Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
WORKS CITED FOR UNIT ONE STUDY GUIDE
Adams, Laurie Schneider. Art Across Time. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Andreu, Guillemette. Trans. David Lorton. Egypt in the Age of the Pyramids. Ithaca: Cornell University
1997.
Press,
Aruz, Joan, ed. Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium BC from the Mediterranean to the Indus . New York: Yale
University Press, 2003.
Blier, Suzanne Preson. The Royal Arts of Africa: The Majesty of Form. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
Bourbon, Fabio, ed. Lost Civilizations. Vercelli, Italy: Barnes & Noble, 1998.
Caygill, Marjorie. The British Museum A-Z Companion. London: British Museum Press, 1999.
Ching, Francis D.K. A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997.
Corbin, George A. Native Arts of North America, Africa, and the South Pacific. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,
1998.
Durant, Will. The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage. New York: MJF Books, 1963.
Fagg, William, and John Pemberton. Yoruba: Sculpture of West Africa. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition, Book 1: The First Civilizations and the Classical Legacy, 4 ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
th
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition, Book 3: The European Renaissance, the Reformation, and Global
Encounter,
4 ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
th
Fletcher, Joann. Ancient Egypt: Life, Myth, and Art. New York: Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1999.
Glancey, Jonathan. The Story of Architecture. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2000.
Gombrich, E. H. The Story of Art. 16 ed. London: Phaidon Press, 1995.
th
Govignon, Brigitte. The Beginner’s Guide to Art. Trans. John Goodman. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
Gympel, Jan. The Story of Architecture. Cologne: Konemann, 1996.
Hagen, Rose-Marie and Rainer. Egypt: People, Gods, Pharaohs. Cologne: Taschen and Barnes and Nobles
2003.
Books,
Hall, James. Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Harpur, James. The Atlas of Sacred Places. New York: Henry Holt, 1994.
Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. The Visual Arts: A History. 7 ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall,
2005.
th
Janson, H. W. and Anthony F. History of Art, 6 ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001.
th
Jessop, Joanne. The X-Ray Picture Book of Big Buildings of the Ancient World. New York: Watts, 1992.
Kleiner, Fred S., Christin J. Mamiya, and Richard G. Tansey. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 11 ed. Fort Worth:
Harcourt College Publishers, 2001.
th
Lucie-Smith, Edward. Art and Civilization. Englewood, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992.
Lundquist, John M. The Temple: Meeting Place of Heaven and Earth. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993.
Mack, John. The Museum of the Mind. London: British Museum Press, 2003.
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
Mann, A. T. Sacred Architecture. Rockport: Element Inc., 1993.
Malek, Jaromir. Egyptian Art. London: Phaidon, 1999.
Miller, Mary Ellen. The Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.
Miller, Mary Ellen. Maya Art and Architecture. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999.
Mittler, Gene A. Art In Focus. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.
O’Riley, Michael Kampen. Art Beyond the West: The Arts of Africa, India and Southeast Asia, China, Japan and
Korea, the Pacific, and the Americas. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001
Philip, Neil. Myths and Legends. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1999.
Phillips, Charles. The Lost History of Aztec and Maya. London: Hermes House, 2004.
Scholz, Piotr O. Ancient Egypt. New York: Barrons, 1997.
Sieber, Roy, and Roslyn Adele Walker. African Art in the Cycle of Life. Washington: Nation Museum of
Art, 1987.
African
Stevenson, Neil. Architecture. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1997.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999.
Tansey, Richard G. and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 10 ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt College
Publishers, 1996.
th
Tinniswood, Adrian. Visions of Power. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1998.
Tucker, Louise, ed. The Visual Dictionary of Ancient Civilizations. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1994.
Visona, Monica Blackmun, et. al. A History of African Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001.
Wilkinson, Philip. Amazing Buildings. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1993.
Willett, Frank. African Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993.
Wren, Linnea H., ed. Perspectives on Western Art. Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.
Wren, Linnea H., ed. Perspectives on Western Art. Vol. 2. New York: Harper Collins, 1994.
Prehistoric Time Periods
1. During the Paleolithic period (the term “paleo” means “old” and the word “lithos” means “stone”), beginning around
30,000 BCE, cave dwelling Cro-Magnon man appears to have the urge to create images. The oldest known cave paintings
were discovered in 1994 in the Chauvet Cave near Vallon-Pont-d”Arc in France (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 11).
Around 9,000 BCE, the glaciers receded and a more temperate climate developed. This period is known as the
Mesolithic period (12). The Neolithic period refers to the time when man became herdsmen and farmers. This
happened at different times in different parts of the world. “The transition to the Neolithic occurred first in the ancient
Near East.” (12).
2. “Tool-making represents the beginning of culture, which, in its most basic sense, proceeds from the manipulation of
nature. The making of tools- humankind’s earliest technology- constitutes the primary act of extending control over
nature and the most fundamental example of problem-solving behavior” (Fiero, First Civilizations 1). “In various parts of
Africa and East Asia, hunter-gatherers known as Homo erectus (‘upright human’) made tools that were more varied and
efficient than those used by earlier humans. These tools included hand-axes, cleavers, chisels, and a wide variety of
choppers… Fire, too, became an important part of the early culture of humankind, providing safety, warmth, and a means
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
of cooking food” (1). “Some 100,000 years ago, a group of human ancestors with anatomical features and brain size
similar to our own appeared in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf, Germany. The burial of human dead (their bodies
dyed with red ocher) among Neanderthals and the practice of including tools, weapons, and flowers in Neanderthal
graves are evidence of self-conscious, symbol-making known as Homo sapiens” (1).
3. “The development of the primate brain in both size and complexity was integral to the evolution of Homo sapiens:
Over millions of years, the average brain size of the human being grew to roughly three times the size of the gorilla’s
brain. Equally critical was the growth of more complex motor capacities. Gradually, verbal methods of communication
complemented the nonverbal ones shared by animals and protohumans. We do not know at what point speech replaced
more primitive sound codes, but, over time, our prehistoric ancestors came to use spoken language as a medium for
transmitting information and patterns of culture. Communication by means of language distinguished Homo sapiens from
other primates” (1). “Paleolithic culture evolved during a period of climatic fluctuation called the Ice Age. Between
roughly three million and 10,000 years ago, at least four large glacial advances covered the area north of the equator. As
hunters and gatherers, Paleolithic people were forced either to migrate or adapt to changing climatic conditions. It is
likely that more than fifteen species of humans coexisted with one another, and all but Homo sapiens became extinct.
Ultimately, the ingenuity and imagination of Homo sapiens were responsible for the fact that they fared better than many
other creatures” (1).
4. “During the transitional (or Mesolithic) phase that occurred shortly after 10,000 BCE, our ancient ancestors discovered
that the seeds of wild grains and fruits might be planted to grow food, and wild animals might be domesticated. The rock
art paintings discovered at Tassili in Africa’s Sahara Desert-once fertile grasslands- tell the story of a transition from
hunting to herding and the domestication of cattle and camels. Gradually, over a period of centuries, as hunters,
gatherers, and herdsmen became farmers and food producers, a dynamic new culture emerged: the Neolithic. Food
production freed people from a nomadic way of life. They gradually settled permanent farm communities, raising highprotein crops such as wheat and barley in Asia, rice in China, and maize in the Americas. They raised goats, pigs, cattle,
and sheep that provided regular sources of food and valuable by-products such as wool and leather” (4).
Hall of the Bulls (Lascaux), c. 15,000-13,000 BCE
1. At Lascaux, France, as at Chauvet, France, (a recently discovered site where we meet the earliest paintings known to
us), “bison, deer, horses, and cattle race across walls and ceiling. Some of them are outlined in black, others filled in with
bright earth colors, but all show the same uncanny sense of life… The pictures never appear near the mouth of the cave,
where they would be open too easy view and destruction. They are found only in dark recesses, as far from the entrance
as possible. Some can be reached only by crawling on hands and knees” (Janson 33-34). “Since many Lascaux animals
are superimposed, they have been read as examples of image-magic. According to this theory, the act of making the
images was an end in itself, possibly a symbolic capture of the animal by fixing its likeness on the cave wall” (Adams, Art
Across Time 33).
2. “The Lascaux artists created their figures by first drawing an outline and then filling it in with pigment. The pigment
itself was stored in hollow bones plugged at one end, which may also have been used to blow the pigment onto the walls.
Some of these bone tubes, still bearing traces of pigment, have been found in the caves” (33). The caves at Lascaux “have
been dated to about 15,000 –13,000 BCE. The Lascaux artists also used the contours of the rock as part of their
compositions. They painted cows, bulls, horses, and deer along natural ledges, where the smooth, white limestone of the
ceiling and the upper wall meets a rougher surface below. The animals appear singly, in rows, face to face, tail to tail, and
even painted on top of one another. As in other caves, their most characteristic features have been emphasized. Horns,
eyes, and hooves are shown as seen from the front, yet heads and bodies are rendered in profile. Even when their poses
are exaggerated or distorted, the animals are full of life and energy, and the accuracy of the drawing of their silhouettes, or
outlines, still astonishes us” (Stokstad, Art History 43).
3. “The basic colors of cave painting are red and black, sometimes enriched with yellow, maroon, and violet. All of these
were made by combining ground minerals with fat. Red was made from iron oxide, yellow and brown- used for lights and
shadows- from ocher. Chalk was sometimes added to lighten the color. Black was derived from manganese” (Govignon
120-121). “Man of these images clearly relate to the hunt. Perhaps they were intended to bring good luck and conquer
fear. Or perhaps these caves were sanctuaries reserved for the celebration of a myth, a fertility ritual, or magical rites”
(121). “Human figures are more unusual… At Lascaux, a very rare scene represents a wounded man falling in front of a
charging bison” (120).
