HU 103

I. Origins (10 million–3.3 million years ago)

10-4 million years ago: fossil record shows hominins begin following an evolutionary branch separate from other hominids, including chimpanzees

II. Paleolithic (3.3 million–11,000 years ago)

3.3–2.5 million years ago: archeological record shows first hominin use of stone tools

2 million years ago: archeological evidence of cooking

790 ka (ka=1000 years ago): archeological record shows first controlled use of fire

300–110 ka: fossil record shows first homo sapiens, in Africa

110–11 ka: with stone tools, weapons, and fire in hand, homo sapiens spread across Africa and (starting around 65 ka) migrate across Asia, then Europe, then Australia and the Americas 

70 ka: fossil record shows homo sapiens becomes the dominant hominin (although genetic record shows cross-breeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans)

51 ka: disappearance of Denisovans from fossil record

41 ka: beginnings of cave paintings in Asia and Europe

examples:

1. 41 ka: A hand stencil (Neanderthal) in El Castillo cave, Spain. This cave also features geometric painted decorations. The most ancient cave paintings, in red paint.

2. 40 ka: A bull painting in Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave, Indonesia. The most ancient sample of figurative cave painting.

3. 30 ka: Chauvet Cave in France has paintings of animals (horses, lions, etc.) that display modeling (aka shading) and interest in perspective (sense of 3D in 2D) created with texture of wall, modeling, and overlapping of creatures. There is also black paint supplementing the red. Altogether, there seems an interest in naturalism in painting (an effort to represent things as they appear to the eye).

4. 14 ka: Lascaux cave in France has painting of what seems a human killed by a bison. This among the oldest instances of 2D representation of the human form.

40 ka: Neanderthals vanish from fossil record

40–22 ka: beginnings of sculpture and decorative ornamentation of objects, most commonly statues of women art historians call “Venus figurines”

example:

Lion Man: 35–40 ka; found in Germany; ivory. This is one of the earliest sculptures of any sort, and it is clearly figurative

III. Neolithic (11000–3000 BC)

13 ka: domestication of animals, cultivation of plants for food, agricultural irrigation

Pottery developed around 5500 because of needs of agricultural storage and transport, and appearance of decorated pottery follows

Questions to ponder: 

What developments do we see in cave painting? Which are the most interesting examples of such art, and why? To what extent does early sculpture suggest that its creators were preoccupied with the same sorts of questions and concerns as were the cave painters?  What do we see that suggests early peoples thought about the boundaries of the human? To what extent do they present those boundaries as porous, fluid, or otherwise flexible? How does the neolithic revolution change the habits of humans?

Mesopotamia (fertile plain between Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, most of which territory is in what is now Iraq): 

5500–4000 BC: the world’s first great culture, Sumer, is founded and grows in south part of prehistoric Mesopotamia; archeological record shows Sumer was a culture of cities built around temples and ruled by priest-kings of city states, but not a totally unified political entity; its people engaged in trade (as far East as modern India, as far West as Egypt) and practiced many simple industries (textiles, glass, metalwork, etc.) and produced tools, weapons, boats, writing tablets, and jewelry; they had a rough annual calendar, and divided days into hours & minutes; they had early stringed and wind instruments; they developed mathematical knowledge of algebra, basic geometry, and arithmetic; they had the first schools of any size

4000–3100 Sumerian cities such as Eridu (earliest of significant size; pre-Flood) & Uruk (largest @ 50K people) appear; sun-dried mud bricks were the main building material

3500 development of the wheel

Bronze age (3000–1200 BCE) > move from prehistoric to historic

3000-2700 BCE: emergence of syllabic script, beginning of historical record and written poetry and religious texts (including early versions of stories about the precession of sky, water, and wind among the divine worlds, of the Great Flood, a paradisal Garden, and humankind’s fall from a more perfect state that would be rewritten as part of the Hebrew Bible) [writing develops independently in 3 other spots on the globe: the Indus Valley and Egypt at around the same time, and in China around 1600 BCE] 

2600 Gilgamesh is the fourth King of Uruk

2600–2100 Sumerian high point: City of Ur (around 2500 BCE, when cities are increasingly walled); examples of Sumerian art: 

-Royal Standard of Ur (2600 BCE): this mosaic on wood (glass, shell) was found in a royal tomb. It is somewhat narrative, and it shows social perspective (heights of people speak to their social importance, not how they looked to the eye)

