AP Art History - Global Prehistory

Global Prehistory

Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine, from Tequixquiac, central Mexico, 14,000–7000 B.C.E., bone, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, Mexico

Materials

Bone sculpture from a camel-like animal.

The bone has been worked to create the image of a dog or wolf.

Content

Carved to represent a mammal’s skull.

One natural form used to take the shape of another.

The sacrum is the triangular bone at the base of a spine.

Context

Mesoamerican idea that a sacrum is a “second skull.”

The sacrum bone symbolizes the soul in some cultures, and for that reason it may have been chosen for this work.

History

Found in 1870 in the Valley of Mexico.

Anthropomorphic stele, Arabian Peninsula, 4th millennium B.C.E., sandstone, National Museum, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Form and Content

Anthropomorphic: resembling human form but not in itself human.

Belted robe from which hangs a double-bladed knife or sword.

Double cords stretch diagonally across body with an awl unifying them.

Function

Religious or burial purpose, perhaps as a grave marker.

Context

One of the earliest known works of art from Arabia.

Found in an area that had extensive ancient trade routes.

Jade cong from Liangzhu, China, c. 3300–2200 B.C.E., carved jade, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China

Form

Circular hole placed within a square.

Abstract designs; the main decoration is a face pattern, perhaps of spirits or deities.

Some have a haunting mask design in each of the four corners—with a bar-shaped mouth, raised oval eyes, sunken

round pupils, and two bands that might indicate a headdress—resembles the motif seen on Liangzhu jewelry.

Materials and Techniques

Jade is a very hard stone, sometimes carved using drills or saws.

The designs on congs may have been produced by rubbing sand.

The jades may have been heated to soften the stone, or ritually burned as part of the burial process.

Context

Jades appear in burials of people of high rank.

Jades are placed in burials around bodies; some are broken, and some show signs of intentional burning.

Jade religious objects are of various sizes and found in tombs, interred with the dead in elaborate rituals.

The Chinese linked jade with the virtues of durability, subtlety, and beauty.

Many of the earliest and most carefully finished examples (the result of months of laborious shaping by hand) are

comparatively compact.

Made in the Neolithic era in China.

Theory

Later works have these characteristics: rectilinear quality symbolizes the earth; central circular hole represents the

sky. It is not known if these characteristics apply to these earlier works as well.

The Ambum Stone from Ambum Valley, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea, c. 1500 B.C.E., graywacke, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Form

Composite human/animal figure; perhaps an anteater head and a human body.

Ridge line runs from nostrils, over the head, between the eyes, and between the shoulders.

Theories

Masked human.

Anteater embryo in a fetal position; anteaters thought of as significant because of their fat deposits.

May have been a pestle or related to tool making.

Perhaps had a ritual purpose; considered sacred; maybe a fertility symbol.

Maybe an embodiment of a spirit from the past, an ancestral spirit, or the Rainbow Serpent.

History

Stone Age work; artists used stone to carve stone.

Found in the Ambum Valley in Papua New Guinea.

When it was “found,” it was being used as a ritual object by the Enga people.

Sold to the Australian National Gallery.

Damaged in 2000 when it was on loan in France; it was dropped and smashed into three pieces and many shards;

it has since been restored.

Tlatilco female figurine, Central Mexico, site of Tlatilco, c. 1200–900 B.C.E., ceramic, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey

Form

Flipper-like arms, huge thighs, pronounced hips, narrow waists.

Unclothed except for jewelry; arms extending from body.

Diminished role of hands and feet.

Female figures show elaborate details of hairstyles, clothing, and body ornaments.

Technique

Made by hand; artists did not use molds.

Function

May have had a shamanistic function.

Context and Interpretation

Some show deformities, including a female figure with two noses, two mouths, and three eyes, perhaps signifying a

cluster of conjoined or Siamese twins and/or stillborn children.

Bifacial images and congenital defects may express duality.

Found in graves, and may have had a funerary context.

Tradition

Tlatilco, Mexico, an area noted for pottery.

Terra cotta fragment, Lapita, Reef Islands, Solomon Islands, 1000 B.C.E., incised terra cotta, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Form

Pacific art is characterized by the use of curved stamped patterns: dots, circles, hatching; may have been inspired

by patterns on tattoos.

One of the oldest human faces in Oceanic art.

Materials

Lapita culture of the Solomon Islands is known for pottery.

Outlined forms: they used a comb-like tool to stamp designs onto the clay, known as dentate stamping.

Technique

Did not use potter’s wheel.

After pot was incised, a white coral lime was often applied to the surface to make the patterns more pronounced.

Tradition

Continuous tradition: some designs found on the pottery are used in modern Polynesian tattoos and tapas.

Apollo 11 stones, c. 25,500–25,300 B.C.E., charcoal on stone, State Museum of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia

Form

Animal seen in profile, typical of prehistoric painting.

Perhaps a composite animal rather than a particular specimen.

Materials

Done with charcoal.

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.

History

Named after the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, the year the cave was discovered

Great Hall of the Bulls, Paleolithic Europe, 15,000–13,000 B.C.E., rock painting, Lascaux, France

Content

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

Form

Bodies seen in profile; frontal or diagonal view of horns, eyes, and hooves; some animals appear pregnant.