4. “Over one hundred limestone cave dwellings in southwestern France and still others discovered as recently as 1996 in
southeastern France contain images of animals (bears, bison, elk, lions, and zebras, among others), birds, fish, and other
signs and symbols, all of which reveal a high degree of artistic and technical sophistication. Executed between 10,000 and
30,000 years ago, these wall-paintings provide a visual record of such long-extinct animals as the hairy mammoth and the
woolly rhinoceros. Equally important, they document the culture of a hunting people. Painted with polychrome mineral
pigments and shaded with bitumen and burnt coal, realistically depicted bison, horses, reindeer, and a host of other
creatures are shown standing, running often wounded by spears and lances. What were the purpose and function of
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
these vivid images? Located in the most inaccessible regions of the caves, and frequently drawn one over another, with
no apparent regard for clarity of composition, it is unlikely that they were intended as decorations or even as records of
the hunt. It seems possible that, much like tools and weapons, cave art functioned as part of a hunting ritual” (Fiero, First
Civilizations 1-2).
5. “Faith in the power to alter destiny by way of prayer and the manipulation of proper symbols has characterized
religious ceremony throughout the history of humankind, but it was especially important to a culture in which control
over nature was crucial to physical survival. A motif commonly found on cave walls is the image of the human hand,
created in negative relief by blowing or splattering color around the actual hand of the hunter, shaman, or priest who
interceded between the human realm and the spirit world. Since the hand was the hunter’s most powerful ally in making
and wielding a weapon, it is fitting that it appears enshrined in the sacred precinct amid the quarry of the hunt. The
precise meaning of many of the markings on prehistoric cave walls remains a matter of speculation. In that some cave
paintings depict beasts and sea-creatures that humans did not hunt, it may be that these images were cult-related. Some
scholars hold that certain prehistoric markings were lunar calendars—notational devices used to predict the seasonal
migration of animals. The cave, symbol of the cosmic underworld and the procreative womb, served as a ceremonial
chamber, a shrine, and perhaps a council room. No matter how one interprets so-called ‘cave art’, it is surely an
expression of our early ancestors’ efforts to control their environment and thus ensure their survival” (3).
Venus of Willendorf (Austria), c. 28,000- 23,000 BCE, limestone
1. “We have only to turn to one of the earliest surviving representations of the human form to discover that the body was
a source of fascination even to Paleolithic, prehistoric cultures. The tiny limestone carving known as the Willendorf
Woman discovered in Willendorf, Austria, is thought to be between 25,000 and 30,000 years old. Anthropologists and
art historians have drawn attention to the tactile nature of its bulbous contours, the pendulous breasts and swollen belly,
leading them to speculate on the figure’s possible talismanic function as a hand-held fertility symbol. More recently, the
theory has been put forward that such Paleolithic carvings might be the first attempts by women to represent themselves
while pregnant. Thus the exaggerated breasts and midriff might have served some gynecological function, plotting the
changing forms of the female body in pregnancy. Although such theories can only be treated as conjuncture, they do
effectively challenge a broad historical tendency to explain even the earliest representations of the unclothed female body
as products of male erotic fantasy. We should exercise caution before ascribing ritual, social, or even artistic significance
to such prehistoric objects, but we can properly treat them as early evidence of the human body as an important subject of
representation among even the most archaic of cultures” (Flynn 22-23).
2. “The artist has emphasized those parts of the body related to reproduction and nursing. Furthermore, comparison of
the front with the side and back shows that, although it is a sculpture in the round, more attention has been lavished on
the front. This suggests that the figure was intended to be viewed from the front. Since frontality is characteristic of much
religious art in later cultures, the combination of frontality and symbolic exaggeration here has led some scholars to
conclude that the Venus of Willendorf represented a fertility goddess” (Adams, Art Across Time 26). “After an image is
shaped, it can be sanded, filed, or polished. The Venus of Willendorf was not polished, although some Paleolithic
sculptures were. It is made of limestone, which does not polish as well as other types of stone” (26). “Some of the
carvings suggest that the objects may have stemmed from the perception of a chance resemblance. Earlier Stone Age
people were content to collect pebbles in whose natural shape they saw something that made them special. Echoes of this
approach can sometimes be felt in later pieces. The so-called ‘Venus’ of Willendorf, one of many such female figurines,
has a bulbous roundness of form that recalls an egg-shaped ‘sacred pebble.’ Her navel, the central point of the design, is
a natural cavity in the stone” (Janson 35).
3. “Women probably secured food by gathering fruits and berries; they acted also as healers and nurturers. Moreover,
since the female (in her role as childbearer) assumed the continuity of the tribe, she assumed a special importance:
Perceived as life-giver and identified with the mysterious powers of procreation, she was exalted as Mother Earth. Her
importance in the prehistoric community is confirmed by the great numbers of female statuettes uncovered by
archeologists throughout the world” (Fiero, First Civilizations 4).
Shamanism
1. “Shamanism exists today in certain small-scale societies throughout the world, and seems to have been a feature of
some prehistoric cultures. Shamans, from the Tunguso-Manchurian word saman (meaning “to know”), function as
intermediaries between the human and the spirit worlds. They communicate with spirits by entering a trance- induced by
rhythmic movement or sound, hallucinogenic drugs, fasting, and so forth- during which one or more spirits “possess”
them” (Adams, Art Across Time 32).
2. “Shamans are revered healers and problem-solvers in their communities, and are feared for the harm they could do if
angered. They foretell the future, cure the sick, and assist in such rites of passage as birth and death. Shamans are highly
individualistic, often living on the fringes of society, and do not participate in organized religion. They generally wear
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
ritual costumes made of animal skins and horns or antlers and carry ritual objects such as rattles. Dancing and chanting
typically accompany shamanic ceremonies” (32).
Human skull from Jericho, c. 7000-6000 BCE
1. “By 7000 BCE, agriculture was well established in at least three Near Eastern regions: Palestine, Iran, and Anatolia…
The site of Jericho – a plateau in the Jordan River valley with an unfailing spring – was occupied by a small village as early
as the ninth millennium BCE… By approximately 7500 BCE, the town, estimated to have had a population of more than
2,000 people, had built a huge (almost 13 feet tall) wall and a circular stone tower… Among the artifacts excavated there
are a number of human skulls whose features artists “reconstructed” in plaster to create lifelike features. Some scholars
think they attest to a belief in an afterlife following the body’s death since they were detached from their bodies and
buried separately” (Kleiner , Mamiya, and Tansey 12-13).
2. “The biblical account of Joshua’s attack on Jericho (Joshua 6) refers to a much later settlement at the site. His success
lives on today in the refrain of the spiritual: ‘Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down.’
Jericho’s walls protected a city of rectangular houses and public buildings made of mud-brick and erected on stone
foundations. Mud-brick was the mainstay of ancient Near Eastern architecture, used for ordinary buildings as well as for
public architecture. Manufactured from an inexpensive, readily available material, it was easy to work with and suited to
the climate. The walls of Jericho’s mud-brick houses were plastered and painted” (Adams, Art Across Time 49).
3. “In addition to providing shelter for the living, dwellings in Jericho housed the dead. Corpses buried under the floors
indicate a concern with ancestors, a conclusion reinforced by one of the most intriguing archaeological finds, the so-called
‘Jericho skulls.’ These uncanny skull ‘portraits’ are almost literal renderings of the transition between life and death. The
dead person’s detached skull presumably served as a kind of armature on which to rebuild the face and thus preserve the
memory of the deceased” (49). “Unlike Paleolithic art, which had grown from the perception of chance images, the
Jericho heads are not intended to ‘create’ life but to perpetuate it beyond death by replacing the flesh with a more
enduring substance. From the circumstances in which they were found, we gather that these heads were displayed above
ground while the rest of the body was buried beneath the floor of the house. We can presume that they belonged to
honored ancestors whose beneficent presence was thus ensured” (Janson 36).
Çatal Hüyük, (Turkey), c. 6000-5900 BCE
1. “Excavations at Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia (modern Turkey) brought to light another Neolithic town, roughly a thousand
years younger than Jericho. Its residents traded in obsidian (a volcanic glass used for cutting) and ores, making it a center
of metalworking. The people lived in houses built of mud bricks and timber, clustered around open courtyards” (Janson
37). “The layout of the town suggests that it was planned without streets. Instead, one-story, mud-brick houses were
connected to each other by their rooftops, and scholars assume that ladders provided access from ground level; it is
possible, although not certain, that this was for defense… Skeletons were buried under floors and benches. Some of the
skeletons were coated with red ocher, while the necks and heads of others were decorated with blue and green pigments.
Deposits of jewelry and weapons accompanied the remains, suggesting that they were thought necessary in an afterlife”
(Adams, Art Across Time 50).
2. “The settlement did include a number of religious shrines, the oldest so far. On their plaster-covered walls we find the
earliest paintings on a man-made surface. Animal hunts, with small running figures surrounding huge bulls or stags,
remind us of cave paintings. The similarity is a sign that the Neolithic Revolution must have been a recent event at the
time, but the balance has already shifted: these hunts appear to be rituals honoring the deity to whom the bull and stag
were sacred… Compared to the animals of the cave paintings, those at Çatal Hüyük are simple and static; here it is the
hunters who are in motion. Animals associated with female deities appear even more rigid…. The most surprising of the
wall paintings at Çatal Hüyük is a view of the town itself, with the twin cones of an erupting volcano above it” (Janson 37).
