kyle kemp vocab 1

Agency:

The idea that an object possesses qualities that help to effect change.

Animism:

The belief that the forces of nature are inhabited by living spirits.

Anthropomorphism:

The practice of investing plants, animals, and natural phenomena with human form or attributes.

Cairn:

A fully enclosed burial chamber covered with earth.

Carving:

The act of cutting or incising stone, bone, wood, or other material into a desired form.

Civilization:

A culture that possesses the ability to organize itself thoroughly and communicates through written language.

Corbeling:

A method for creating walls and roofs by layering stones so that they project inward over the layer beneath.

Creation myth:

A story of a people's origin.

Cromlech:

A circle of megaliths, usually surrounding a dolmen or mound.

Culture:

The set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that governs or determines a common way of living formed by a group of people and passed on from one generation to the next.

Dolmen:

A type of prehistoric megalithic structure made of two posts supporting a horizontal capstone.

Emergence tale:

A type of narrative that explains beliefs about a people's origins.

Hominids:

The earliest upright mammals, including humans, apes, and other related forms.

Humanism:

the study of the human mind and its moral and ethical dimensions.

Hunter-gatherer:

One whose primary method of subsistence depends on hunting animals and gathering edible plants and other foodstuffs from nature.

Kiln:

An oven specifically designed to achieve the high temperatures necessary for firing clay.

Kiva:

A Pueblo ceremonial enclosure that is usually partly underground and serves as the center of village life.

Lintel:

A horizontal architectural element.

Megalith:

Literally, "big stone"; large, usually rough, stones used in a monument or structure.

Menhir:

A large, single, upright stone.

Modeling:

The use of shading in a two-dimensional representation to give a sense of roundness and volume.

Myth:

A story that a culture assumes is true. A myth also embodies the culture's views and beliefs about its world, often serving to explain otherwise mysterious natural phenomena.

Naturalism:

In art, representations that imitate the reality in appearance of natural objects.

Oral culture:

A culture that develops without writing and passes down stories, beliefs, values, and systems by word of mouth.

Perspectival drawing:

The use of techniques to show the relation of objects as they appear to the eye and to convey a sense of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface.

Post:

A piece fixed firmly in an upright position.

Post-and-lintel:

A form of construction consisting of two posts (upright members) that support a lintel (horizontal member).

Prehistoric:

Existing in or relating to the times before writing and recorded history.

Relief sculpture:

A three-dimensional work of art carved out of a flat background surface.

Ritual:

A rite or ceremony habitually practiced by a group, often in religious or quasi-religious context.

Sculpture-in-the-round:

A fully three-dimensional work of art.

Shaman:

A person thought to have special ability to communicate with the spirit world.

Trilithon:

A type of megalithic structure composed of three stones: two posts and a lintel; served in prehistory as the basic architectural unit.

City-states:

Governments based in urban centers of the Mesopotamian basin that controlled neighboring regions; also an independent self-governing city.

Composite:

Made up of distinct parts.

Cuneiform writing:

A writing system composed of wedgeshaped characters.

Cylinder seal:

An engraved piece of stone or other material used as a signature, confirmation of receipt, or identification of ownership.

Double entendre:

A word or expression that can be understood two ways, with one often having a sexual or risqué connotation.

Epic:

A long narrative poem in elevated language that follows characters of a high position through a series of adventures, often including a visit to the world of the dead.

Epithet:

A word or phrase that characterizes a person.

Fluting:

The vertical channels in a column shaft.

Ground line:

A baseline.

Hierarchy of scale:

A pictorial convention in which the most important figures are represented in a larger size than the others; see also social perspective.

Lost-wax casting:

A sculptural process in which a figure is modeled in wax and covered in plaster or clay; firing melts away the wax and hardens the plaster or clay, which then becomes a mold for molten metal.

Metallurgy:

The science of separating metals from their ores.

Metaphor:

A word or phrase used in place of another to suggest a likeness.

Monotheism:

Belief in a single god.

Monotheistic:

A religion that worships one god.

Narrative genre:

A class or category of story with a universal theme.

Narrative scene:

A scene that represents a story or event.

Obelisk:

A four-sided stone shaft topped by a pyramid-shaped block.

Patriarch:

A scriptural father of the Hebrew people.

Phonetic writing:

A writing system in which signs represent sounds.

Pictogram:

A picture that represents a thing or concept.

Priest-king:

In ancient Mesopotamia, a government leader who acted as an intermediary between gods and people and established laws.

Prophet:

One who serves as a mouthpiece for and interpreter of Yahweh's purposes, which is understood through visions.

Register:

A self-contained horizontal band.

Simile:

A comparison of two unlike things using the word like or as.

Social perspective:

A pictorial convention in which the most important figures are represented in a larger size than the others; see also hierarchy of scale.

Stele:

An upright stone slab carved with a commemorative design or inscription.

Stylus:

A writing tool.

Synoptic:

A view that depicts several consecutive actions at once.

Ziggurat:

A pyramidal temple structure consisting of successive platforms with outside staircases and a shrine at the top.