Art History Exam 2

The Paleoindian Period

16000-8000 BCE

North America

Explain this image and its meaning

• shows migration during Paleoindian Period

• Migration to North America

• From Asia across the bearing straight

• Also coming by boat along coast even earlier explaining earlier dates before the Clovis people

Name, Era, Date, Location

Clovis Spear Point

11,000 BC

Modern Arizona

Made from Flint

Paleoindian period

Notes on this image

• Hallmark of the people coming into North America from Asia across Bearing Strait around 13,000 years ago

• Earliest objects found

• Complications: some sites date way earlier possibly from other routes along the coast to North America

  • Were there people here before the Clovis people? how much earlier?

The Archaic Period

8000-1000 BC

Comparable to Paleolithic

Name, Date, Location, Era

Poverty Point

1700-1100 BCE

Modern Louisiana

Archaic Period

Name, Date, Location, Era

Poverty Point

1700-1100 BCE

Modern Louisiana

Archaic Period

Name, Date, Location, Era

Poverty Point

1700-1100 BCE

Modern Louisiana

Archaic Period

Notes on this site

• Monumental out of perishable materials (dirt) - most has eroded away

• Cosentric rings of earth

• Around 9000 people living year round in huts on top of mounds but events bring more people in

• Really early settlement in America

• One of several similar features in area

• Surrounded by water- can get food easily

• Making mounds in respect to natural landscape

• Separted by aisles

• On top to help with flooding and water

• Open central area - community area? plaza?

• Didn’t do agriculture - shows complex sites without agriculture

• Still hunter gatherer

  • Hunter/gatherer egalitarian society

  • Organized labor to build mounds - hauling a LOT of dirt

• Rich environment from bayou - FISH - never have to farm / hunt for big game

Notes on this image

• Poverty Point

• using clay for symbolic objects - not pottery

• Baked clay disks

• Incised symbols

• For games?

Notes on this image

• Poverty Point

• Figurines of men and women

• No local source of stone - trading and importing

• Religious/spiritual figures

  • Don’t know what they are

Olmec Period

• Preclassic

• 14000-400 BCE

  • Mesoamerica - earliest civilization and period of this area

Olmecs Cities

• use agriculture

• settlements everywhere

• settle down, farm, social stratification

• rulers and centers of power - fighting each other

  • Olmecs using rubber to make balls - have games, courts, religious undercurrents

Name, Date, Era, Location

Colossal head

San Lorenzo / La Venta

1200-900 BCE

Olmec Period (pre classic)

Name, Date, Era, Location

Colossal head

San Lorenzo / La Venta

1200-900 BCE

Olmec Period (pre classic)

Notes on this image

• megalithic - one giant stone

• Not locally sourced stone

• Linked to outer walls?

• No 2 heads just alike - all seem to be male

• Think set up on top of mounds

• Heads of users of sites? religious figure/god?

• Headdresses seem to be relate to rubber ball game

  • Could lend protection spiritually

Name, Date, Era, Location

Ritual Axe

Olmec

1200-500 BCE

Olmec period (pre classic)

Notes on this image

• ritual blood offerings to gods - using knife to prick finger

• Not human face (mouth)

• Don’t really know whywhat

• Mouth of jaguar? - important in religions here

• main deity - shows up everywhere

• Toad?

• Holding something - bloodletting tool?

• made of jade stone - ritual version of real life object

  • Blueish/green jade desired - religious/symbolic value

Notes on this image

• ritual blood-letting tools

• Jade

• lots of faces - show power

Pre-Inca Andean Period

2700BCE - 200 CE

South America

Paracas Cultures

Pre-Inca Andean period

700 BCE - 200 CE

hard form of life - hard to source water - harsh environment

• Tunnel underground with cave chamber - mummies with textiles

  • naturally preserved because environment is so arid

Name, Date, Period, Location

Embroidered mantle

Paracas Culture

Pre-Inca Andean Period

1-100 CE

Notes on this image

• very contorted humans

• creepy eyes and big grin

• unnatural skin/hair color

• mushroom psychodelics and sword in hand

  • taking drugs to go on trances and “fly”

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Nazca Culture

• 200 BCE - 600 CE

• Pre-Inca Andean Period

• One of driest places in Peru - very harsh environment

• Settlement sites don’t last

  • Birds very prominent in textiles

Name, Date, Period, Location

• Geoglyphs

• Nazca Culture

• 100 BCE - 600 CE

  • Pre-Inca Andean Period

Notes on this image

• Digging intricate wells

• water very important - so arid - knowing where wells are

• scrape away layer of red rocks to expose white layer

• human made modification to desert environment

  • 800 miles of lines

Name, Date, Location, Era

• Geoglyphs: Monkey

• nazca Culture

• 100 BC - 600 CE

• Pre-Incan Andean Period

Notes on this iamge

• abstract/geogmetric

• mostly animals but some plants (hummingbird, spider)

• people couldn’t see design - who was meant to see?

  • Gods?

  • Just get sense by walking lines?

• Lines, triangles, circles

• Can only tell what they are from the air

• religious?

• intimately linked to water

Coastal and land migration

Theories explaining how the first people migrated into the Americas from Asia, including traveling over a land bridge (Beringia) and along the Pacific coast.

Clovis culture

An early North American culture known for distinctive stone projectile points and hunting large animals, dating to around 13,000 years ago.

Earthen construction

Building structures using earth

Ice Age

A period of colder global temperatures when glaciers expanded and sea levels dropped, exposing the Bering land bridge between Asia and North America.

Lithics

Stone tools and objects created by shaping or working stone.

Plaza

An open public space used for gatherings, ceremonies, markets, or community activities, often surrounded by important buildings.

Rubber

A natural material made from latex, used by ancient Mesoamerican cultures to create objects such as balls for ritual ball games.

Ball game

A Mesoamerican ritual and athletic game played with a rubber ball, often in specially constructed courts; it could have religious and political significance.

Shaman

A spiritual or religious practitioner believed to communicate with supernatural forces, often through rituals or altered states of consciousness.

Textiles

Woven or otherwise constructed fabrics made from fibers, used for clothing, ceremonies, and artistic expression.

Copper

A metal used by ancient American cultures to create objects such as tools, ornaments, and ceremonial items.

Jade

A valued green stone used in Mesoamerica and other American cultures to create jewelry, sculptures, and ritual objects; associated with life, fertility, and status.

Blood letting

A ritual practice in which people deliberately drew their own blood as an offering to deities or ancestors, particularly in ancient Mesoamerica.

Human sacrifice

The ritual killing of a person as a religious offering, practiced by some ancient American civilizations.

Olmec glyphs

Symbols associated with the Olmec civilization that may have conveyed meaning or recorded information; evidence for early writing or symbolic communication in Mesoamerica.

Geoglyphs

Large designs or figures created on the ground, often by arranging stones or removing surface material; examples include the Nazca Lines in Peru.

Embroidery

The decorative technique of stitching designs into fabric, used in ancient American textiles to create patterns and imagery.

Alpaca

A domesticated South American camelid raised for its soft wool, which Andean cultures used to make textiles.

Mummy bundle

A wrapped bundle containing a preserved human body, often surrounded by textiles and sometimes accompanied by offerings; used in various ancient Andean cultures.

Andes Mountains

A major mountain range along western South America, home to ancient civilizations that developed distinctive architecture, textiles, agriculture, and religious practices.

What is the Age of Copper and Bronze known for?

the first cities

Age of Copper & bronze: the setting - geography

Mesopotamia = “land between the two rivers” - tigris and Euphrates

Resources

• Bitumen: oil tar like substance that is local - used for architecture and art

• Lots of clay

• Not a lot of forests so wood is scarce and imported from lebanon

• Not many naturally occurring metals - import for metal tools

  • Not a lot of stones - imported

Age of Copper and Bronze: the setting - religion

• see humans as put on earth to serve the gods

• votive religion: want to make the gods happy so they build temples and give up sacrifices to gods - first art are gifts to the gods

  • a lot more certainty about their religion because of the first writing - filled with supernatural beings