Twisted perspective: many horns appear more frontal than the bodies.

Many overlapping figures.

Materials

Natural products were used to make paint: charcoal, iron ore, plants.

Walls were scraped to an even surface; paint colors were bound with animal fat; lamps lighted the interior of the

caves.

No brushes have been found.

– May have used mats of moss or hair as brushes.

– Color could have been blown onto the surface by mouth or through a tube, like a hollow bone.

Context

Animals placed deep inside cave—some hundreds of feet from the entrance.

Evidence still visible of scaffolding erected to get to higher areas of the caves.

Negative handprints: are they signatures?

Caves were not dwellings, as prehistoric people led migratory lives following herds of animals; some evidence exists

that people did seek shelter at the mouths of caves.

Theories

A traditional view is that they were painted to ensure a successful hunt.

Ancestral animal worship.

Represents narrative elements in stories or stories or legends.

Shamanism: a religion based on the idea that the forces of nature can be contacted by intermediaries, called

shamans, who go into a trancelike state to reach another state of consciousness.

History

Discovered in 1940; opened to the public after World War II.

Closed to the public in 1963 because of damage from human contact.

Replica of the caves opened adjacent to the original.

Running horned woman, 6000–4000 B.C.E., pigment on rock, Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria

Form

Composite view of the body.

Many drawings exist—some are naturalistic, some are abstract.

The female horned figure suggests attendance at a ritual ceremony.

Content

Depicts livestock (cows, sheep, etc.); wildlife (giraffes, lions, etc.); humans (hunting, harvesting, etc.).

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 have turned it into a

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

Beaker with ibex motifs, Susa, Iran, 4200–3500 B.C.E., painted terra cotta, Louvre, Paris

Form and Content

Frieze of stylized aquatic birds on top, suggesting a flock of birds wading in a Mesopotamian river valley.

Below are stylized running dogs with long narrow bodies, perhaps hunting dogs.

The main scene shows an ibex with oversized abstract and stylized horns.

Materials and Techniques

Probably made on a potter’s wheel, a technological advance; some suggest instead that it was handmade.

Thin pottery walls.

Context and Interpretation

In the middle of the horns is a clan symbol of family ownership; perhaps the image 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 baskets, bowls, and metallic items.

Made in Susa, in southwestern Iran.

Stonehenge, c. 2500–1600 B.C.E., sandstone, Neolithic Europe, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Technique

Post-and-lintel building; lintels grooved in place by the mortise and tenon system of construction.

Large megaliths in the center are over 20 feet tall and form a horseshoe surrounding a central flat stone.

A ring of megaliths, originally all united by lintels, surrounds a central horseshoe.

Hundreds of smaller stones of unknown purpose were placed around the monument.

Builders did not have the wheel or pulleys. Stones may have been rolled on logs or on a sleigh greased with animal

fat to get them to the site.

Context

Some stones weigh more than 50 tons; the size of each stone reflects the intended permanence of the structure.

Some stones were imported from over 150 miles away, an indication that the stones must have had a special or

sacred significance.

History

Perhaps took 1,000 years to build; gradually redeveloped by succeeding generations.

Probably built in three phases:

– First Phase: circular ditch 36 feet deep and 360 feet in diameter containing 56 pits called Aubrey Holes, named

after John Aubrey who found them in the eighteenth century. Today the holes are filled with chalk.

– Second Phase: wooden structure, perhaps roofed. The Aubrey Holes may have been used as cremation burials at

this time. Adult males were buried at these sites, generally men who did not show a lifetime of hard labor,

signifying it was a site for a select group of people.

– Third Phase: stone construction.

Tradition

May have been inspired by previously erected wood circles; the British Isles are rich in forested areas.

Stone circles are a common sight, even today, in Great Britain, indicating great popularity in the Neolithic world.

Theories

Generally thought to be oriented toward sunrise at the summer solstice (the longest day of the year) and sunset at

the winter solstice; may also predict eclipses, acting as a kind of observatory.

A new theory posits that Stonehenge was the center of ceremonies concerning death and burial; elite males were

buried here.

An alternate theory suggests it was a site used for healing the sick.

Anthropomorphic

having characteristics of the human form, although the form itself is not human

Archaeology

: the scientific study of ancient people and cultures principally revealed through excavation

Cong

a tubular object with a circular hole cut into a square-like cross section

Henge

a Neolithic monument, characterized by a circular ground plan. Used for rituals and marking astronomical events

Lintel

a horizontal beam over an opening

Megalith

a stone of great size used in the construction of a prehistoric structure

Menhir

a large uncut stone erected as a monument in the prehistoric era; a standing stone

Mortise and tenon

a groove cut into stone or wood, called a mortise, that is shaped to receive a tenon, or projection, of the same dimensions

Post-and-linte

a method of construction in which two posts support a horizontal beam, called a lintel

Shamanism

a religion in which good and evil are brought about by spirits that can be influenced by shamans, who have access to these spirits

Stele

an upright stone slab used to mark a grave or a site

Stylized

a schematic, nonrealistic manner of representing the visible world and its contents, abstracted from the way that they appear in nature