History Of World Art Chapters 1&2

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Paleolithic age

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A cultural period during the stone age around 2-2.5 million years ago. It was marked by tools made from chipped stone.

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Neolithic revolution

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The Neolithic Revolution was a fundamental change in the way people lived. The shift from hunting & gathering to agriculture led to permanent settlements, the establishment of social classes, and the eventual rise of civilizations. The Neolithic Revolution is a major turning point in human history.

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Prehistory

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a time period before written records

Front 4

freestanding sculptures

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One that is clear of buildings or structures. Mount Rushmore is not free standing. The figure on the front of an older boat is not free standing. The statues of saints or historical figures on the front of buildings, often in niches can be removable, but by their position, they are not free standing. A frieze or something like the decorations on the doors that Rodin was working on in making the Thinker are not free standing. Most of the statues we think of as statues are free standing.

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relief sculpture

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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane.

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post and lintel construction

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In architecture, post and lintel (also called prop and lintel or a trabeated system) is a building system where strong horizontal elements are held up by strong vertical elements with large spaces between them. This is usually used to hold up a roof, creating a largely open space beneath, for whatever use the building is designed for. The horizontal elements are called by a variety of names including lintel, header, architrave or beam, and the supporting vertical elements may be calledcolumns, pillars, or posts. The use of wider elements at the top of the post, called capitals, to help spread the load, is common to many traditions.

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megalithic architecture

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Stonehenge, Wiltshire, United Kingdom, is one of the world's best known megalithic structures. A megalithis a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones.

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cuneiform

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denoting or relating to the wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit, surviving mainly impressed on clay tablets.

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ziggurat

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a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple. Ziggurats are first attested in the late 3rd millennium BC and probably inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9).

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hieratic scale

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The hieratic scale is a system used to visually communicate power in Egyptian, as well as the art of other cultures, including the ancient Near East and in medieval European art, for example. Significant or important individuals, such as pharaohs, were depicted as being much larger than any figures in a scene.

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heraldic symmetry

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also called bilateral symmetry, the composition on one side appears reflected onto the opposing side by a virtual straight plane (griffins in Throne Room at Palace of Knossos of the Bronze Age of Minoan art, side of Palate of Narmer with two serpopards from the Old Kingdom)

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lion-headed figure

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Lion-man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel is a very early prehistoric sculpture that was discovered in theHohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave in 1939. The lion-headed figurine, alternately called (by its German names) Löwenmensch (lion-human) and Löwenfrau (lion-woman), is an ivory sculpture that is both the oldest known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world, and the oldest known uncontested example of figurative art.

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cave wall painting

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Cave paintings (also known as "parietal art") are painted drawings on cave walls or ceilings, mainly of prehistoric origin, to some 40,000 years ago (around 38,000 BCE) in both Asia and Europe. The exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings is not known. Evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. They are also often located in areas of caves that are not easily accessible. Some theories hold that cave paintings may have been a way of communicating with others, while other theories ascribe a religious or ceremonial purpose to them. The paintings are remarkably similar around the world, with animals being common subjects that give the most impressive images. Humans mainly appear as images of hands, mostly hand stencils made by blowing pigment on a hand held to the wall.

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newgrange

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Newgrange (Irish: Sí an Bhrú)[1] is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located eight kilometers west of Droghedaon the north side of the River Boyne.[2] It was built during the Neolithic period around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehengeand the Egyptian pyramids.[3] The site consists of a large circular mound with a stone passageway and interior chambers. The mound has a retaining wall at the front and is ringed by engraved kerbstones. There is no agreement about what the site was used for, but it has been speculated that it had religious significance – it is aligned with the rising sun and its light floods the chamber on the winter solstice. It is the most famous monument within the Neolithic Brú na Bóinne complex, alongside the similar passage tomb mounds of Knowth and Dowth, and as such is a part of the Brú na Bóinne UNESCO World Heritage Site. Newgrange also shares many similarities with other Neolithic constructions in Western Europe, such as Maeshowe in Orkney, Scotland[4] and the Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales.

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stonehenge

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tonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, 2 miles (3 km) west of Amesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north ofSalisbury. Stonehenge's ring of standing stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithicand Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds

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mesopotamia

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as an ancient region in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to today’s Iraq, mostly, but also parts of modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The 'two rivers' of the name referred to the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and the land was known as 'Al-Jazirah' (the island) by the Arabs referencing what Egyptologist J.H. Breasted would later call the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian civilization began.

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tigris & euphrates rivers

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The Tigris and Euphrates, with their tributaries, form a major river system in Western Asia. From sources in the Taurus mountains of eastern Turkey they flow by/through Syria through Iraq into the Persian Gulf.[5] The system is part of thePalearctic Tigris–Euphrates ecoregion, which includes Iraq and parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait andJordan.

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Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia

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Places across

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votive figures

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The votive statues are of various sizes and usually carved in gypsum or limestone. They depict men wearing fringed or tufted fleece skirts, and women wearing fringed or tufted dresses draped over one shoulder.

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great Lyre with bull's head

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q

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stela of naramsin

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The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin is a stele that dates to approximately 2254-2218 BC, in the time of the Akkadian Empire. The relief measures six feet in height and was carved in pink limestone. It depicts the King Naram-Sin of Akkad leading the Akkadian army to victory over the mountain people, the Lullubi. It shows a narrative of the King crossing the steep slopes into enemy territory; on the left are the ordered imperial forces keeping in rank while marching over the disordered defenders that lay broken and defeated. Naram-Sin in shown as by far the most important figure; he is shown towering over his enemy and troops and all eyes gaze up toward him. The weak and chaotic opposing forces are shown being thrown from atop the mountainside, impaled by spears, fleeing and begging Naram-Sin for mercy as well as being trampled underfoot by Naram-Sin himself. This is supposed to convey their uncivilized and barbaric nature making the conquest justified.[1]

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nanna ziggurat

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temple looking structure

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gudea

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face statue of Gudea was a ruler of the state of Lagash in Southern Mesopotamia who ruled c. 2144–2124 BC. He probably did not come from the city, but had married Ninalla, daughter of the ruler Urbaba of Lagash, thus gaining entrance to the royal house of Lagash.

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stele of hammurabi

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codefication for hammurabi's rules for his people they were engraved on a black basalt slab

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lamassu

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an Assyrian protective deity, often depicted as having a human's head, a body of an ox or a lion, and bird's wings.

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assyrian relief sculptures

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sculptures about Assyrian events

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ishtar gate

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was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon.( It was constructed in about 575 BCE by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city. It was excavated in the early 20th century and a reconstruction using original bricks is now shown in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin.