Unit 2: Ancient Mediterranean: 3500 BCE–300 CE

• Buttresses spaced across the surface; tapers downward so that rainwater washes off

• Resembles a mountain

• Bent-axis plan

White Temple and its ziggurat

• Different heights; hands are folded - gesture of prayer; huge eyes; arms and feet cut away

• Placed in a temple to pray before a sculpture of a god.

Statues of votive figures

• wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red ­limestone

  • broad frontal shoulders; bodies in profile; twisted perspective

• Reflects extensive trading network.

• Has two sides: War Side and Peace Side

Standard of Ur

• Written in cuneiform, Akkadian language

• One of the earliest law codes; 300 entries

Code of Hammurabi

• Human-headed winged animal guardian figures

• Meant to hold up the walls and arch of a gate

  • ward off enemies both visible and invisible

• Carved from a single piece of stone

Lamassu

• Built for lavish receptions and festivals

• Proudly proclaim this complex as the seat of a great empire

• Built by Darius I and Xerxes I

  • Destroyed by Alexander the Great

Apadana of Darius and Xerxes

• Represents the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under one ruler

• Schematic lines delineate the muscle structure

• Hieroglyphics identify him in the cartouche

  • used to prepare eye makeup; commemorative

Palette of King Narmer

• Not a pharaoh

• High cheekbones, hollow cheeks, and a distinctive jawline

• Created for a tomb at Saqqara as a provision for the ka

Seated Scribe

• Giant monuments to dead pharaohs

• Preservation of the body and tomb contents for eternity

  • Served as the king’s palace in the afterlife

Great Pyramids

• Carved in situ from a huge rock

• Body of a lion, the head of a pharaoh/god; protecting the pyramids behind it

Great Sphinx

• Two figures attached to a block of stone

  • seem to stride forward; simultaneously are anchored to the stone behind

  • a receptacle for the ka of the pharaoh and his queen.

King Menkaura and queen

• Axial Plan

• Pylon Temple

• Hypostyle halls, Massive lintels, columns

• Temple for the worship of a god

  • Temple represents the beginnings of the world

Temple of Amun-Re

• A sandstone partly carved into a rock cliff

• Three colonnaded terraces and two ramps

• Long horizontals and verticals of the terraces and colonnades repeat the patterns of the cliffs behind; patterns of dark and light in the colonnade are reflected in the cliffs.

Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut

• Made of red granite

• Male pharaonic attributes

  • Hatshepsut is a acting queen for her son, presentented with male attributes in most artworks

• Wears the white crown of Upper Egypt. Depicted in male costume of a pharaoh

Kneeling statue of Hatshepsut

• Private piece

• Akhenaten is known for his religious revolution, introducing the worship of Aten, the sun disc.

• The art depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their three daughters often shows them in a loving and intimate family setting.

• The art of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their daughters reflects the radical changes in artistic style during the Amarna Period.

Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and three daughters

• A gold with an inlay of enamel and semi-precious stones

• Smooth, idealized features on the mask

• Holds a crook and a flail, symbols of Osiris; buried with 143 objects

Innermost coffin of King Tutankhamun’s tomb

• Narrative on a uniform register

• Illustration from the Book of the Dead

• Top register - white at left before a row of judges; main register - Anubis leads the deceased into a hall

Last judgment of Hunefer

• Hand emerges into the viewer’s space

• Breasts revealed beneath drapery; Indented waist

• Broken hand was fitted into the socket

  • she is the goddess, either Athena or Artemis

Peplos Kore

• Represents Polykleitos’s ideal masculine figure

• Marble Roman copy of a bronze Greek original

Doryphoros (Spear Bearer)

• Figures seated in the left-hand corner of the east pediment of the Parthenon

  • contains figures who are present at the birth of Athena, which is the main topic at the center of pediment

• Part of the Parthenon sculptures, also called the Elgin Marbles.

Helios, Horses, and Dionysus (Heracles?)

• Part of frieze from Parthenon

• Scene from Panathenaic frieze; first time in Greek art that human events are depicted on a temple

• Contains a religious procession of women dressed in contemporary drapery and acting nobly

Plaque of the Ergastines

• Part of the balustrade on the Temple of Athena Nike, a war ­monument

• One of many figures on the balustrade

  • Not a continuous narrative but a sequence of independent scenes.