“Bulls’ horns, widely thought to be symbols of masculine potency, adorn most shrines, sometimes in considerable
numbers. In some rooms they are displayed next to plaster breasts, symbols of female fertility, projecting from the walls.
Statuettes of stone or terracotta (baked clay) also have been found in considerable numbers at Çatal Hüyük. Most are
quite small (two to eight inches high) and primarily depict female figures” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 14).
3. The paintings and sculptures found at Çatal Hüyük are remarkable though they raise problems in interpretation. In
what context were they conceived?” (Honour and Fleming 34). In paintings, “women are rearely depicted. They appear
frequently in clay figurines, however; indeed they greatly outnumber the men. Thus in one of the main dimensions of
meaning discernible in these prehistoric visual images, that of the wild and the domestic, men are linked with the former
just when hunting was being overtaken by agricultre. Would it be anachronistic to see them also in a context of gender
difference, of changing male and female roles at this significant juncture in Neolithic life?” (34). “The rroms in which
most of the paintings and sculptures were found have been called ‘shrines’, perhaps misleadingly even if no more than the
rituals of a fertility cult are implied. The inhabitants probably made no more distinction between ritual and domestic
spheres than do small-scale societies still surviving today, such as the Nuba in Africa. Howerver, findings in thse
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
particular rooms include wall-paintings (in natural colors, sometimes polychrome, mixed with fat and painted with a brush
on a fine white plaster ground), plaster reliefs, animal heads, bucrania (bovine skulls), bulls’ horns set into stylized
remodelled heads of bulls or into benches or pillars, and also numerous statuettes in clay or stone of both humans
(mostly female) and animals. Nothing suggests that the bull or any other animal was regarded as a deity through the
prominent bulls’ horns may have been thought to ward off evil. Indeed animals are always shown as subservient to
humans whenever they are depicted together. Each room had at least two platforms, one of which was framed by wooden
posts, plastered over and painted red. A raised bench stood against the wall at the far end of the main platform. These
platforms served for work, eating, sleep and also burial after the flesh had been removed, probably by exposure to
vultures, of which there are several paintings. Of the adult skeletons recovered 84 were male and 132 female. Women
were found buried with obsidian mirrors, personal ornaments such as colored beads and cosmetic sets including shells
filled with red ochre. Men were buried with less personal adornment but with numerous weapons such as maces, daggers,
knives, arrow-heads and a few sickle blades” (35).
Stonehenge (Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England), c. 2000 BCE
1. “In the Carnac district on the south coast of Brittany, in France, thousands of menhirs, or single vertical megaliths, were
set up sometime between 4250 and 3750 BCE. Over 3,000 of them still stand in a two-mile stretch near Menec. Each of
these squared-off stones weighs several tons. They were placed in either circular patterns known as cromlechs or straight
rows known as alignments… The east-west orientation of the alignments suggests some connection to the movement of
the sun” (Stokstad, Art History 53). “Of all the megalithic monuments in Europe, the one that has stirred the imagination
of the public most strongly is Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain in southern England. A henge is a circle of stones or posts,
often surrounded by a ditch with built-up embankment. Laying out such circles with accuracy would have posed no
particular problem. Their architects likely relied on the human compass, a simple but effective surveying method that
persisted will into modern times. All that is required is a length of cord either cut or knotted to mark the desire radius of
the circle. A person holding one end of the cord is stationed in the center; a co-worker, holding the other end and
keeping the cord taut, steps off the circle’s circumference” (53).
2. “Stonehenge is not the largest such circle from the Neolithic period, but because it was repeatedly reworked to
incorporate new elements, it is one of the most complicated megalithic sites. It must have had, or developed,, an
extraordinary importance in its region… An ‘avenue’ from the henge to the northeast led well outside the embankment to
a pointed sarsen megalith- sarsen is a gray sandstone- brought from a quarry 23 miles away. Today, this so-called heel
stone, tapered toward the top and weighing about 35 tons, stands about 16 feet high. The ditches and embankments
bordering the approach avenue were constructed somewhat later, at the same time as the huge megalithic monument we
see today. By about 2100 BCE, Stonehenge included all of the internal elements reflected in the drawing shown here.
Dominating the center was a horseshoe-shaped arrangement of five sandstone trilithons, or pairs of upright stones topped
by lintels. The one at the middle stood considerably taller than the rest, rising to a height of 24 feet, and its lintel was
more than 15 feet long and 3 feet thick. This group was surrounded by the so-called sarsen circle, a ring of sandstone
uprights weighing up to 50 tons each and standing 20 feet tall. This circle, 106 feet in diameter, was capped by a
continuous lintel. The uprights were tapered slightly toward the top, and the gently curved lintel sections were secured by
mortise and tenon joints, a conical projection from one piece fitting into a hole in the next. Just inside the sarsen circle
was once a ring of bluestones- worked blocks of a bluish dolerite found only in the mountains of southern Wales, 150
miles away. Why the builders of Stonehenge felt it necessary to use specifically this type of stone is one of the many
mysteries of Stonehenge. Clearly the stones were highly prized” (54). “Whoever stood at the exact center of Stonehenge
on the morning of the summer solstice 4,000 years ago would have seen the sun rise directly over the heel stone. The
observer could then warn people that the sun’s strength would shortly begin to wane, that the days would grow shorter
and the nights cooler until the country was once more gripped by winter” (54-55). Another prehistoric structure called
the dolmen “was made up of a post-and-lintel frame of large stone slabs ‘roofed’ with one or more capstones, then
mounded over with dirt and smaller stones called a cairn” (53). Stonehenge could have served as an omphalos. The
omphalos marks the place where “the belief that one’s own country… was the center of the earth or even the axis of the
cosmos” (Hall 105).
3. “Stonehenge is thought to have been built over a long period of time, between 1900 and 1600 BCE, because the rings
of standing stones are made of different materials and clearly were erected at different times. The sarsens average thirty
tons each and are from the Marlborough Downs, while the bluestones are from Wales” (Mann 67).“The overall geometry
of Stonehenge is determined by squaring the circle. The outermost circle of sarsen stones determines a square within
which the diameter of the bluestone ring can be determined… The circumference of the outer sarsen circled and the
square encircling it is equal to 316.8 feet, a symbolic number also describing the measure around the New Jerusalem in
miles. John Michell believes that the Holy City of St. John’s vision, the outlines of which are also found at Glastonbury,
precedes Christian revelation and was understood by the builders of Stonehenge. It was a model of the cosmic order
created on earth” (66).
4. “A larger scale solar geometry determines the relative sizes of the rings of Stonehenge. A cross drawn through the
center of Stonehenge allows the construction of two vesica pisces at right angles to each other, one enclosing and one
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
enclosed with the sarsen ring. When a vesica is in turn inscribed within the innermost one, the enclosed diamond has an
area of 1080 square feet, 1080 being the sacred number of the Holy Ghost. These measurements use the Megalithic
Yard (MY), a unit sacred to early humanity. The largest intersecting circles have a total width of 666 MY, a number
sacred to the sun. Stonehenge may therefore be seen as a sanctuary to the earth spirit penetrated by the sun’s rays” (6667). “An interesting hypothesis presented by Michael Saunders in 1982 was that Stonehenge was the first planetarium.
Using the measurements of the various rings of stones from the center of the monument, Saunders discovered that when
they are multiplied by 10 (to the tenth power), they correspond, to within a few percent, to the distances of the planets
from the Sun to Jupiter. Mercury corresponds to the semi-circular bluestone ring of trilithons; the sun to the sarsen
horseshoe; Venus to the second bluestone ring of fifty-six stones; the Earth to the sarsen ring of thirty uprights; the nearest
and furthest possible orbits of Mars correspond to the two Y and Z rings; the asteroids to the surrounding circular bank;
and Jupiter to the Heelstone, with the chalk circle around the stone representing the mean distance of Jupiter’s orbit. He
also found that the length of the Avenue (leading from the center of the circle to the Heelstone) corresponds to the mean
distance of Pluto from the Sun. It is a superb illustration of the way in which the mathematics of this remarkable structure
represents an archetype of planetary relationships in symbolic form” (69).
The ancient Sumerians
1. “The Sumerians created one of the most important of all ancient civilizations. They invented the wheel, mathematical
numbers, multiplication tables, and instrumental music (along with the lyre or harp). They are also credited with
developing the earliest known script (in the form of wedge-shaped lines) known as cuneiform” (Durant, Oriental Heritage
131). “Each city, as long as it could, maintained a jealous independence, and indulged itself in a private king. It called
him patesi, or priest-king, indicating by the very word that government was bound up with religion… The despot lived in a
Renaissance atmosphere of violence and fear; at any moment he might be dispatched by the same methods that had
secured him the throne” (126). “The oldest inscriptions are on stone, and date apparently as far back as 3600 BC.
Towards 3200 BC the clay tablet appears, and from that time on the Sumerians seem to have delighted in the great
discovery” (131).“Here, for the first known time on a large scale, appear some of the sins of civilization: slavery,
despotism, ecclesiasticism, and imperialistic war” (134). “The priest-king led the army, regulated the supply and
distribution of food, and provided political and religious leadership” (Fiero, First Civilizations 41-42).
2. “Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq) was the center of ancient Near Eastern civilization. Its name is derived from the
Greek mesos (middle) and potamus (river). Mesopotamia is literally the ‘land between the rivers’ – the Tigris and the
Euphrates. The Mesopotamian climate was harsh, and its inhabitants learned irrigation to make the land fertile” (Adams,
Art Across Time 50). The government of ancient Sumer was a theocracy. Judges and priests were for the most part the
same. Gods in the temple were provided with food, revenue, and wives. Originally it seems that the gods preferred
human flesh; one liturgical tablet tells us that “the lamb is the substitute for humanity; he hath given up a lamb for his life”
(Durant, Oriental Heritage 128). Schools were attached to most of the temples wherein the clergy instructed both boys
and girls in writing and arithmetic. Women exercised equal rights with her husbands over their children in Sumerian
society. In times of crisis, however, the male was lord and master (129).
3. “The creation of the city is one of the most significant legacies of ancient Mesopotamia. Cities emerged after millennia
of continuous settlement on the level of villages and small towns over large areas that extended from the mountainous
realms toward the great central plains” (Aruz 11). “Permanent survival was possible only by employing artificial irrigation.
In addition, a similarly narrow spectrum of utilizable material for housing and implements was available, requiring
organized ways of securing further resources from abroad. These developments indicate a level of organization that
implies the existence of a set of rules as a guiding principle for societal institutions. More than other well-known criteriathe appearance of city walls, the specialization of labor, the emergence of writing and administration- these principles
define urban life” (11). “A change in settlement opportunities and an opening of the southern Mesopotamian flood plain
during the first half of the fourth millennium BC led to a massive and probably rapid occupation of the area after about
3500 BC. This created a previously unheard-of population density. The fertility of the soil enabled the area of land
necessary to feed a village to decrease, thus allowing settlements to move closer” (15-16).
4. “The closer living quarters resulted in new conflicts calling for comprehensive solutions. Among several possibilities
for creating an urban social structure, Mesopotamia, from the beginning, chose centralization, including the principles of
central storage and redistribution. New forceful instruments of control were developed, as witnessed by the use of
cylinder seals and particularly writing. The growth of settlements on a new scale also called for new structures of power
and political leadership. We get a glimpse of the extent of the challenges by looking at the sophisticated list of titles and
their impressive imagery created to glorify the ruler” (16). “The Sumerians of the third millennium inherited some of the
means for the artistic expression of their societal values from the complex visual and conceptual vocabulary that had
developed in the great city of Uruk before the onset of the Early Dynastic period. This inherited iconographic system
included the definition of the ruler as celebrated and eminent warrior, as masterful hunter, and as the supreme priest who
mediates and effectuates the god-man relationship, a link that encompasses all aspects of life. These specific ruler virtues
persisted throughout the millennia of Mesopotamian history” (22).
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
Gilgamesh
1. “The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving epic poem and is preserved on cuneiform tablets from the second
millennium BC. It recounts Gilgamesh’s search for immortality as he undertakes perilous journeys through forests and
the underworld, encounters gods, and struggles with moral conflict” (Adams, Art Across Time 56). “Gilgamesh finally
attains immortality as the builder of Uruk’s walls. He establishes urban civilization and lays the foundations of historical
progress” (56).
2. “Gilgamesh, the hero of Mesopotamian epic myth and the forerunner of many dragon-slayers like St. George,
overcomes the monster Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven” (Hall 176). “The Epic of Gilgamesh was recited orally for
centuries before it was recorded at Sumer in the late third millennium. As literature, it precedes the Hebrew Bible and
all the other major writings of antiquity. Its hero is a semi-historical figure who probably ruled the ancient Sumerian city
of Uruk around 2800 BCE” (Fiero, First Civilizations 39). When Gilgamesh “spurns the affections of the Queen of
Heaven, Ishtar (a fertility goddess not unlike the Egyptian Isis), he is punished with the loss of his dearest companion,
Enkidu. Despairing over Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh undertakes a long and hazardous quest in search of everlasting life.
He meets Utnapishtim, a mortal whom the gods have rewarded with eternal life for having saved humankind from a
devastating flood. Utnapishtim helps Gilgamesh locate the plant that miraculously restores youth. But ultimately a
serpent snatches the plant, and Gilgamesh is left with the haunting vision of death as ‘a house of dust’ and a place of
inescapable sadness” (38). “The anxious sense of human vulnerability that pervades the Book of Job recalls the Epic of
Gilgamesh. Indeed, the two works bear comparison. Both heroes, Job and Gilgamesh, are tested by superhuman forces,
and both come to realize that misfortune and suffering are typical of the human condition. Gilgamesh seeks but fails to
secure personal immorality; Job solicits God’s promise of heavenly reward but fails to secure assistance that once dead, he
might return to life… The notion of life after death (so prominent in Egyptian religious thought) is as elusive a concept in
Hebraic literature as it is in Mesopotamian myth” (54). “Although we still lack good information, there are a number of
hints that we should take aspects of the Epic of Gilgamesh more literally as the tale of the king of Uruk who built the city
wall” (Aruz 15).
White Temple and Ziggurat at Uruk, c. 3200-3000 BCE
1. “The ziggurat, derived from an Assyrian word meaning ‘raised up’ or ‘high,’ is a uniquely Mesopotamian architectural
form. Mesopotamians believed that each city was under the protection of a god or gods to whom the city’s inhabitants
owed service, and they built imitation mountains, or ziggurats, as platforms for those gods” (Adams, Art Across Time 54).
“Ziggurats functioned symbolically… as lofty bridges between the earth and heavens – a meeting place for humans and
their gods. They were given names such as ‘House of the Mountain’ and ‘Bond between Heaven and Earth,’ and temples
were known as waiting rooms’ because the priests and priestesses waited there for the gods and goddesses to reveal
themselves” (Stokstad, Art History 66). “The role of the temple as the center of both spiritual and physical life can be
seen in the layout of Sumerian cities. The houses were clustered about a sacred area that was a vast architectural complex
containing not only shrines but workshops, storehouses, and scribes’ quarters as well. In their midst, on a raised platform,
stood the temple of their local god. Perhaps reflecting the Sumerians’ origin in the mountains to the north, these
platforms soon reached the height of true mountains” (Janson 63). The main room atop the White Temple at Warka (or
Uruk), or cella, “where sacrifices were made before the statue of the god, is a narrow hall that runs the length of the
temple and is flanked by smaller chambers. Its main entrance is on the southwest side, rather than on the side facing the
stairs or on one of the narrow sides of the temple as one might expect. To understand why this is the case, we must view
the ziggurat and temple as a whole. The entire complex is planned in such a way that the worshiper, starting at the
bottom of the stairs on the east side, is forced to go around as many corners as possible before reaching the cella. In
other words, the path is a sort of angular spiral. This ‘bent-axis approach’ is a basic feature of Mesopotamian religious
architecture, in contrast to the straight, single axis of Egyptian temples” (63).
2. “The central area was marked by two public spaces where the god of heave, Anu, and the city goddess of Uruk,
Inanna, the lady of heaven, to judge by later sources, had their temples. The layouts of the areas differ in crucial respects.
The Anu District is centered around a high terrace with a temple (the White Temple) on top and seems to have served
an exclusively religious function. The layout of the eastern district, known as E-anna, ‘the temple of heaven,’ on the other
hand, displays a multitude of buildings of various sizes and arrangements, suggesting that a number of different functions
were performed there. It is surrounded by a wall of its own. Surprisingly there is no unequivocal hint of a religious
element in the architecture of this area. Likewise, the written sources point to Uruk’s being ruled by a set of officials
without apparent cultic affiliation- although, supposedly, in these early periods everything had a religious aspect” (Aruz
12). “We know regrettably little about religion and cult in Uruk in this period. Most of the buildings formerly thought to
be temples are now considered to have served a range of purposes beyond religious functions, while the remaining ones,
among them the White Temple, lack features, such as a central niche, that define the later temple. Thus, reference to
later traditions does not help us” (14).
3. “Ziggurats were impressive not because of size alone but also because their exterior surfaces were decorated with
elaborate patterns of colored clay mosaics and reliefs. The gods would have been pleased with all this handiwork, it was
8
Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
said, because they abhorred laziness in their people” (Stokstad, Art History 66). “A stairway leads to the top but does not
end in front of any of the temple doorways, necessitating two or three angular changes in direction. This ‘bent-axis’
approach is the standard arrangement for Sumerian temples, a striking contrast to the linear approach the Egyptians
preferred for their temples and tombs” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 19). “There were two large temple complexes at
Uruk, the first independent Sumerian city-state. One complex was dedicated to Inanna, the goddess of fertility, and the
other probably to the sky god Anu, another major deity. The Anu Ziggurat was built up in stages over the centuries until it
ultimately rose to a height of about 40 feet” (Stokstad, Art History 66).
4. “It is possible to posit that …in Sumer much of life was focused on the temples of the gods. Individual deities owned
their own cities and territories. For example, Inanna, a complex goddess of many aspects including both love and war,
owned Uruk; Nanna, the moon god, possessed Ur; and Ningirsu, a fertility god as well as a warrior god, retained Lagash”
(Aruz 22). The best known ziggurat “was at Babylon (7 -6 cents. BC), the biblical Tower of Babel, which was some 300 ft
high and had seven stages… At the top was the shrine of the local deity, where a sacred marriage was performed annually.
The tower is represented on neo-Babylonian seals” (Hall 97). “Many rooms of this ‘house’ of the god were filled with
mud-brick furniture in the form of other altars and offering tables and included, as well, places for building fires and
stations for pouring liquids. Such a building obviously needed to be properly maintained. Maintenance of mud-brick
architecture, in general, meant adding new coats of mud plaster to the walls, floors, and roofs from time to time to keep
the building dry. In the Sumerian temple, however, the addition of mud plasters, renewed at least annually, was more
than simple upkeep. It became part of a ritual of purification that included the replastering of all the temple furniture as
well as of the walls. Oftentimes splashes of white paint or whitewash were cast onto the walls during this ritual” (Aruz 2829).
th
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5. “Unlike the Egyptian pyramid, which functioned as a tomb, the ziggurat served as a shrine and temple. Hence, it
formed the spiritual center of the city-state. Striking similarities exist between the ziggurats of Mesopotamia and the
stepped platform pyramids of ancient Mexico, built somewhat later. Erected atop rubble mounds much like the
Mesopotamian ziggurat, the temples of Meso-America functioned as solar observatories, religious sanctuaries, and
gravesites. Whether or not any historical link exists between these Mesopotamian and the structurally similar Native
American monuments remains among the many mysteries of ancient history” (Fiero, First Civilizations 45).
