Todays Objective

1
Todays Objective

• I will be able to discuss the
  stylistic conventions of ancient Near Eastern art
  including the cultural context and formal
  properties.

2

• Ancient Near East

3

• VOCABULARY

4
Cultural Context

• Timeline Events
• Geography

5
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• Akkadians (2600)
• (Guti)
• Neo-Sumerians (2150)
• Babylonians (1800)
• (Hittites, Kassites, Elamites)
• Assyrians (900)
• Neo-Babylonians (612)
• Persians (538 330)

6
Events

• Civilization begins
• Agriculture labor specialization
• Religions Gods
• Wheel invented
• Writing (circa 3400 BCE)
• Pictographs
• Cuneiform
• City states
• Politics Warfare

7
Geography
8
(No Transcript)
9
Stylistic Conventions

• Ziggurats
• Religious art
• Registers
• Twisted perspective
• Metal casting
• Hierarchy of scale
• Relief sculpture
• Narrative and political art
• Monumental architecture

10

• ART OBJECTS

11
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• City states
• An independent, self-governing city
• Effects of city-states
• Connection to a particular god
• Power of the ruler
• Labor specialization collective responsibility

12
Timeline

• Pictograph
• A stylized picture that represents an idea
• also painting on rock.
• Cuneiform
• Latin, wedge shaped.
• An ancient system of writing that used
  wedge-shaped characters created by pressing a
  stylus into a soft clay tablet

13
Timeline

• Effects of a written language
• Creates history
• Simplifies communication (universality)
• Gilgamesh (first work of literature)

14
White Temple and Ziggurat

• Uruk, Iraq
• Circa 3200 BCE
• Mud bricks
• Ziggurat is 40 tall

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
White Temple and Ziggurat

• Clay, not stone
• White washed temple
• Corners face N, S, E, W
• Temple
• Ziggurat
• Cella

18
White Temple and Ziggurat

• Ziggurat
• a monumental platform for a temple
• Gods lived above the earth
• Ziggurats and temples tried to reach the sky
• Cella
• the center chamber of an ancient temple
• The waiting room

19
Warka Vase

• Uruk, Iraq
• Circa 3200 BCE
• Alabaster
• 3 1/4" high

20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
Warka Vase

• Narrative
• votive offerings
• Registers
• Twisted perspective
• Hierarchy of scale

23
Warka Vase

• votive offering
• A gift of gratitude to a god or goddess
• Religious festival of Inanna

24
Warka Vase

• Registers
• bands in a pictorial narrative
• creates ground lines
• creates setting
• bottom crops animals
• middle men carry the votive offerings
• top priest-king and goddess (Inanna)

25
Warka Vase

• Twisted perspective
• all limbs shown
• frontal eyes
• conceptual vs. optical

26
Warka Vase

• Hierarchy of scale
• An artistic convention in which greater size
  indicates greater importance
• Priest-king or goddess

27
Statuettes of worshipers

• Eshnunna, Iraq
• Circa 2700 BCE
• Gypsum inlaid with shell and black limestone
• Tallest figure approx. 2 ½ high

28
(No Transcript)
29
(No Transcript)
30
Statuettes of worshipers

• Scale of hierarchy
• Mortals vs. gods
• Large eyes, small hands
• Waiting
• Human figures faces

31
Stele of the Vultures

• Girsu, Syria
• Circa 2600 BCE
• Limestone
• Full stele approx. 6 high

32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
Stele of the Vultures

• Stele
• A carved stone slab used to mark graves or to
  commemorate historical events

35
Stele of the Vultures

• Historical narrative
• Victory of a king
• King leading soldiers
• Graphic details
• Support of the Gods
• Lots of information
• Political?

36
Standard of Ur

• Ur, Iraq
• Circa 2600 BCE
• Wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red
  limestone
• Approx. 8" x 1 7".

37
War side
38
Peace Side
39
Standard of Ur

• Found in a royal tomb
• Many fine objects
• Also servants, etc.
• Together they form an entire narrative
• 1st war
• 2nd peace

40
Standard of Ur

• Hierarchy of scale, twisted perspective, rhythm
• Lapis lazuli
• rich blue semiprecious stone used for carving
  and pigment

41
War side
42
Peace Side
43
Bull-headed lyre

• Ur, Iraq
• Circa 2600 BCE
• Gold leaf and lapis lazuli over a wooden core
• Approx. 5 ½ high

44
(No Transcript)
45
Bull-headed lyre

• Royal tomb
• As seen in the Standard or Ur
• Party animals
• NOT therianthropes

46
(No Transcript)
47
Bull-headed lyre

• Heraldic composition
• A composition that is symmetrical on either side
  of a central figure