Age of copper and bronze: the setting - state formation

• 4th millennium BCE: development of independent city-states

• Urban culture

• Complex religious and political system, very closely linked

• Invention of writing

• No reliable rainfall - build irrigation canals to water fields

• Tigris and Euphrates flood, move, very unpredictable

  • Theocracy religious and political systems are one - gods are the rulers/in charge and king is just physical representation

The Sumerian Period

During the Age of Copper and Bronze

3500-2300 BCE

The Sumerians

• Development of independent city-states, urban revolution

• Highly stratified society

• Complex Economics

• Invention of Writing

• Sophisticated Irrigation and Farming

  • Art Mainly religious and politicalTh

The Sumerians: highly stratified society

• King/priest

• Priest/preistesses

• Bureaucracy

• Craftsmen: skilled, don’t farm

• Laborers: don’t farm, in other projects (irrigation, builders)

• Farmers: most people

  • Below farmers are enslaved people from wars

The Sumerians: complex economics

re-distributive economy

farming, crafting, producing goods which go into central government system then redistribute sthem

The Sumerians: invention of writing

invented to serve this economy to keep track of these inventories being distributed

need bureaucratic class to run it- only class that can read/write

Sir Leonard Wooley

1920s

one of first people to excavate the area of the Sumerians

Responsible for many major finds

Very good excavation methods

Sumerians: invention of writing: cuneiform

3200 BCE

Cuneiform = “wedge shaped”

used primarily for bureaucratic record keeping at first

first writing on clay

economic/inventory reasons

at first just pictures of what they’re talking about

becomes adopted by other cultures but starts with Sumerians

entire libraries of cuneiform: write poetry and religious texts quickly, not just inventory

bake them making them virtually indestrictible

can also carve into stone - meant to be displayed - power move?

Name, Era, Date, Location

Anu ziggurat and White Temple

Uruk (modern Warkaa), Iraq

3300 BCE
Age of Copper and Bronze: Mesopotamia - Sumerian Period

Name, Era, Date, Location

Anu ziggurat and White Temple

Uruk (modern Warkaa), Iraq

3300 BCE
Age of Copper and Bronze: Mesopotamia - Sumerian Period`

Name, Era, Date, Location

Anu ziggurat and White Temple

Uruk (modern Warkaa), Iraq

3300 BCE
Age of Copper and Bronze: Mesopotamia - Sumerian Period

Notes on this image

• built for the gods

• special buildings used for worshipping gods

• Mud brick but white wash inside and outside

• Dedicated to sky god creator god Anu - main god of Uruk

• Biggest temple and visible even beyond city

• Elevated on Ziggurat : high up platform to be closer to sky and gods

• Adding lines to platform - make it look like mountain

• Bitumen and stone pathways and stairs making it waterproof

• Big open area on top - communal

  • Temple: “Waiting room” waiting for god to come down

• Bent access approach: no direct access from staircase - have to go around

Notes on this image

• Small windows - need light but mud brick can’t have huge holes

• Burnt offerings fire - also offers some light

• Platform in corner - cult statue where god comes down into statue for communication

• Not many statues- made of valuable materials and treated just like a god - often looted

Name, Age, Date, Location

Warka Vase

Temple of Inanna, Uruk, Iraq

3000 BCE

Mesopotamia Age of Copper and Bronze, Sumerian Period

Name, Age, Date, Location

Warka Vase

Temple of Inanna, Uruk, Iraq

3000 BCE

Mesopotamia Age of Copper and Bronze, Sumerian Period

Notes on this image

• Inanna temple - lots of objects carefully buried

• Inanna very important goddess- queen of Heaven and most powerful goddess - fertility of everything and goddess of war

• Made of alabaster - important and imported

• Likely used in religious rituals and displayed

• Covered with relief carvings of Sumerian beliefs of the world

• Bottom: wavy lines (rivers) - foundation of life

• Plants - food for city - 2 types shown

• Animals - domesticated - meat, dairy, leather, sacrifices, labor, etc

  • alternating male and female - hope for success in fertility

• Humans - carrying goods for gods - unclothed and all male - all bald so priest? either lower class (nudity) or priests humbling themselves?