Statuettes from the Temple of Abu at Eshnunna (Tell Asmar), c. 2700-2600 BCE, gypsum
1. “Marble statues dated to about 2900-2600 BCE from ruins of a temple at Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar, Iraq) reveal
a somewhat humbler aspect of Mesopotamian religious art. These votive figures- statues made as an act of worship to the
gods- depict individuals. They represent an early example of an ancient Near Eastern religious practice- the setting up of
simple, small statues of individual worshipers in a shrine before the larger, more elaborate image of a god” (Stokstad, Art
History 69).
2. “Cuneiform texts reveal the importance of fixing on a god with an attentive gaze, hence the wide-open eyes. These
standins are at perpetual attention, making eye contact and chanting their donors’ praises through eternity” (70). “The
eyes are shells and the pupils are inlaid with black limestone” (Adams, Art Across Time 57).“The largest male statue has
no attributes of divinity and is thought to represent an important or wealthy person dedicating himself to the god Abu. All
the statues probably represent worshippers of varying status whose sizes were determined by the amount of money their
donors paid for them. As such, these figures are rendered with so-called hierarchical proportions, a convention equating
size with status” (57). “It is not known whether these figures were originally a unified group, but most hold a cup, and
some hold a flower or branch” (57).
3. “The larger figures may be priests, and the smaller figures, laypersons. Rigid and attentive, they stand as if in perpetual
prayer. Their enlarged eyes, inlaid with shell and black limestone convey the impression of dread and awe, visual
testimony to the sense of human apprehension in the face of divine power. These images to not share the buoyant
confidence of the Egyptians; rather, they convey the insecurities of a people whose vulnerability was an ever-present fact
of life” (Fiero, Lost Civilizations 46). “The altars, tables, benches, and other protuberances grew to such great size that
they became like free-form sculptures so dense that movement within the holiest of rooms, the cella, became virtually
impossible. Certainly the shrine could not have been open to everyone- not even to all the temple personnel- and, in fact,
access was probably limited to only a few who served the god’s own special needs. It is perhaps for this very reason that
during the Early Dynastic period a special type of sculpture- often called a worshipper statue or a votive figure- became
popular. The statues, which were images that literally embodied the essence of the worshipper, were dedicated to the god
and stood on benches or offering tables before the divine presence in the cella. Some are inscribed with simple
dedications giving the name of the god and the profession and name of the donor” (Aruz 29).
4. “Once the statue was offered and became part of the temple, it could not be disposed of profanely. Instead groups of
statues, perhaps after the donor died, were either buried beneath floors in the cella or other temple rooms” (29). “What
was important was not precisely where they were put when discarded but rather that they were kept within the temple”
(29). “The votive statues, of various sizes and usually carved in gypsum or limestone, represent both men and women”
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
(29). “Certain statues retain evidence of having been painted. Sometimes pigment can be observed in the fine incisions
of the hair patterns, indicating that the hair, at least, was painted black” (29). “All of these votive figures are frontal, and
their style ranges from highly abstract, with sharp sculptural transitions between different parts of the body, to relatively
naturalistic, with a softer integration of forms” (29).
Lyre from Sumerian Royal Cemetery (Ur, Iraq), c. 2600 BCE
1. This “elegant lyre soundbox from Ur indicates not only the presence of music and musical instruments, but also the
superb craftsmanship of early Sumerian artists” (Adams, Art Across Time 58). “The scorpion-man, who appears in the
bottom scene on the front of the box, may be one of the fearsome guardians of the sun described in the Epic of
Gilgamesh. In addition to hybrid forms combining animals with other animals and animals with humans, ancient Near
Eastern art is populated by animals- such as the goat holding a cup and walking upright- who act like humans. These
figures could represent either mythological creatures or people dressed as animals” (59).
2. Found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, “this lyre was meant to accompany liturgical chants, its sounds associated with
those of the divine bull and its sound box providing a glimpse of the underworld banquet” (Aruz 107). “In the second
register a canine animal, probably a hyena in the role of a butcher, stands on his rear legs. In his human heads he carries
a table piled with animals parts, and he wears a dagger stuck in his belt” (106). “Gilgamesh is depicted standing between
two human-headed bulls, while some of the epic’s fantastic characters, such as the Man-Scorpion, appear in the registers
below. The Great Harp itself may have been used to accompany the chanting of this epic” (Fiero, First Civilizations 39).
“Described as two-thirds god and one-third man, Gilgamesh is blessed by the gods with beauty and courage” (39).
3. “On the basis of the types of jewelry found on the bodies beneath this lyre and beneath a second one in the pit, the
bodies were identified as women. They had the most elaborate headdresses of all the women discovered in the grave, and
they may have been musicians and singers who took part in a celebration of the death ritual” (Aruz 105). “The figures
stand physically above and spiritually over the three lower panels, which depict the funerary banquet celebrated in the
netherworld” (106).
Standard of Ur (Ur), c. 2700 BCE
1. The excavator of the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Leonard Woolley, thought that this object “was originally mounted on a
pole and considered it a kind of military standard- hence its nickname” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 24). The box is
“inlaid with mosaic scenes from shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli, set in bitumen. On one side can be seen peace and
prosperity, with a procession of men bringing animals, fish and other goods. At the top the king banquets among his
friends, entertained by a singer and a man with a lyre. On the other side a Sumerian army, with chariots (the earliest
known representation of wheeled vehicles) and infantry, charges the enemy. The prisoners are then brought before the
king” (Caygill 342).
2. In the uppermost register of the ‘war side,’ soldiers “present bound captives (who have been stripped naked to degrade
them) to a kinglike figure, who has stepped out of his chariot” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 24). “Nudity employed with
similar intent is a recurring motif with many variations in Near Eastern and Egyptian art in this and other periods… Yet
the meaning of nude figures in other types of compositions is difficult to ascertain. For reasons yet to be understood,
warriors, attendants, and works are also often shown nude” (Aruz 23). “The city of Ur lay in southern Mesopotamia, close
to the ancient shoreline of the Gulf… Below the simple graves of the common people lay the elite of Ur, buried with
magnificent treasures. Among the richest tombs was that of Pu-abi, her name recorded on a fine cylinder seal of lapis
lazuli. She lay on a wooden bier, a gold cup near her hand, the upper part of her body entirely hidden by multi-coloured
beads. Over her crushed skull she wore an elaborate headdress. Buried with her were 25 attendants… It was surmised
that the attendants had voluntarily taken poison and been buried while unconscious or dead” (Caygill 341).
3. “The side depicting ‘war’ records the conquest itself in fascinating detail, including costume elements and a row of
chariots pulled by wild asses known as onagers, with a driver and spearman in each chariot. The ‘peace’ side shows
officials celebrating as animals are brought in for the feast, while on the bottom register onagers and other booty are being
brought back. The triangular end panels also had animal scenes. The figures have the same squat proportions and
rounded forms as the statues from Tell Asmar” (Janson 66). “Although the precise function of this object is unknown, the
Standard of Ur provides a mirror of class divisions in Mesopotamia of the third millennium BCE” (Fiero, First
Civilizations 42). “The decayed remains of the box were found in the death pit of a grave, lying close to the shoulder of a
man. Leonard Woolley believed this man may have held the object on a pole, and so he called it a ‘standard’. The
appellation remains associated with the box panels, even though there is no real evidence to support Woolley’s
assumption” (Aruz 97). “The deceased required personal possessions, provisions for his or her journey to the
underworld, and possibly gifts for the gods of the underworld. A Sumerian text describes the purchase of appropriate
good for a temple official; they included food, jewelry, and a chariot” (95). “The tomb chamber was filled with
appropriate treasures, including sometimes a model boat that may have been intended for use in traveling to the
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
underworld. Personal attendants, alive or dead, remained in the tomb chamber with the deceased. Then the door was
blocked” (95).
4. “It is on the basis of many representations in the art of the period that we can posit that an important function of the
ruler, in present-day writings often called the ‘priest-day,’ was to act as intermediary between man and the gods. He
enjoyed the responsibility of assuring the favorable action of the gods in providing the necessities of life and in effecting
the continuation and proliferation of the procreation of plant and animal, as well as human, life” (23). “Thus the Standard
of Ur encompasses the two aspects of Sumerian kingship, the military leader and the bountiful mediator between humans
and gods” (100).
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin (from Susa, Iran), 2254-2218 BCE, pink sandstone
1. “The word “Sin” is the Akkadian name for the Mesopotamian mood-god. He is the son of Enlil and father of Utu
(Shamash) and Inanna (Ishtar). When represented in human form, he is crowned with a crescent mood. His oldest
temple and its adjoining ziggurat was built at Ur in the 23 century” (Hall 204). “Sargon, who reigned from c. 2340 to
2305 BC, was a king of Akkad and founder of the Akkadian empire. He was the son of a gardener whose identity was
unknown even to Sargon. According to tradition, he was chosen by the god Enlil to assume the kingship” (Wren 1: 7).
