art unit one

Apollo 11 Stones

25,500 - 25,300 BCE | Windhoek, Namibia | Charcoal on Stone

Content:

• Animal or composite animal

Context:

• Some of the world’s oldest works of art, found in Wonderwerk Cave in

• Namibia.

• Several stone fragments found.

• Originally brought to the site from elsewhere.

• Cave is the site of 100,000 years of human activity.

Great Hall of the Bulls

15,000 - 13,000 BCE | Lascaux, France | Rock painting

Content:

• 650 paintings: most common animals are cows, bulls, horses, and deer.

• Natural pigments: charcoal, iron ore, plants.

• Walls were scraped to an even surface

• paint colors bounded with animal fat

• lamps lighted the interior of the caves.

• No brushes have been found —> mats of moss or hair as brushes / Color blown onto the surface by mouth or through a tube, like a hollow bone.

Context:

• Evidence of scaffolding

• Negative handprints —> signatures?

• Caves were not dwellings —> people sought shelter in caves

Function theories:

• Painted to ensure a successful hunt

• Ancestral animal worship

• Represents narrative elements in stories or stories or legends.

• Shamanism

Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine

14,000–7000 B.C.E. | Texquixquiac, Central Mexico | Bone

Content:

• Sacrum resembles a canine skull

• Natural form transformed into another form

Context:

• Sacrum seen as a “second skull” → possible spiritual significance (function)

Found in Valley of Mexico (1870)

Running horned woman

6000-4000 BCE | Tassilli n’Ajjer, Algeria | Pigment on rock

Content:

• suggests attendance at a ritual ceremony

• Dots may reflect body paint applied for ritual or scarification

• white patterns in symmetrical lines may reflect raffia garments

Context:

• More than 15,000 drawings and engravings were found at this site.

• At one time the area was grasslands; climate changes

• The entire site was probably painted by many different groups over large expanses of time

Beaker with Ibex motifs

4200-3500 BCE | Susa, Iran | painted terra cotta

content:

• aquatic birds on top —> a flock of birds wading in a Mesopotamian river valley?

• stylized running dogs —> perhaps hunting dogs?

• Ibex with oversized abstract and stylized horns.

Context:

• Potters wheel or handmade

• thin pottery walls

Function theory:

• In middle of horns: lan symbol of family ownership or identifies the deceased as belonging to a particular group or family.

• Found near a burial site, but not with human remains.

• Found with hundreds of other items: basket, bowls, and metallic items

Anthropomorphic stele

4th Millennium | Arabian Peninsula | Sandstone

Content:

• Bears human resemblance with belted robes, weapons, and double cord awl.

Context:

• Earliest known works from arabia

• Found in an area with extensive trade routes

Function:

• Religious or burial purpose, perhaps a grave marker

Jade Cong

3300-2200 BCE | Liangzhu, China | Jade

Content:

• Jade is a hard stone —> possibly made by rubbing quartzite sand / heated to soften or ritually burned as a part of the burial process

Context:

• Jade appears with people of high rank

• Shows signs of intentional burning in burial sites

• Jade —> durability, subtlety, beauty

Function theory:

• Interlocking square (earth) and cylindrical forms (spirit/sky), which are believed to symbolize different realms.

Ambum Stone

1500 BCE | Enga Provinve, Papua New Guinea | Graywacke stone

Content:

• Human/anteater figure

Function Theory:

• Masked human

• Anteater embryo in fetal position (anteaters thought as significant because of fat deposits)

• Motor and pestle or tool making

• Ritual purpose, fertility symbol

• Embodiment of a spirt, ancestral spirit or rainbow serpent

Tlatilco Female Figure

1200-900 BCE | Central Mexico, Site of Tlatilco | Ceramic

Content:

• Made by hand, no molds

• Tlatilco, known for pottery

Function Theory:

• Shamanistic function

• Conjoined/siamese twins or stillborn children

• Bifacial and congenital defects —> duality

• Found in graves, maybe funerary purpose

Terra cotta fragment

1000 BCE | Lapita, Reef Islands, Solomon Islands | Incised terra cotta

Content:

• Pacific art is characterized by the use of curved stamped patterns: dots,

  circles, hatching; may have been inspired by patterns on tattoos.

  • some designs found on the pottery are used in

    modern Polynesian tattoos and tapas.

• One of the oldest human faces in Oceanic art

Context:

• Lapita culture of the Solomon Islands is known for pottery.

• dentate stamping: used a comb-like tool to stamp designs onto the

  clay

• No wheel, incised and used white coral lime