AP Art History Unit Sheet #2: Ancient Near Eastern Art Ms. Cook Civilization Sumerian Akkadian Neo Sumerian Art Babylonian Hittite Assyrian Art Neo‐Babylonian Achaemenid Greco‐Roman Sasanian Name of Art Work Date Country Page # Warka Vase Sumerian Votive Offerings Standard of Ur (War and Peace side) Head of an Akkadian ruler Victory Stele of Naram‐Sin Ziggurat of Ur Stele of Hammurabi Lamassu (and Citadel of Sargon II) Reliefs from Palace of Ashurnasirpal II Ishtar Gate (restored) Persepolis (and reliefs) c. 3500‐2340 c. 3100 BCE c. 2700 BCE c. 2600 BCE c. 2200 c 2200 BCE 2150‐2000 BCE c. 2100 BCE 1792‐1750 BCE c 1750 BCE c. 1600‐1200 BCE c. 1000‐612 BCE c 700 BCE c 850 BCE c. 612‐539 BCE c 575 BCE c. 559‐331 BCE c. 500 BCE c. 224‐636 CE Iraq Iraq Iraq Iraq Turkey Iraq Iraq Iraq Iraq 35 36 30 & 37 40 40 42 44 46 47 49 50‐52 Preview: Chapter 2 illuminates the social, historical, and artistic developments between ca. 3500 BCE and 636 CE, in the so‐called “Fertile Crescent,” the vast regions known as Mesopotamia and Persia, located in the area of present‐day Iraq and Iran. Sumerian art (ca. 3500‐2332 BCE) includes enormous built temple platforms called ziggurats and the development of coherent visual narrative devices. Rulers of the Akkadians (ca. 2332‐
2150) were the first to assume divine attributes in artistic representations, and artists of this period were innovators in bronze sculpture and landscape depictions. The Neo‐Sumerian and Babylonian periods (ca. 2150‐
1600 BCE) witnessed the building of numerous temples and the enormous ziggurat at Ur, and Babylonian artists experimented with foreshortening. In the Assyrian and Neo‐Babylonian periods (ca. 900‐539 BCE), elaborate fortified buildings were constructed that included depictions of guardian figures, reflecting the power of the period’s kings. A huge palace complex at Persepolis marks the height of artistic achievement in the Achaemenid period (ca. 559‐330 BCE), while the defeat of the Sasanians by the Arabs marked the end of the New Persian Empire (224‐636 CE). Context and Background: History: Constant political change in the region due to geography being open to constant invasion Politics: slow to construct unified communities because of different racial groups and invasion Religion: king/ruler was not god‐king (as in Egypt) but god’s delegate‐patron deities for each city states Geology: building restricted by available materials ‐ no stone quarries or forests=sun‐baked bricks Art History: Interest in the Ancient Near East heightened with the discoveries of treasure by Leonard Woolley in 1920 at the Royal Cemetery of Ur Key Place Names: “Fertile Crescent,” Mesopotamia, Ur, Uruk, Eshnunna, Girsu, Nineveh, Neo‐Sumeria/Third Dynasty of Ur, Lagash, Babylon, Elam, Assyria, Neo‐Babylonia, Persepolis, Persia Key Figures: Sargon of Akkad, Narum‐Sin, Gudea, Hammurabi, Napir‐Asu, Enheduanna, Ashurnasirpal II, Ashurbanipal, Nebuchadnezzer II, Cyrus, Darius I, Xerxes, Alexander the Great, Shapur I, Sasanian Empire AP Art History Unit Sheet #2: Ancient Near Eastern Art Ms. Cook Key Deities: Inanna Techniques: (art making techniques and terms) • Architecture: ziggurat, mud brick, bitumen, bent axis • Two‐dimensional art work: profile vs frontal, register, hierarchical, mosaic • Three‐dimensional art work: additive vs subtractive method of making sculpture, bas relief, gypsum, lapis lazuli