“Sargon I’s grandson, Naram-Sin, recorded his victory over a mountain people, the Lullubians, in a commemorative stelean upright stone marker. This form of record-keeping used inscriptions and/or relief images to commemorate important
events. When the Epic of Gilgamesh says that the hero ‘cut his works into a stone tablet’, the author was probably
referring to a stele. Today when we speak of ‘making one’s mark,’ we mean essentially the same thing as the
Mesopotamians when they made marks in stone ‘markers’ that were intended to last” (Adams, Art Across Time 60).
rd
2. “The stele of Naram-Sin is a good example of so-called Machtkunst (German for ‘power art’), for it proclaims the
military, political, and religious authority of Naram-Sin” (60). “The focus of the composition is Naram-Sin, who appears
as god-hero-king, his divinity signaled by his horned helmet, his heroic magnificence suggested by the perfection of his
body, and his role as gallant king and warrior intimated by his stance with one foot slightly raised, crushing the broken
bodies of the defeated enemy. Because Naram-Sin was now considered both god and king, it was no longer necessary to
separate the terrestrial and divine worlds and relegated them to different sides of the stele… Now one landscape
representation fuses both worlds and even included the great gods, emblazoned as star symbols situated at the top of the
stele above the mountain peak. The text- unfortunately fragmentary- situates the battle, and the peculiarities of dress and
hairstyle visually identify the mountaineers to the initiated viewers” (Aruz 195-196).“Despite his many victories abroad,
Naram-Sin ended his reign in disgrace. According to tradition, Naram-Sin sacked the time-hallowed sanctuary of the god
Enlil at Nippur. Akkad fell in an act of divine retribution for this sacrilege. Soon afterward, the Akkadian kingdom
began to shrink in size and influence. A three-year period of anarchy ensued” (Wren 1: 7-8). “In a sharp break with
visual tradition, the sculptors replaced the horizontal registers with wavy ground lines…As in most art from the Near East,
[Naram Sin’s] greater size in relationship to his soldiers is an indication of his greater importance” (Stokstad, Art History
74). “The great King Sargon is a man of myth. In his legend, which he recorded himself, there are themes which are
familiar from Judeo-Christian tradition: born without a father to a chaste priestess, the later ruler was abandoned in a rush
basket on the river, like Moses. As a gardener, he became the lover of the goddess Ishtar. Portrayals of King Sargon
himself are only preserved as crude fragments” (Bartz and Konig 64-65).
3. “Because Naram-Sin was now considered both god and king, it was no longer necessary to separate the terrestrial and
divine worlds and relegate them to different sides of the stele, as had been done earlier in the depiction of Eannatum’s
battle with the soldiers of Umma. Now one landscape representation fuses both worlds and even includes the great gods,
emblazoned as star symbols situated at the tope of the stele above the mountain peak. The text- unfortunately
fragmentary- situates the battle, and the peculiarities of dress and hairstyle visually identify the mountaineers to the
initiated viewers. Furthermore, a new element of specificity is introduced by the inclusion not of generic trees but rather
of carefully depicted trees from the very region in which the battle took place, an added component important for
narrative clarification” (Aruz 196-197). “Naramsin himself appears on a stele carved to celebrate a victory over an Iranian
frontier tribe. He is shown nearly twice the size of his soldiers, as gods (here represented only by their symbols in the sky)
had previously been distinguished from mortals. Perhaps to emphasize the actuality of a single moment, the sculptor
abandoned the usual system of superimposed bands of figures and treated the whole surface as a single dramatic
composition. The location in mountainous country is indicated by the climbing postures of the soldiers and also by trees
and a conical hill- landscape, in fact, for the first time in the history of art” (Honour and Fleming 46). “There was
originally no inscription (the writing on the hill is a later addition); the meaning of the scene was expressed in purely visual
terms. Every line of the composition suggests the climax of the action, with the upward movement of the Akkadians from
the left balanced by the fallen and falling tribesmen and the survivors begging for mercy on the right. Naramsin stands at
the top, at the dramatic peak of the composition, related to the other figures by their gestures and glances and yet isolated
from them by the empty surface of stone that surrounds him. Nothing quite like this stele is to be found in the art of
West Asia for another 1,500 years” (46).
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
Head of an Akkadian ruler (Ninevah, Iraq), c. 2250-2200 BCE, copper
1. When first found, this work “was thought to represent Sargon… The head epitomizes physical ideals of Akkadian
kingship, stressing as it does by means of the beard and elaborate hairstyle the heroic, masculine importance of hair. It
displays the perfect blend of varied patterns of beard and hair that set off the lips, nose, and eyes of the ruler, a
combination that imbues the king with a real sense of serene, yet powerful and all-knowing majesty” (Aruz 194). “It is
possible that the head was symbolically mutilated to destroy its power, for the ears appear to have been deliberately
removed, as have the inlays that would have filled the eye sockets” (Stokstad, Art History 74). The eyes were “probably
made of shell or ivory with lapis lazuli pupils” (Aruz 194).
2. “The expansionist policy of the Akkadians may partly account for a new emphasis placed on the person of the ruler as
an individual leader and conqueror and not simply as the servant of the local god. Life-size statues of kings were
produced, and from one of them a superb bronze head with braided hair and neatly curled beard survives- displaying
complete mastery of the techniques of metalwork. It is at once naturalistic and hieratic, the image of a ruler with a
commanding aspect, which must have been intensified and made to seem almost superhuman when eyes of precious
stone flashed from the now empty sockets” (Honour and Fleming 45). “The head epitomizes physical ideals of Akkadian
kingship, stressing as it does by means of the beard and elaborate hairstyle the heroic, masculine importance of hair”
(Aruz 194). “Treated in a more complex fashion than previously, the coiffure incorporates the Sumerian signifiers of
royalty- a plaited braid encircling the head and a plaited chignon at the back of the head” (194). “Like present-day leaders,
the Akkadian kings also wanted to have their likenesses seen throughout the realm… This copper-alloy head was found in
the north, at Ninevah, but may have been sent there from the capital” (194-195).
Seated Statue of Gudea from Lagash Neo-Sumerian c. 2100 BCE
1. “After flourishing for about a century, the Akkadian dynasty was defeated by the Guti, mountain people from the
northeast who ruled Mesopotamia for roughly sixty yeas. Only one city-state, Lagash, managed to hold out, and it
prospered. When the Sumerians overthrew the Guti, there was a revival of Sumerian culture in the newly united
southern city-states, a period referred to as Neo-Sumerian. Gudea, the ruler of Lagash during the period of Guti
dominance, initiated an extensive construction program which included several temples” (Adams, Art Across Time 61).
2. “The temple plan resting on the lap of the seated Gudea identifies his role as an architectural patron. His gesture of
prayer establishes his relation with the gods and their divine patronage as revealed in his dream” (62). “In the dream,
Gudea saw the radiant, joyful image of the god Ningirsu wearing a crown and flanked by lions… Ningirsu told Gudea to
build his house; but Gudea did not understand until a second god, Nindub, appeared with the plan of a temple on a lapis
lazuli tablet” (61). “Ensi, the official title of Gudea that was given after the enumeration of offerings, reveals that the gods
in the pantheon had conferred on him rulership along with the qualities necessary to rule” (Aruz 427). “The text engraved
on the statue affirms that exaltation of diorite as a noble material, more precious even than metals or precious stones…
The connotation is that diorite is more durable than the other materials and is thus more worthy of representing the
sovereign and perpetuating his memory” (427).
3. “Akkadian rule collapsed about 2180 BC. Only one city survived, Lagash (modern Al-Hiba, Iraq), where literature
and the visual arts flourished in an oasis of peace under the ensi or ruler, Gudea. Although Gudea followed Akkadian
practice and set up life-size statues of himself, they present a very different conception of kingship. He styled himself the
‘faithful shepherd’ of his people, the servant of Ningirsu, the god of irrigation and fertility. His clean-shaven face has a
delicate, almost adolescent sensitivity, and he is always shown in a piously reflective mood, in one instance holding in his
lap an architectural plan, probably for temple precincts. A very hard stone was used for these statues, chosen perhaps less
for its rich color than its durability- its power to preserve an immutable record of royal piety” (Honour and Fleming 46).
Stele with law code of Hammurabi (Susa, Iran), c. 1780 BCE, basalt
1. “Hammurabi (c. 1817-1750 BCE) was approximately twenty-five years old when he became ruler of Babylon. During
the first thirty years of his reign, Hammurabi waged a series of successful military campaigns against neighboring tribes”
(Wren 1: 9). The Code of Hammurabi was issued at the end of the king’s reign (9-10). “The relief sculpture at the top
shows the king standing before the supreme judge, the sun god Shamash. The figures were executed in smooth, rounded
forms with a minimum of linear surface detail. Shamash wears the four-tiered, horned headdress that marks him as a god
and a robe that bares one shoulder and ends in a stiff, flounced skirt. Rays of the sun rise from behind his shoulders, and
in his right hand he holds a measuring rod and a rope ring, symbols of justice and power. Hammurabi faces Shamash
confidently, his hand raised in a gesture of greeting. Any suggestion of familiarity in the lack of distance is offset by the
formality of the pose. The smaller, earthly law enforcer remains standing in the presence of the much larger divine judge,
seated on his ziggurat throne” (Stokstad, Art History 76).
2. “The Code of Hammurabi divided Babylonian subjects into three classes: the upper class, the commoners, and the
slaves. Punishments, which were severe, were distinguished by class and were determined according to the principle of
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
‘an eye for an eye’ ” (10). “Though the stated purpose of Hammurabi’s laws was to protect the weak from the strong, they
also maintained traditional class distinctions: the lower classes were more severely punished for crimes committed against
the upper classes than vice versa. There was no intent to create social equality in the protection of the weak, or in the
expressed concern for orphans and widows, but rather to maintain the continuity and stability of society” (Adams, Art
Across Time 64).
3. “Three types of punishment stand out in the Law Code of Hammurabi. The Talion Law- the equivalent of the biblical
‘eye for an eye’- operated in the provision calling for the death of a builder whose house collapsed and killed the owner.
In some cases, the punishment fit the crime; for example, if a surgical patient died, the doctor’s hand was cut off. Perhaps
the most illogical punished was the ordeal, in which the guilt or innocence of an alleged adulteress depended on whether
she sank or floated when thrown into water” (64). “Most of the 300 or so entries…deal with commercial and property
matters. Only sixty-eight relate to domestic problems, and a mere twenty deal with physical assault. Punishments
depended on the gender and social standing of the offender” (Stokstad, Art History 76). “Hammurabi is of great
historical importance as the author of the oldest surviving code of laws. Its declared aim was to ‘cause justice to prevail in
the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppress the weak’, although, in fact, one of its chief
concerns was to protect money-lenders from defaulting borrowers, for whom rigorous penalties were prescribed. This
code is incsribed on a stele under a relief of Hammurabi standing before the enthroned sun god at penalties were
prescribed. This code is inscribed on a stele under a relief of Hammurabi standing before the enthroned sun god at the
summit of a holy mountain or ziggurat- a perfect illustration of the semi-divine status of the priest-king, to whom the god,
himself in human form, delivers the laws. That the stone takes the form of a phallus, an obvious symbol of male
dominance, is perhaps no coincidence” (Honour and Fleming 48). “Before Hammurabi there is no known equivalent
attempt to organize a legal system and to put it down in writing… The stele also throws light upon the lawmaker himself.
In a poetic prologue, it praises Hammurabi’s reign from his ascent to the throne under divine protection; after that it
comments on the defeated towns whose prosperity and temple cult Hammurabi secured after they had been conquered”
(Bartz and Konig 69).
5. Hammurabi “sent out envoys to collect the local statues and had them consolidated into a single body of law.
Hammurabi’s Code- a collection of 282 clauses engraved on an 8-foot-high stele- is our most valuable index to life in
ancient Mesopotamia. The Code is not the first example of recorded law among the Babylonian kings; it is, however, the
most extensive and comprehensive set of laws to survive from ancient times. Although Hammurabi’s Code addressed
primarily secular matters, it bore the force of divine decree. The fact is indicated in the prologue to the Code, where
Hammurabi claims descent from the gods. It is also manifested visually in the low-relief carving at the top of the stele:
Here, in a scene that calls to mind the story of the biblical Moses on Mount Sinai, Hammurabi is pictured receiving the
law (symbolized by a staff) from the sun god Shamash. Wearing a conical crown topped with the bull’s horns, and
discharging flames from his shoulders, the god sits enthroned atop a sacred mountain, symbolized by triangular markings
beneath his feet” (Fiero, First Civilizations 43).
6. “Written law represented a significant advance in the development of human rights in that it protected the individual
from the capricious decisions of monarchs. Unwritten law was subject to the hazards of memory and the eccentricities of
the powerful. Written law, on the other hand, permitted a more impersonal (if more objective and impartial) kind of
justice than did oral law. It replaced the flexibility of the spoken word with the rigidity of the written word. It did not
usually recognize exceptions and was not easily or quickly changed. Ultimately, recorded law shifted the burden of
judgment from the individual ruler to the legal establishment. Although written law necessarily restricted individual
freedom, it safe-guarded the basic values of the community” (43-44).
7. “Hammurabi’s Code covers a broad spectrum of moral, social, and commercial obligations. Its civil and criminal
statues specify penalties for murder, theft, incest, adultery, kidnapping, assault and battery, and many other crimes. More
important for our understanding of ancient culture, it is a storehouse of information concerning the nature of class
divisions, family relations, and human rights. The Code informs us, for instance, on matters of inheritance, professional
obligations, and the individual’s responsibilities to the community. It also documents the fact that under Babylonian law,
individuals were not regarded as equals. Human worth was defined in terms of a person’s wealth and status in society.
Violence committed by one free person upon another was punished reciprocally, but the same violence committed upon
a lower-class individual drew considerably lighter punishment, and penalties were reduced even further if the victim was a
slave. Similarly, a principle of ‘pay according to status’ was applied in punishing thieves: The upper-class thief was more
heavily penalized or fined than the lower-class one. A thief who could not pay at all fell into slavery or was put to death”
(44). “In Babylonian society, women were considered intellectually and physically inferior to men and- much like slaveswere regarded as the personal property of the male head of the household. A woman went from her father’s house to
that of her husband” (44).
Lion Gate (Boghazkoy, Turkey), c.1400 BCE, limestone
1. “The Hittites were an Anatolian people whose capital city, Hattusas, was located in modern Boghazkoy, in central
Turkey. Like the Mesopotamians, they kept records in cuneiform on clay tablets, which were stored on shelves,
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
systematically catalogued and labeled as in a modern library. These archives, comprising thousands of tablets, are the first
known records in an Indo-European language… The Hittites cremated their dead and buried the ashes and bones in urns,
so that they left little tomb art. There is, however, much evidence of monumental palaces, temples, cities, and massive
fortified walls decorated with reliefs. The predominance of fortifications and citadels (urban fortresses) attest to the need
for protection from invading armies as well as to the military power of the Hittites themselves” (Adams, Art Across Time
65). The Treaty of Kadesh “constitutes the world’s earliest surviving peace treaty, agreed between the Egyptians and the
Hittites in 1269 BC. Among its many clauses are provisions for the return of political refugees” (Inman 63).
2. At Hattushash, “the blocks of stone used to frame doorways were decorated in high relief with a variety of guardian
figures, some 7-foot-tall, half-human- half-animal creatures, others naturalistically rendered animals like the lions shown
here. These sculpted figures were part of the architecture itself, not added to it separately. The boulders-becoming
creatures on the so-called Lion Gate harmonize with the colossal scale of this construction. Despite extreme weathering,
the lions have endured over the millennia and still convey a sense of vigor and permanence” (Stokstad, Art History 8384).
4. From the beginning, Hattusha “seems to have had an axial plan and regular rectangular houses separated by paved
paths. Foundations of five temples have been found. Each had an interior courtyard surrounded by many small rooms
with windows on the outer walls. Their general effect must, therefore, have been very different from that of the closed
and inward-looking temples of Mesopotamia and Egypt” (Honour and Fleming 81). “Emphasis was laid on defense and
long underground passages led from the center of the city to sally ports, from which a besieging army could be attacked.
Yet the fortifications also had symbolic features. The exterior faces of the monolithic jambs of the main entrancesthemselves of an unusual parabolic or half-oval form- were carved in such a way that huge sphinxes or lions seem to be
protruding out of them… They are far more intimately joined to the structure than are the guardian figures in ancient
Egypt and Mesopotamia” (81).
Assyrian Lamassu from the Citadel of Sargon II (Khorsabad, Iraq) c. 720 BCE
1. “Assyria takes its name from a Mesopotamian god, Assur or Ashur, after whom a city on the Tigris was also named.
This city of Assur is first recorded in the third millennium BC as a frontier post of the Akkadian empire. But it was not
until the second half of the fourteenth century BC that Assyria began to emerge as an independent power” (Honour and
Fleming 95). “Under Assurnasirpal II (reigned 883-859 BC), Assyria became a formidable military force. His records are
filled with boastful claims detailing his cruelty. He says that he dyed the mountains red, like wool cloth, with the blood of
his slaughtered enemies. From the heads of his decapitated enemies he erected a pillar, and he covered the city walls
with their skins” (Adams, Art Across Time 66). “The first imperial king, Tiglath-Pileser I (reigned c. 1114-1076 BC),
recorded his intent to conquer the world and claimed that the god Ashur had commanded him to do so” (66). “The last
powerful king of Assyria, Assurbanipal (reigned 668-633 BC), combined cruelty with culture. He established a great
library, consisting of thousands of tablets recording the scientific, historical, literary, religious, and commercial pursuits of
his time” (66).
2. “In c. 900 BCE, Assyria was no more than a small kingdom about seventy-five miles square. Centuries of constant
warfare had shaped Assyrians into skilled, hardened warriors. During the ninth century, directed by an intense sense of
divine protections by Assur, the most important Assyrian god, and leg by a succession of vigorous warlords, Assyria began
expanding its territories” (Wren 1: 12). The reign of Sargon II (?-705 BCE) was marked by almost constant warfare.
Sargon beat down the Chaldeans in Babylonia… (and) he exiled the leaders of… Israel (12). In order to reach the throne
room of the royal citadel, “visitors had to pass through an entrance guarded by monumental limestone figures called
Lamassu. Twice as tall as the Hittite lions guarding the gateway at Hattusas, the Lamassu were divine genii combining
animal and human features, in this case the body and legs of a bull with a human head. The hair, beard, and eyebrows
are stylized. The figure wears the cylindrical, three-horned crown of divinity. As is typical of ancient Near Eastern art,
this figure combines naturalism- the suggestion of bone and muscle under the skin- with surface stylization- the zones of
patterned texture scattered across the body” (Adams, Art Across Time 69).