Victory adjusting her sandal

• Grave marker

• Use of contrapposto in the standing figure

• Text includes name of the deceased

Grave stele of Hegeso

• Large heroic figure of Nike placed above the marble prow of a naval vessel

• Monumental figure

• Made to commemorate a naval victory in 191 B.C.E

Winged Victory of Samothrace

• Describes the battle between the gods and the giants

• The gods’ victory over the giants offers a parallel to Alexander the Great’s defeat of the Persians

  • acts as an allegory of a Greek military victory by Eumenes II.

Athena, from the Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon

• Rare surviving Hellenistic bronze

• Older man, past his prime, looks defeated

  • eye contact involves the viewer

• May have been a good luck charm for athletes. Nude fighter; hands wrapped in leather bands

Seated Boxer

A plaza at the base of the Acropolis in Athens with commercial, civic, religious, and social buildings where ceremonies took place.

Athenian Agora

• Architects: Iktinos

• Interior built to house a massive statue of Athena; also included the treasure of the Delian League. Greek predilection for algebra and geometry is omnipresent in the design of this building. Constructed under the leadership of Pericles

• ”Part”

Parthenon

• Architect: Kallikrates

• Amphiprostyle

• Ionic Temple

• Built to commemorate the Greek victory over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon

Temple of Athena Nike

• Altar is on an elevated platform at the top of a dramatic flight of stairs

• A frieze 7.5 feet high and more than 400 feet long wraps around the monument

• Altar dedicated to Zeus and Athena

Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon

• First time in vase painting that isocephalism

• For ceremonial use

• The killing of Niobe’s ­children is depicted on one side

Niobides Krater

• Extremely complex interweaving of figures; spatial illusionism through foreshortening

• Use of tesserae instead of previously used pebbles

• A copy of a mural made by Philoxenos of Eretria for King Cassander.

Alexander Mosaic

• Temple raised on a podium; defined visible entrance

• Deep porch places doorways away from the steps

• Dedicated to Athena (Minerva)

Temple of Minerva

• Ancient convention of men painted in darker colors than women

• Painted tomb in an Etruscan necropolis

• Named after an ancient Roman dining table, which appears in the fresco

Tomb of the Triclinium

• Full-length portrait

• Great concentration on the upper bodies, less on the legs

• A married couple, whose ashes may have been placed inside

Sarcophagus of the Spouses

• One of four large figures that once stood on the roof of the temple at Veii

• Part of a scene from Greek mythology involving the third labor of Hercules

  • May have been carved by Vulcan of Veii, the most famous Etruscan sculptor of the age.

Apollo from Veii

• Private citizen’s home in Pompeii

• Originally built during the Republic with early imperial additions

• Two brothers owned the house; both were freedmen who made their money as merchants.

House of Vettii

• meant for wild and dangerous spectacles

  • gladiator combat, animal hunts, naval battles. Accommodated 50,000 spectators

• 76 entrances and exits circle the facade

The Colosseum

• Large central plaza flanked by stoa-like buildings on each side

• Originally held an equestrian monument dedicated to Trajan in the center

• Built with treasure collected from Trajan’s victory over the Dacians.

Forum of Trajan

• Law courts held here

  • apses were a setting for judges

• Grand interior space (385 feet by 182 feet) with two apses

Basilica of Ulpia

• Semicircular building held several levels of shops

• Main space is groin vaulted; barrel vaulted area with the shops

• Multilevel mall. Original market had 150 shops

Trajan Markets

• A 625-foot narrative cycle (128 feet high) wrapped around it150 episodes, 2,662 figures, 23 registers

  • Continuous narrative

  • Scenes depict the preparation for battle

• Visitors who entered were meant to wander up the interior spiral staircase to the viewing platform at the top

Column of Trajan

• it was built as a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods

• It may have been dedicated to a select group of gods and the divine Julius Caesar and/or used for court rituals

• “Pan” = whole

Pantheon

• A chamber in the Palace of Knossos that features a fresco depicting the mythological story of King Pentheus of Thebes

• Pentheus is shown being torn apart by his own mother and other women, who were under the influence of the god Dionysus

• The room is believed to have been a place for ritualistic activities related to the worship of the god.

Pentheus Room

• A marble sculpture dating back to the 1st century CE, depicting the head of a Roman patrician

• Showcases the idealized facial features of a wealthy and powerful Roman nobleman, with a strong jawline, prominent nose, and deep-set eyes.

Head of a Roman patrician

• A marble statue of the Roman emperor Augustus

• Depicts Augustus in military attire, with his right arm extended and his left hand holding a scepter

• Shows the emperor's power and divine status.

Augustus of Primaporta

• Roman sarcophagus depicting a battle scene

  • Possibly the Battle of Romans and Goths

• Made in the 3rd century AD

Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus