Ancient History, Art, and Architecture Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering topics in ancient Egyptian, Minoan, Mycenaean, and early Greek art, architecture, and cultural history based on lecture notes.

Nimis headdress

An ancient Egyptian headdress featuring a vulture and a cobra, symbolizing the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Post and lintel

The second oldest type of architecture, consisting of vertical posts capped by a horizontal lintel, as seen at Stonehenge.

Sarsen stone

One of the two distinct types of stones used to build Stonehenge, along with beach stone.

Causeway

A covered walkway in an Egyptian pyramid complex that connects the temple down by the water to the main pyramid.

Grand Galleries

The largest open space inside the Great Pyramid complex, allowing movement from one interior space to the next.

LiDAR

Light radar technology used by archaeologists to detect negative, empty spaces beneath the surface of the earth.

Cyclades

A chain of Greek islands in ancient times, named because they were thought to be arranged in the shape of a cyclone.

Fresco

A technique of wall painting where loose pigment is pressed into damp lime plaster, chemically bonding the paint into the wall itself.

Bull leaping fresco

An early Minoan fresco discovered at the Palace of Knossos depicting three figures—two women and one man—engaging in a ritual activity of vaulting over a bull.

Cyclopean

A style of ancient architecture characterized by massive stacked stones, named after the belief that only a cyclops could move them.

Relief sculpture

A type of sculpture where the carved design projects outward from a flat surface, such as the two lions carved above the gate at Mycenae.

Dark Ages

The historical era following the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization before the rise of ancient Greece, marked by portable art production and the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

Polis

The core organizing structure and collection of self-governing people surrounded by rural territory and villages in ancient Greece.

Archaic period

The distinct early period of ancient Greek culture lasting from $800\text{ to }400\text{ BCE}$, when the civilization first separated its distinct culture from those around it.

Geometric style

An early style of Greek vessel decoration characterized by horizontal bands of information and geometric patterns, often used on funerary amphoras.