3. “The wings draw the eye of the viewer to the side of the Lamassu, a transition unified by the ‘re-use’ of the forelegs in
the side view, which essentially creates a ‘fifth leg.’ This striking visual device enhance the architectural function of an
entrance, which is to mark a point of access: the Lamassu appears to confront approaching visitors and simultaneously
seems to stride past them. By narrowing the space through which visitors must pass, the figure builds up tension as one
approaches the king” (69). “Bearing the facial features of the monarch, these colossi united the physical attributes of the
bull (virility), the lions (physical strength), and the eagle (predatory agility). The winged, human-headed bulls from the
citadel at Khorsabad were power-symbols designed to inspire awe and fear among those who passed beneath their
impassive gaze” (Fiero, First Civilizations 56). “The earliest, sometimes with lion instead of bull bodies, were found at
Nimrud and date from the early ninth century BC” (Honour and Fleming 97). “Massively overpowering, yet carved with
meticulous attention to detail- the curls of the beard, the feathers of the eagle wings and the muscles and veins of the legsthey are impressive examples of architectural sculpture (96-97).
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
Assyrian reliefs from the palace of Ashurbanipal (Ninevah, Iraq) c. 650 BCE
1. As in Egypt, Assyrian lion hunts “were more like ritual combats than actual hunts: the animals were released from cages
into a square formed by troops with shields. (At a much earlier time, lion hunting had been an important duty of
Mesopotamian rulers as the ‘shepherds’ of the communal flocks.) Here the Assyrian sculptor rises to his greatest heights”
(Janson 73). “The wounded animal seems to embody all the dramatic emotion that we miss in the pictorial accounts of
war” (73). “They should not, as they often are, be described as ‘hunts’, for the beasts had been captured and were then
released to be slain by the king in what seems to have been partly a sport and partly a ritual display of royal power”
(Honour and Fleming 99). “In the mid-seventh century BC in what is now Iraq lions were particularly common; Assyrian
records claim that ‘the hills resound with their roaring and the wild animals tremble’” (Caygill 186). These sculptures
“record a vanished species; the Mesopotamian lion survived in the nineteenth century AD but is now extinct” (187).
2. “The sculptures, which were originally painted, are largely from various rooms in King Ashurbanipal’s (668-627 BC)
North Palace at Nineveh” (186). “Hunting lions was… the symbol of the king’s care for his country” (186). “The king
dispatches lion with spear, sword and bow. In one scene two guards beside the king deal with a wounded lion that springs
at the chariot from behind” (187).
Ishtar Gate (Babylon, Iraq), c. 575 BCE
1. “At the end of the seventh century BCE, the Medes from western Iran and the Scythians from the frigid regions of
modern Russia and Ukraine invaded the northern and eastern parts of Assyria. Meanwhile, under a new royal dynasty,
the Babylonians reasserted themselves. This Neo-Babylonian kingdom began attacking Assyrian cities in 615 BCE, an
allied army of Medes and Neo-Babylonians captured Nineveh. When the dust settled, Assyria was no more. The Medes
controlled a swath of land below the Black and Caspian seas, and the Neo-Babylonians controlled a region that stretched
from modern Turkey to northern Arabia and from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean Sea. The most famous NeoBabylonian ruler was Nebuchadnezzar II” (Stokstad, Art History 81). “Nebuchadnezzar II (?-562 BCE) was the son and
successor of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian empire. The greatest king of this dynasty,
Nebuchadnezzar pursued a policy of military expansion, which took Babylonian armies into Syria and Palestine and
extended the Babylonian empire to the Egyptian border. His conquest of Jerusalem and Judea are described in the Old
Testament in the Book of Jeremiah” (Wren 1: 15).
2. “Among the many architectural monuments Nebuchadnezzar commissioned for his capital city was a ziggurat
dedicated to the god Marduk, which is thought to have been the Tower of Babel referred to in the Bible. Another was
the Ishtar Gate, one of eight gateways with rounded arches that spanned a processional route through the city. The gate
was named in honor of the Akkadian goddess of love, fertility, and war. It was faced (covered on the surface) with glazed
bricks. Set off against a deep blue background are rows of bulls and dragons molded in relief” (Adams, Art Across Time
71). “The main gate was decorated with the figures of dragons, the emblem of the god Marduk, in smoothed brick, and
bulls, associated with the Adad, the god of storms, on enameled bricks” (Bourbon 195). The lions depicted on the gate
are emblems of Ishtar, goddess of war (195).
3. “Glazing is a technique for adding a durable, water-resistant finish to clay objects. Glazes can be clear, white, or
colored and are typically made from ground mineral pigments mixed with water. The minerals become vitreous (glasslike) and fuse with the clay bodies of the objects when fired at high temperatures in kilns” (Adams, Art Across Time 71).
The consort of Ishtar was Tammuz. Their sacred marriage was performed at the New Year Festival between the king and
a priestess of Ishtar. (Tammuz was a shepherd who eventually became associated with the Greek Adonis.) (Hall 190).
“An avenue used for processions… passed beneath the gate of Ishtar, followed the double wall that protected the palace
and led into the heart of the city, where it connected the Heragila, a word meaning ‘the high-roofed temple’ or temple of
Marduk to the new year temple outside the city walls where celebrations marking the beginning of the year and lasting 12
days took place each spring” (Bourbon 195). “The round arch, as used in the Ishtar Gate, is semicircular and stronger
than a horizontal lintel. This is because a round arch carries the thrust of the weight onto the two vertical supports rather
than having all the stress rest on the horizontal” (Adams, Art Across Time 71). Babylon is a name which actually means
“The Gate of God” (Bourbon 193). “The inner wall had eight gates, each protected by its own god, the most famous of
which is the one dedicated to Ishtar” (195). “The royal palace in Babylon was almost as large as the Assyrian palaces, but
lacked their overpowering monumentality. It consisted of numerous, relatively small rooms ranged around five
courtyards and in one corner, presumably, the famous hanging gardens said to have been created by Nebuchadnezzar.
There seem to have been no reliefs or other representations of royal triumphs, no vast lamassu glowering menacingly out
from the entrances. The walls of the throne room and of the processional way leading to the Ishtar Gate were decorated
with lions and monsters in raised and molded brick, colored and glazed (a technique first found in Kassite buildings of c.
1200 BC), but they are staid creatures in comparison with the beasts of Assyria (Honour and Fleming 100).
Royal Audience Hall (apadana) at Persepolis of Darius I (Iran), c. 500 BCE
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Unit ONE: Art of Ancient Civilizations and Tribal Cultures STUDENT NOTES
1. By 480 BCE, the Persians ruled what was then the largest known empire in history. It even included Egypt. They
divided this empire into satrapies, or provinces. Each of these was ruled by a governor, or satrap, who was directly
responsible to the king (Durant, Our Oriental Heritage 362-3). “In 518 BCE, Darius I (ruled 421-486 BCE), the greatest
of the Achaemenid dynasty of ancient Persia (now Iran), began to build a capital at Parsa, or Persepolis, as the Greeks
called it…. As we know from inscriptions and accounting records construction there continued for more than two
hundred years. In 330 BCE, the armies of Alexander the Great defeated the Persian army and burned Persepolis,
although according to Greek historians, the destruction of the city was accidental” (Govignon 66).
2. Persepolis was built and maintained solely for the celebration of the great feast of the Spring equinox. During this
feast, the king held court there and received homages and offerings from the high Persian nobility… At the close of the
festival, the court returned to the empire’s primary capital at Susa, and Persepolis was deserted until the next spring” (66).
“The Persians followed the religious teachings of Zoroaster (c. 628-551 BC), who taught that the world’s two central
forces were light and dark: Ahuramazda was light and Ahriman, similar to the Christian concept of evil, was dark. There
were no Achaemenid temples, since religious rituals were held outdoors, where fires burned on altars. The most
elaborate Achaemenid architectural works were therefore palaces, of which the best example is at Persepolis” (Adams,
Art Across Time 73).
3. “According to Zoroaster, a Last Judgment would consign the wicked to everlasting darkness, while the good would live
eternally in an abode of luxury and light- the Persian pairidaeza, from which the English word “paradise” derives.
Zoroastrianism came to influence the moral teachings of three great world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”
(Fiero, First Civilizations 56). “The Apadana, built by Darius and completed by Xerxes, was a square hall with 36
columns, three columned porticoes, a series of other rooms on the south side and four corner towers” (Caygill 248). “On
a huge terrace cut into the natural rock were a whole series of palaces, columned halls and storerooms, reached by
monumental stairways. The stone survives but the rest of the architecture, constructed from mudbrick and wood, has
gone. The stairways were carved with reliefs showing the Persian king receiving tribute (248). “Construction was spread
out over nearly sixty years, and Darius lived to see the erection of only a treasury, the Apadana (audience hall), and a very
small palace for himself. The Apadana, set above the rest of the complex on a second terrace, had open porches on
three sides and a square hall large enough to hold several thousand people” (Stokstad, Art History 86-87). “Although they
were all executed with a distinctly Persian flavor, the columns reflect design ideas from Mede, Egyptian, and possibly
Greek sources. They stood atop bell-shaped bases (foundations) decorated with leaves…. The capitals, the top sections of
the columns on which ceiling beams rested, were lavishly decorated with a combination of palm fronds, papyrus flowers,
other plant forms, double vertical scrolls, and the heads and forequarters of kneeling creatures placed back to back” (87).
“There were two huge hypostyle halls, the 250 foot square and 60 foot high audience hall (or apadana) and the still larger
Hall of the Hundred Columns or throne hall. The king received the Persian and Median nobles in the former, delegates
of tributary states in the latter. The columns in these halls were of unique form: slightly spreading bell-shaped bases,
slender fluted shafts and complex capitals with down-curving motifs somewhat like palm leaves, volutes and impost blocks
composed of the forequarters of two lions, bulls or human-headed bulls” (Honour and Fleming 104).
16