• Inanna main goddess - curly reeds mark entrance to her temple - behind curly cues everything inside her temple

Notes on this image

Warka Vase

• Attendant to main in kilt (king) - shirtless and embroidered skirt

• King is there as intermediary between goddess and everything below - has to worship her

• Sacred marriage between the two?

• Above rest of humans but secondary to gods

• All goods being given to state, brought to temple, and redistributed

Notes on this image

uncovering 12 Statuettes of worshippers

• buried carefully under floor

  • very common - giving gifts to gods so over generations temples become FILLED with offerings - ritually bury

Name, Age, Date, Location

Votive Statuettes

Square Temple of Abu, Eshnunna, Iraq

2700 BC

Mesopotamia Age of Copper and Bronze - Sumerian Period

Notes on this image

• statues of stone - imported material - very valuable

• 1-3 feet tall - monumental big statues for these people

• Each base initially had cuneiform inscriptions

• Stylized: very prominent eyes and bright blue - inlayed lapis lazuli - very precious only in Afghanistan

• All have same hands clasped - some in prayer gesture - others holding cups found in temple part of new year’s festival

• All different sizes

• First thought they were distinctive of gods

• They were commissioned by worshipers- given to god so they are always in the temple praying

• Hair can show status - beards could be elite men

  • Guy without hair is priest

Notes on this image

• Woman on the right - elite

• Votive status of man and woman

• Both holding the festival cups

  • Tiny feet next to woman - was a child next to her

Name, Location, Age, Date

• Royal cemetery of Ur

• Ur, Iraq

• 2600 BCE

  • Mesopotamia Age of Copper and Bronze - Sumerian Period

Notes on this image

• One part had spectacular graves for kings and queens of Ur

• Lots of imported gold

• Some objects were labeled telling us names of kings and queens

• Tombs usually had main chamber with body with fore chamber with bodies

  • Human sacrifices - many have little cups - drank poison?

  • evidence they actually died from blunt force head trauma

• Idea to have servants in the afterlife

• Ultimate show of power

Notes on this image

• Royal Funeral

• Funerals were spectacular for kings and queens

• Processing king/queen and sacrifices

• Priests, huge carts, musciaisn

  • once you got to tomb, burying EVERYTHING there

Name, age, date, location

Bull headed lyre (restored), Tomb 789

Royal Cemetery, Ur, Iraq

2600 BC

Mesopotamia Age of Copper and Bronze Sumerian Period

Notes on this image

• reconstructed object by pouring cement into hollowed out area in tomb

• Object had rotted away

• Still have bull head and bottom box not rotted away

Name, Date, Age, Location

Bull headed lyre (restored), Tomb 789

Royal Cemetery, Ur, Iraq

2600 BC

Mesopotamia Age of Copper and Bronze Sumerian Period

Notes on this image

• Lapis Lazuli with bear

• Sound box is original and made of white shell - cut out shapes and inlay shell in cut out area and fill in everything with bitumen

• Organized into 4 registers and each has different scene

• Bottom: scorpion man holding a scroll with an antelope behind him walking like a human holding two cups and behind a large vessel (scroll inside)

• Next: Bull lyres played by a horned animal seated upright like a human - harp held by bear standing and antelope drinking underneath

• Next: hyena walking like a human carrying box of butchered animal parts - behind is lion walking like human holding vessel and libation religious vessel

  • Top: bearded man looking at you wrestling two bulls with human heads also looking at you

The Akkadians

2300-2100 BCE

much more war like than Sumerians

Conquer surrounding peoples and unify forming an Empire

More military focused and want to create an Empire

Eventually overthrown themselves

Sargon of Akkad

= Akkadian king

ruled 55 years, life mythologized

conquers Sumer, unifies region

First unified empire

New political ideology: ruler as god and emphasis on military - ruler has absolute authority and is divine

Adopted Sumerian culture and writing: use cuneiform for their own language

Naram-Sin

Akkadian king

grandson of Sargon- reigned 56 years

ups power even more of king

“King of the four quarters” - 4 cardinal directions- ‘king of everywehre’

divine kingship “God of Akkad”

