lintel itself.

Front 7

tholos

Back 7

A temple with a circular plan.

Front 8

Archaic smile

Back 8

The smile that appears on all Archaic Greek statues, from about 570 BCE to 480 BCE. The smile is the Archaic sculptures way of indicating that the person portrayed is alive.

Front 9

cult statue

Back 9

The statue of a deity that stood in the cella of an ancient temple.

Front 10

Doric order

Back 10

One of the two systems invented in Ancient Greece for articulating the three units of the elevation of a classical building. Characterized by capitals with funnel-shaped echinuses, columns without bases.

Front 11

Ionic order

Back 11

One of the two systems invented in ancient Greece for articulating the three units of the elevation of a classical building. Characterized by volutes, capitals, columns with bases, and uninterrupted frieze.

Front 12

black-figure painting

Back 12

In early Greek pottery, the silhouetting of dark figures against a light background of natural, reddish clay, with linear details incised through the silhouetts

Front 13

red-figure painting

Back 13

In later Greek pottery, the silhouetting of red figures against a black background with painted linear details.

Front 14

kore (woman)

Back 14

An Archaic Greek statue of a young woman.

Front 15

kouros (man)

Back 15

An Archaic Greek statue of a young man.

Front 16

contrapposto

Back 16

The disposition of the human figure in which one part is turned in opposite to another part, creating a counter-positioning of the body about its central axis.

Front 17

lost-wax method

Back 17

A bronze casting method in which a figure is modeled in wax and covered with clay; the whole is fired, melting away the wax and hardening the clay, which then becomes a mold for molten metal.

Front 18

cella

Back 18

The chamber at the center of an ancient temple.

Front 19

Geometric Period

Back 19

The style of Greek art during the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, characterized by abstract geometric ornament and schematic figures.

Front 20

Archaic Period

Back 20

The artistic style of 600-480 BCE in Greece, characterized in part by the use of the composite view for painted and relief figures and of Egyptian stances for statues.

Front 21

Classical Period

Back 21

The art and culture of Ancient Greece between 480 and 323 BCE

Front 22

Hellenistic Period

Back 22

The term given to the art and culture of the roughly three centuries between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and the death of Queen Cleopatra in 30 BCE when Egypt became a royal province.

Front 23

sack of Athens (480 BCE)

Back 23

The defeat of the Persian invaders of Greece by the Hellenic city-states.

Front 24

defeat of Persians (479 BCE)

Back 24

The Greeks won a decisive naval victory over the Persians at Salamis.

Front 25

Delian League

Back 25

An association of Greek city-states, members numbering between 150 to 173, under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece.