art history exam 2

Incising

technique in which designs are carved or cut directly into a hard surface such as stone, bone, ivory, or pottery.

Mobiliary Art

Small, three- or two-dimensional portable artworks that can be easily carried or moved by mobile human populations (e.g., statuettes, engraved shells).

Cave Art

Engravings, paintings, stencils, and drawings executed deep within natural cave networks, often featuring animal imagery, abstract symbols, and partial human figures.

Neolithic Revolution

The fundamental prehistoric transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to settled agricultural communities, characterized by crop cultivation, animal husbandry, permanent architecture, and social stratification.

Megalith / Megalithic

A structure or monument constructed from very large, heavy stones, often brought from significant distances to mark sacred, civic, or funerary sites.

Orthostat

A large, upright stone block or slab standing vertically to form part of a wall or architectural enclosure.

Post and Lintel

A structural system in architecture where horizontal elements (lintels) are supported by vertical elements (posts) to create doorways, windows, or open interior spaces.

Corbeling

An architectural technique where successive horizontal layers (courses) of stone incline progressively inward until they meet at the top, creating a watertight corbeled dome or vault without true arches.

Jōmon

A Japanese word translating to “cord-marked,” designating the prehistoric Japanese culture and ceramics recognized by impressions made by rolling cord-wrapped wooden sticks over wet clay.

Standard

Historically defined as a ceremonial banner mounted on a pole and carried in funerary or state processions; applied by archaeologists to the Standard of Ur, though its precise original function remains uncertain.

Stele

An upright, freestanding stone or wooden slab decorated with relief carvings or inscriptions, erected in a public place to mark borders, publish legal codes, or commemorate military victories and historical events.

Register

One of a series of horizontal bands stacked vertically within an artwork, used by ancient artists to divide visual narratives into structured, sequential scenes.

Divine Kingship

A royal ideology in which a living monarch formally declares himself to be an actual living deity, assuming divine titles, receiving cultic worship, and wearing divine iconographic attributes during his lifetime.

Horned Helmet/Horned Crown

Specific iconographic headgear featuring animal horns, strictly reserved in Mesopotamian visual art to designate divine beings and deities (adopted by Naram-Sin to signal self-deification).

Rod and Ring

Divine symbols of authority held by deities (such as Shamash) and presented to monarchs in Mesopotamian art; symbolizes the power to measure, enforce social order, execute justice, and maintain the law.

Orthostat

A large, upright stone slab or carved relief panel used to line and decorate the lower portion of internal brick walls in ancient architectural monuments (e.g., Neo-Assyrian palaces).

Lamassu

Colossal protective portal guardians placed at city and palace gateways in Neo-Assyrian architecture. Carved as composite, hybrid creatures with the head of a human, the body and legs of a bull or lion, majestic wings, and a divine horned crown.

West Asia

A neutral geographic term used to replace the Eurocentric labels “Middle East” or “Near East” (which define regions relative to Europe). It encompasses modern Iraq, Iran, Syria, Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Gaza Strip, West Bank, the Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia (Turkey), and the Caucasus.

Mesopotamia

A geographic-historical term deriving from Greek for “land between the rivers” (the Tigris and Euphrates), located principally within modern Iraq. It is not the name of a single empire or culture, but a region where multiple urban civilizations, writing systems, and states developed over thousands of years

Theocracy

A form of government in which religious leaders rule in the name of a god or deity, and religious law is the official law of the land (e.g., Uruk Period).

Priest-King (EN)

An early Mesopotamian leader (prominent during the Uruk Period) who held ultimate spiritual, economic, and civil/political authority, acting as the primary intermediary between the city and its patron deity.

Cuneiform

History’s earliest writing system, consisting of wedge-shaped impressions pressed into wet clay tablets. Developed in Sumer (c. 3600–3200 BCE) initially for bureaucratic administration, trade inventories, and legal records.

Ensi

Sumerian term for a city governor or earthly steward of a patron god. In royal ideology (e.g., Lagash), an ensi ruled on behalf of the city deity rather than claiming personal divinity.

Lugal

Sumerian word literally translating to “great man” or “big man.” It designated the secular king responsible for military defense, civil administration, justice, and the overall protection of the city-state.

Hierarchical Scale

An artistic visual device in which the relative size of figures indicates their political, social, or religious importance—the larger a figure is drawn, the greater its status.