48
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• Akkadians (2600)
• Sargon of Akkad
• Not Sumerian but used cuneiform
• Rules over city-states in a collective empire
• Absolute monarch

49
Head of an Akkadian ruler

• Nineveh, Iraq
• Circa 2250 BCE
• Copper
• Approximately 1 high

50
(No Transcript)
51
(No Transcript)
52
Head of an Akkadian ruler

• Hollow metal casting
• Political art
• Eyes gouged out by vandals after ruler was
  defeated
• Combines realism and abstract elements
• Features vs. beard

53
Victory stele of Naram-Sin

• Susa, Iran
• 2254 BCE
• Pink Sandstone
• Approx. 6 ½ high

54
(No Transcript)
55
Victory stele of Naram-Sin

• Grandson of Sargon
• Hierarchy of scale, detail twisted perspective
• Naram-Sin climbs towards heaven
• No horizontal registers

56
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• Akkadians (2600)
• (Guti)
• Neo-Sumerians (2150)
• Sumerian city-states reunite under Ur

57
Ziggurat

• Ur, Iraq
• Circa 2100 BCE
• Mud bricks
• Base is 50 high

58
(No Transcript)
59
Ziggurat

• One of the greatest ziggurats built
• Temple on top no longer exists
• Monumental construction of temples
• Soon followed by palaces

60
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• Akkadians (2600)
• (Guti)
• Neo-Sumerians (2150)
• Babylonians (1800)
• When Neo-Sumerian dynasty fell, city states
  returned for about 200 years
• Hammurabi re-unites southern Mesopotamia under
  his city state of Babylon

61
Stele of Hammurabi

• Susa, Iran
• Circa 1780 BCE
• Basalt
• Approx. 7'4" high

62
(No Transcript)
63
Stele of Hammurabi

• Authority from god Shamash
• rod and line (measure)
• Code of laws
• 35,000 lines of text
• Trade
• Stealing
• Cheating on wife
• Destruction of property
• Etc.

64
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• Akkadians (2600)
• (Guti)
• Neo-Sumerians (2150)
• Babylonians (1800)
• (Hittites, Kassites, Elamites)
• Assyrians (900)
• Once again, Mesopotamia reunited

65
Citadel of Sargon II

• Dur Sharrukin, Iraq
• Circa 720 BCE
• 1 sq. mile

66
(No Transcript)
67
Citadel of Sargon II

• Defensive walls
• Palace on a mound
• Grand design
• More than 200 courtyards and rooms
• Meant to communicate the power of the king
• Political

68
Citadel of Sargon II

• Monumental architecture starts to honor the
  worldly king as well as the gods

69
Lamassu

• Citadel of Sargon II
• Dur Sharrukin, Iraq
• Circa 720 BCE
• Limestone
• Approx. 13 high

70
(No Transcript)
71
Lamassu

• Guarded gate to Sargons palace
• Partly in the round
• High relief built on a corner
• Front rest
• Side motion
• Conceptual vs. optical

72
Ashurbanipal hunting lions

• North Palace of Ashurbanipal
• Nineveh, Iraq
• Circa 645 BCE
• Gypsum
• 5' 4 high

73
(No Transcript)
74
Ashurbanipal hunting lions

• Many reliefs
• Political
• Narratives with extreme detail

75
(No Transcript)
76
Ashurbanipal hunting lions

• Controlled hunt in arena
• Servants protect king but do not kill lions
• More than enough force
• Detail of animals
• Emotion
• Slaying noble brave animals great king

77
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• Akkadians (2600)
• (Guti)
• Neo-Sumerians (2150)
• Babylonians (1800)
• (Hittites, Kassites, Elamites)
• Assyrians (900)
• Neo-Babylonians (612)
• Babylonians take over again

78
Ishtar Gate

• Babylon, Iraq
• Circa 575 BCE
• Glazed brick
• 47 high, 32 wide

79
(No Transcript)
80
Ishtar Gate

• Mud brick city
• Blue glazed bricks on important monuments
• Real and imaginary animals
• Dragons, bulls, lions
• Represent gods

81
Ishtar Gate

• Each brick done individually
• First molded (relief)
• Next glazed
• Finally fit into wall with a proper sequence

82
(No Transcript)
83
(No Transcript)
84
Timeline

• Sumerians (2900 BCE)
• Akkadians (2600)
• (Guti)
• Neo-Sumerians (2150)
• Babylonians (1800)
• (Hittites, Kassites, Elamites)
• Assyrians (900)
• Neo-Babylonians (612)
• Persians (538 330)
• Largest empire yet
• Egypt to India to Germany

85
Geography
86
Persian Empire c. 480 BCE
87
Persepolis

• Iran
• Circa 521 BCE

88
(No Transcript)
89
(No Transcript)
90
(No Transcript)