AP Art History: Prehistoric, Near Eastern, and Ancient Egyptian Art

Vocabulary flashcards covering key prehistoric, ancient Near Eastern, and ancient Egyptian artworks, architectural structures, and art historical terminology.

Therianthrope

A creature possessing both human and animal characteristics, as seen in Paleolithic and Neolithic artworks.

Apollo 11 Stones

Paleolithic charcoal on stone slabs from Namibia (c. 25,000 BCE) depicting an imaginary therianthropic feline, representing the oldest work of art in the AP Art History image set.

Great Hall of Bulls

A Paleolithic rock painting in Lascaux, France (c. 15,000 BCE) depicting over one hundred large animals using natural wall contours, overlapping forms, and mineral pigments.

Camelid Sacrum in the Shape of a Canine

A Paleolithic bone carving from Tequixquiac, Mexico (c. 10,000 BCE) made from the fossilized pelvic bone of an extinct camelid family member, likely serving a shamanistic or ritualistic function.

Running Horned Woman

A Neolithic rock painting in Algeria (c. 5000 BCE) featuring a large female figure in twisted perspective with horns, body ornamentation, and surrounding smaller figures during a ritual dance or harvest ceremony.

Bushel (Beaker) with Ibex Motifs

A Neolithic painted terracotta vessel from Susa, Iran (c. 4000 BCE) featuring four registers decorated with stylized aquatic birds, running dogs, and a central ibex with geometric curved horns.

Anthropomorphic Stele

A Neolithic sandstone grave marker from the Arabian Peninsula (c. 3500 BCE) depicting a stylized warrior with geometric features, a necklace with a pointed tool, and a double-bladed dagger at the waist.

Jade Cong

A Neolithic carved jade object from Liangzhu, China (c. 3000 BCE) featuring a square external area representing earth surrounding a circular hollow tube representing heaven or sky.

Trilithon

A structure consisting of two upright vertical stones supporting a third horizontal stone across the top, as utilized in post-and-lintel construction at Stonehenge.

Stonehenge

A Neolithic sandstone structure in Wiltshire, UK (c. 2500 BCE) constructed in three phases over a thousand-year period using sarsen megaliths and imported bluestones aligned with summer and winter solstices.

The Ambum Stone

A Neolithic greywacke stone pestle from Papua New Guinea (c. 1500 BCE) carved into a composite creature with large eyes and curved appendages, likely depicting an echidna embryo or fruit bat.

Bicephalic

Having two heads, as illustrated in the Tlatilco female figurine to represent themes of duality.

Tlatilco Female Figurine

A Neolithic ceramic figurine from Central Mexico (c. 1000 BCE) characterized by a bifurcated face, two heads, three eyes, wide hips, and pinched waist symbolizing fertility and duality.

Terra Cotta Fragment (Lapita)

An incised red-slipped pottery potsherd from the Solomon Islands (c. 1000 BCE) featuring geometric stamped motifs and the earliest known anthropomorphic face in Lapita ceramic art.

White Temple and its Ziggurat

An ancient Sumerian whitewashed mud-brick temple complex in Uruk, Iraq (c. 3500 BCE) built atop a sloped raised platform and dedicated to the sky god Anu.

Statues of Votive Figures

Ancient Sumerian free-standing gypsum statues inlaid with shell and black limestone (c. 2500 BCE) placed in temples to act as perpetual praying surrogates for donors.

Standard of Ur

A Sumerian wooden box inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone (c. 2500 BCE) depicting horizontal registers of war and peace, social hierarchy, and royal banquets.

The Code of Hammurabi

A seven-foot-tall Babylonian basalt stele (c. 1750 BCE) featuring cuneiform text of nearly three hundred laws and a relief carving of King Hammurabi receiving authority from the sun god Shamash.

Lamassu

A colossal Assyrian alabaster guardian sculpture (c. 700 BCE) featuring a composite creature with a bearded man's head, a bull or lion body, bird wings, and five legs for viewing in front and profile.

Apadana (Audience Hall)

A massive hypostyle audience hall at Persepolis, Iran (c. 500 BCE) built by Darius I and Xerxes I, supported by over seventy columns and accessed by relief-decorated stairways.

Palette of King Narmer

A Predynastic Egyptian greywacke slab (c. 3000 BCE) carved with bas-relief registers celebrating the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under King Narmer.

Great Pyramids and Great Sphinx

An Old Kingdom Egyptian limestone necropolis complex in Giza (c. 2500 BCE) containing the royal tombs of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaura alongside the colossal Sphinx guardian.

Ka Statue

An ancient Egyptian statue designed as a physical vessel to house a portion of the deceased person's soul or spirit in the afterlife.

King Menkaura and Queen

An Old Kingdom Egyptian greywacke high-relief sculpture (c. 2500 BCE) displaying idealized, rigid figures stepping forward without negative space to demonstrate royal permanence and power.

Seated Scribe

An Old Kingdom Egyptian painted limestone statue (c. 2500 BCE) depicting a naturalistic high-ranking official with soft features holding a papyrus scroll, symbolizing the prestige of literacy.

Clerestory

A high section of wall that contains windows above eye level, used in the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak to illuminate the central aisle with dramatic natural light.

Temple of Amun-Re and Hypostyle Hall

A New Kingdom Egyptian pylon temple complex in Karnak (c. 1550 BCE) featuring a massive hypostyle hall with lotus and papyrus capital columns and a clerestory.

Kneeling Figure of Hatshepsut

A New Kingdom Egyptian red granite statue (c. 1450 BCE) portraying female pharaoh Hatshepsut in male royal regalia kneeling to present offering jars to the god Amun.

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

A New Kingdom terraced temple complex near Luxor (c. 1450 BCE) partially carved into a living rock cliff, axially planned to blend with the surrounding natural mountain landscape.

Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and Three Daughters

A New Kingdom Amarna Period limestone sunken relief (c. 1350 BCE) depicting an intimate domestic scene of the royal family under the rays of the sun disk god Aten.

Tutankhamun's Innermost Coffin

A New Kingdom Egyptian anthropomorphic container (c. 1300 BCE) crafted from two hundred pounds of solid gold with glass and semiprecious stone inlays to hold the pharaoh's mummy.

Last Judgment of Hu-Nefer

A New Kingdom Egyptian painted papyrus scroll (c. 1300 BCE) from a Book of the Dead depicting the continuous narrative of the scribe's soul being led through the Weighing of the Heart ritual before Osiris.