Water/Writing

Catalhoyuk house interior, Neolithic Makers, 7500-5700 BCE

• neolithic/agricultural revolution- people are settling down in one place

• domesticating animals, so is shown in art and interior decoration

Carved Trough, Sumerian Late Uruk Period Makers, 3300-3000 BCE

• votive object

• representing animal domestication and breeding

votive object

an object representing a utilitarian item in a “fancy” or reverent way

Renovated Nilometer, original 1550 BCE, renovated Greco-Roman Makers 200 BCE

• measurement device to see how high the water was during flood period

• used for thousands of years and was important, hence renovation

• access restricted, only officials could access in order to decide how much to tax the people

(copy of) Mural of a Planned Garden, New Kingdom (dynasty 18) Makers, 1427-1397 BCE

• humans in control of the Nile, using irrigation systems

• Sennefer showing his success, prestige, and control (with the use of walls separating from others)

• growing artisanal crops rather than just food crops (grapes for wine, papyrus, lotus, palm and sycamore trees..)

Khufu’s Solar Barge, Old Kingdom (dynasty 4) Makers, 2500 BCE

• very large, extravagant boat meant solely for transporting Khufu’s dead body to a pyramid and buried afterwards

• private, covered cabin to hide the dead while exaggerated features to make the boat highly visible

• Khufu’s pyramid the largest Giza pyramid

• pyramids built very close to channel of the Nile to make transport easier

Painted Relief of Official Ti Hunting, Old Kingdom (dynasty 5) makers, 2500s-2450 BCE

• personal, small boats made of reeds rather than wood for hunting on the river

• a team is being directed by Ti, a government official, to hunt hippos

• resources from the river. boats are an expression of the importance of the river

Relief of Agricultural Scenes, Old Kingdom (dynasty 5-6) Makers, 2231-2281 BCE

• labor associated w/ agriculture, digging, sickles, bundles of crops

• showing status of an individual’s agricultural success (taken from someone’s tomb)

• shows induation season

• distinguishes man and woman in clothes, but shows that both engaged in labor

Guennol Lioness, Sumerian Makers of Iraq, 3000 BCE

• represents the outsides of the city, wilds and chaos

• not reverent, shows how scared the people were

Cup with Hero, Sheep, and Lions, Sumerian Period Makers, Iraq, 3100-2750 BCE

• naked hero saving sheep from lions, “taming the wild” by killing it

• considered half wild himself, so he’s able to fix the chaos

• shows that civilization at the time was so petrified of the wild getting to them, and that they needed to find a way to tame it

Lion Hunt Stele, Sumerian Period Makers of Uruk, 3000 BCE

• non nude man with a headpiece representing a king, moving from the naked hero to kings going out to kill and tame the wild instead

• the image of kings killing lions persists throughout ancient art

• controlling the wild is civilization

Kneeling Bull w/ Vessel, Proto-Elamite Makers, 3100-2900 BCE

• represents the idea of animals serving people

Inlay on Queen’s Lyre Soundbox, Early Dynastic III Makers, Ur, Iraq

• hypericon

• animals controlled and serving, not mythological story, rather representation

• not only domesticated animals serving, showing theyve tamed the wild to make it subservient

hypericon

iconography including an image of what the image is on, self-referential

bullae

sphere made of clay with impressions made from tokens, where tokens would then be put into the sphere. ancient receipt

cuneiform

flat tablets with impressions of tokens as well as use of a stylus to write additional information alongside imagery

Hunting Scene Cylinder Seal and Modern Sealing, Akkadian, 2250-2150 BCE

• a repeatable seal with engravings used to make multiple copies of the same thing

• very small, cuneiform alongside imagery, meant to look closely, intimate

Stele of Hammurabi, Old Babylonian Period, 1754 BCE

• very large, 7.5’ tall, where part would be buried in the ground for the text to be eye-level

• inscription of praises of Hammurabi followed by legal doctrine/punishments for crimes

• divided into registers, reading from top to bottom left to right

• buried after takeover of Babylon to destroy Hammurabi’s legacy

red land vs black land

referring to the Nile, where the soil flooded by the nile and closest to it would be black, fertile soil. Egyptians thought of this land as life sustaining, where crops and civilization could live. The outside desert was the the red land, where it was dry, wild, uncontrolled, and where they buried the dead. Separation of life and death. They would bury the dead away from cities because of health concerns, but also so that the souls of the dead could “conquer” the untamed land that they were so afraid of

how was water important for ancient civilizations

water provided life. when people settled into place rather than traveling for food, they needed water to grow crops so they could eat, water to drink and water for animas they bred and ate as well. The NIle was so important to the ancient Egyptians they built their season around it, and to ancient Mesopotamia, where they settled between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Beyond water, in desert, was chaos, wild, and death for ancient people

examples, guennol lioness that showed the fear of what was beyond civilization. renovated nilometer shows how deeply important water was and how it was measured every year to track how the nile was behaving and therefore influencing the lives of people

writing and imagery

writing was invented to keep track of items bought/traded. writing appeared alongside imagery often which is what modernly considered “art” rather than pure writing and cuneiform

examples like stele of hammurabi show that imagery coincided with writing to show the importance of a certain figure, what was going on, what the writing represented, since most people were illiterate

the concept of showing success

success is shown in many artworks to accompany people in tombs

examples solar barge, mural of a planned garden, painted relief of official Ti hunting. all showed status related to agriculture and the control of the river, taking resources from it or growing resources along it, the more you could do that the more powerful you were