-Song of the Hoe (c2000 BCE): creation myth, an example of the importance of agriculture in the neolithic

2332-2279 Akkad, having been established some time earlier, is ruled by Sargon [north of Mesopotamia], who conquers Sumer, thus unifying Mesopotamia under one ruler; he extends his rule beyond Mesopotamia as well, establishing the first great empire of the ancient world. Legend has it that Sargon was an orphan, found floating in a small boat in a marsh—note that this anticipates the story of Moses in the Bible and of Romulus and Remus in Roman legend. The Akkadian Empire is fairly short-lived: it collapses roughly 2200, but it used trade routes via land and sea, undertook extensive military campaigns, and created social stability that allowed developments in libraries, irrigation, roads, and the first postal system. Akkad also supports the explosion of sculpture and poetry. View example: 

Head of unidentified Akkadian man [2200 BCE] This seems to have been part of a full-body sculpture, and it likely had gems for eyes. We can see that Mesopotamians know how to sculpt in metal, in addition to stone

2300 BCE: Sargon appointed one of his daughters, Enheduanna, high priestess in Ur (she is devoted to the goddess Innana [love, beauty, sex, war, & prostitution], who will later be called Ishtar and whom the Greeks will call Aphrodite); among other things, Enhuduanna writes sacred poetry, becoming the earliest author whose name we know. We read 2 poems by Enheduanna

Collectively, her works show the god as ruler and force controlling earthly and heavenly powers. They also likely have political content, in which powerful gods stand in for powerful kings. But they also show a personal god, with whom the priestess has a relationship, allowing her in the last hymn to work her way into the poem and even to name herself

Sumerian Mythos: 

• As many as 3600 gods

• Seven among those are Anunnaki, or “children of An and Ki.”

• Inanna : the Goddess of love, sexuality, prostitution, and war. Tremendously popular with worshippers. An Anunnaki.

Notes on Enheduanna’s poetry:

• Akkadians had a written language (cuneiform), but many official documents and literary texts, including Enheduanna’s poetry, were written in Sumerian. They are recorded on stone tablets (all we have are later copies).

• Inana destroys and “brings up.” She can turn men into women and women into men. Sumerian priests could be men or women, and certain classes of priests tended toward a kind of erasure of those categories via cross-dressing and queering of identity (assuming actions or roles generally associated with the other sex). In what way does it make sense that the priestly class was not defined by gender?

Questions to ponder: What figures of speech do we see in Enheduanna’s poetry? How is the goddess portrayed? What sort of relationship does the priestess have with the goddess? Given political context and role of priestess, why do you think Enheduanna included her name in her hymns?

1800 BCE After the fall of Akkad, there are several centuries of ongoing Mesopotamian culture, but the various city states are no longer unified. This changes when Babylon rises to power, under rule of Hammurabi

Hebrew Bible

An example of an ancient Monotheistic text.

Consider the following: what sort of activity is involved in creation (speech, categorization/definition)

What does this say of humans? What does it mean to be in the image of God?

What privileges are we granted? What responsibilities come with those privileges?

What happens when we violate God’s rules?

How is exile presented here (Adam&Eve; then Cain)? Is it like the displacement of Oedipus?

More generally, consider the problem of exile—what is it to be alone? What does it mean to be w/o a community? It is terrible here, and the loss is echoed in other cultures. 

Compare the God of this text to the gods of the polytheistic cultures we have studied. What similarities and differences do you note?

Note the parallels in narrative structure: creation, the rules in Eden, the exile, destruction, new rules for Noah, the destruction of Babel, followed by another exile/scattering

What does this text say about the rule of law? Can we compare it to the problems on this front that Oedipus faces?

Theodicy

Iron Age (opens 1200 BCE)

Ancient Greece

• The Greeks are humanists: They make human nature and experience—individual and collective, intellectual and physical—central to their understanding of the world.

• Arete is a term that encapsulates excellence of many forms; moral virtue, performative success, well-trained ability to reason, etc. A healthy body and mind speak to such additional virtues as proportion and functional suitability. Capability in action wins one honor, or Kleos.