Name, Date, Age, Location

Victory stele of naram-Sin

Susa Iran 2200 BCE

Akkadian Period

Mesopotamia

Notes on this image

• stele: upright slab

• Records historical military victory by naram - sin

• looted and not found in original location

• made of pink sandstone

• specific battle because lots of detail and writing in cuneiform

• defeat mountain people and engages in guerrilla warfare

• gives setting of landscape

• main guy is garam-sin: great long beard, headdress with 2 horns, his size (hierarchical scale)

  • literally crushing his enemies with his food

  • showing his perfect right side of his body showing status

  • highest elevation also shows power - closest to the gods

  • 3 astral signs of god at top looking down at Naram sin’s victory

Neo-Sumerian Period

Third Dynasty of Ur

2100-2000 BCE

City of Ur emerges as strongest city-states

Exerts influence and cultural power of other areas

Ur-Nammu

Writes down first law code

Neo-Sumerian Period

Everything has access - can’t just change on a whim

Defeats Guti, restores order

Religious legitimation for political rule

First law code that survives: code of Ur-Nammu

I’m going to be good pious king so we’re going to revive everything

Sumerain renaissance

• the third dynasty of ur

• neo-sumerian period

• revival of Sumerian language and culture

• massive building program, esp sanctuaries

• irrigation program, economic boom

• religious piety

• period of peace and prosperity

• renaissance of Sumerian art and culture

• number 1 thing the kings build is building temples and restore older temples

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Elamites agricultural criss : neo sumerian period

ends with agricultural crisis, Elamites

Semi-nomadic tribes (Amorites) settle in area

drought, famine, and Elamites swoop in and defeat Sumerians

Name, Date, Age, Location

Seated statue of Gudea holding temple plan

Gihu Iraq

2100 BCE

Neo-Sumerian period

Notes on this image

• guide: one of best known kings of Ur

• dressed in royal robes - not showing off powerful body/military strength

• hands in prayer - emphasizing that he’s a good pious king

• Enthroned

• dress covered in cuneiform - listing all the good things he’s done (lots of building and restoring temples)

  • tablet on lap - ground plan for a temple

Name, Age, Date, Location

Nanna Ziggurat

ur

2100 BCE

neo - sumerian period

Name, Age, Date, Location

Nanna Ziggurat

ur

2100 BCE

neo - sumerian period

Notes on this image

• temple of oddest Inanna in Ur: ziggurat elevates temple towards gods

• Large central staircase as two side staircases

• Religious and political center

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The Babylonian Empire

2000-1595 BCE

Continue using cuneiform and adopt Sumerian culture

Capital is city of Babylon

Form an empire - conquer neighboring regions

Babylonian empire: hammurabi

1st preserved law code

6th ruler, 18th century

Reunites region again, brings order

Expansion: almost all Mesopotamia including Assyria

Established bureaucracy w/ taxation

Law code of hammurabiB

Babylonia

Akkadian for official language

Sumerian language (now dead) for religious use

Babylonian Empire Dissolution

• economic basis collapsed, likely agricultural problmes

• Sacked by Hitites in 1595

• 1600-1500 period of disruption, weak

  • Kassites take over

Name, Date, Age, Location

Stele with law code of hammurabi

Susa Iran

1700 BCE
Babylonian Empire Mesopotamia

Notes on image

• chiseled in stone and set up everywhere in empire

• Black basalt with tiny cuneiform on front and back

• Starts with prologue: hammurabi tells us all good things he’s done as king (building temples)

• about 300 laws

• epilogue on back: hammurabi calls himself a peacemaker

• 3 punishments: punishment fits crime (steal bread, arm cut off) ; death penalty ; paying a fine

• Most laws deal with regulating property and businesses

• Most people could not read and writing is so tiny - symbol of power instead and a way to physically communicate that he’s a good leader - a just ruler

• Visual communicates what the writing can’t to those who can’t read

  • Hammurabi is standing in front of god (shamash sun god - associated with order and justice)

  • giving hammurabi physical signs of power with sceptor

  • Foot stool has three rows - symbol of mountain - goes up to mountain and gets law of deity

  • Hammurabi is speaking to deity:showing that he’s pious, allowed to talk to god, giving him power to serve