• “Know thyself!” Oracle at Delphi

• “Man is the measure of all things.” Protagoras (c490–c420)

• Politically, this came to a head in 507 B.C. A man named Cleisthenes, who was the leader of a city state called Athens, introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people” (from demos, “the people,” and kratos, or “power”). After those reforms, all male Greeks of a certain age participated in governance.

• “Greeks made men into gods, gods into men.”

Who was Homer? 700 BC Rhapsode

Iliad: poem (narrative vs dramatic vs lyric), epic (heroes, rise and fall of nations or other great adventure), events occur several hundred years pre-Homer

Several heroes: especially Achilles, Agamemnon

Book 1: Chryses, a priest from a town near Troy, asks the Greeks for the return of his daughter, Chryseis, who has been abducted in the war by Agamemnon. When Agamemnon refuses, Chryses prays to Apollo, who sends a plague on the Greeks. Kalchas, a Greek soothsayer, explains to the Greek leaders why Apollo is angry. Agamemnon agrees to give up Chryseis if another Greek will compensate him, and when that is rejected, he takes Briseis, a slave-lover of Achilles. Achilles responds by withdrawing from the war, and praying to his mother, Thetis, a sea-goddess, that the Greeks will fare poorly in battle. Thetis talks with Zeus, who agrees.

Opening line: Menin aeide, thea, Peleiadeo Achilleos oulomenin.

1. Epic convention (invocation of the muse)

2. Anger of Achilles > the struggle of reason against the passions

Questions to ponder: What is at the heart of the Agamemnon/Achilles debate? What is at stake in their argument? What different senses of authority do they have? What do we make of Homer’s gods? In what ways do the internal problems Achilles faces resemble his arguments with Agamemnon and the Greeks’ overall war with Troy? Who is the hardest enemy to confront? How does the Briseis/Chryseis debate resemble the struggle between Greece and Troy regarding Helen?

Sappho Ancient Greek lyric poetry; from Lesbos

-with what sort of topics is she preoccupied?

-how does she represent love? What happens when it goes wrong? How do the dissatisfactions of love resemble war?

Ancient Greek visual representations of the human: Dipylon amphora painting; kouroi; Kritios boy & contrapposto; Polykleitos’ Doryphoros / the Kanon

Consider: the Greek human form becomes more “realistic” but also more “idealized.” What does this have to do with proportion? The Greeks thought about the physical human form in relation to an ideal of proportion and balance among body parts: in what sense do Greek philosophy and literature recognize the value of these qualities?

Sophocles

Dramatic poetry

History of Greek tragedy: 540 BCE; Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides

Features of Greek tragedy: 3 unities (time, place, action) / Aristotle’s Poetics; Agon, Hamartia, Katharsis, Peripeteia, Anagnorisis

Oedipus tyrannos

Terms for structure of tragedy: episodes, choral odes (strophe, antistrophe, epode), stasimon, exodos

Questions to ponder: Is Oedipus a good leader? Think about what we have learned about how the ancient Greeks thought about what made someone good or bad, admirable or dishonorable. Is he more like Agamemnon or Achilles? Does the play suggest we have much control over our lives? The Greeks were very worried about the implications of fate vs. free will. What is the function of all of the oracles and prophets? Creon takes charge at the end of the play. What do you think he will be like as a ruler, compared to Oedipus? Teiresias is blind. Oedipus is blind at the play's end. How is this fitting? Some characters assert one person cannot be many people, but is that true in this play? Would you say that Oedipus is guilty of crimes against nature? If so, who or what establishes the laws that he breaks? What about miasma (“pollution”) in relation to diké (justice)?

Chaplin, The Kid

As an example of comedy: 

How might comedy be structured, in comparison to tragedy? Would all the components of the former be present in the latter? How would they need to be modified? The film is about loss and recovery of family. It may be about a fall from grace and redemption. How can you think about that in relation to the other sorts of loss we have seen, such Oedipus being stripped of self, power, and natural family and political relations? What do you make of this film in relation to the Biblical texts we have considered together.

Plato, Republic

Idealist philosophy

Plato as student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle

Dialogues: nature of Socrates character.

• “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

The metaphor of the human soul in relation to the body politic:

Reason < Wisdom > Guardians

Spirit < Courage > Auxiliaries

Appetite < Temperance > Citizens

If the above 3 “cardinal virtues” are present in the proper proportions, they will foster a fourth: Justice

Allegory of the Cave

Mimesis