Animal Facing Left, Apollo 11 Cave

Namibia in South Africa

Paleolithic

Charcoal on stone

Strict profile: nice perspective, see everything, very common

Deer Hunt from Catal Huyuk

Neolithic

Different colored humans

Narrative story told

Female Head (Inanna)

Marble, which is very rare and came from afar

Sumerian

Inanna: goddess of love and war

Pieces taken from head (eyes)

Body is no longer there (it was made of wood)

Probably high-class woman or priestess of Inanna, they did not depict deities in art

Processional Frieze on the Apadana at Persepolis

Persian

Limestone

Propaganda: dignitaries bringing gifts from other nations

Style: not very personilized, very idealized

Gudea Holding an Overflowing Water Jar

Neo-Sumerian

Calcite, NOT diorite, which is what he normall used for his statues

Very humble: barefoot, not adorned

Propaganda: text on him that say how much gods love him

Gods have given him: fullness of life, god-given strength

Stele of Law Code of Hammurabi

Babylonian

Carved in round with text

Basalt

First written law

Hammurabi (seated w/ feet not touching the ground) and Shamash (sun god) handing him a staff

Head of Assyrian Ruler

Akkadian

Copper: pricey and very difficult technique (hollow cast casting)

Earliest known monumental work of hollow casting

Very stylized

Idea of the ruler as god

Damaged in war: damaged senses (eyes, nose, ears) = metaphoric killing

Human Skull with Restored Features

Neolithic

Displayed heads of the dead: reverance for ancestors

Skull with plaster and seashells

Lamassu

Winged, human-headed bull

Assyrian

From citadel of Sargon II

Limestone

Presentation of Offerings to Inanna

Warka Vase, Alabaster

Sumerian

Registers/Freizes

Hierarchy of scale: animals, then naked men with vessels, then nobles with vessels

Votive offering: in lieu of a promise

Twisted perspective

Nudity = slavery

Rhinoceros, Wounded Man, and Disemboweled Bison

Lascaux, France

Paleolithic

Spotted Horses and Negative Hand Prints

Wall Painting

Paleolithic

Positive and Negative handprints

They did not eat the animals they depicted

Cave = transformation, passages to another world, pilgramage 

Different time periods and peoples making this painting overtop of each other

Standard of Ur, Peace

Sumerian

Wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone

Propaganda

Banquet scene

Standard of Ur, War

Sumerian

Wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone

1st register: running over people

2nd: prisoners of war

3rd: procession

Statues of Two Worshippers

Votive figures, male and females

Gypsum inlaid with shell and black limestone

Sumerian

Eyes bulging out: "waiting room" waiting for the deity

Venus of Willendorf

Paleolithic

Limestone

Carved in the round, meant to be held

Faceless = no identity

Women didn't look like this back then, they were probably smaller, more athletic

Similar ones turn up all over Europe

Over dramatized sexual organs

Fertility and we need FOOD

Fertility of the earth

Victory stela of Naram-Sin

Stele: upright stone slab, marks graves or commemorates historical events

Akkadian

Pink sandstone

Historical fight against Lullubi

First time a ruler appears as a king

Story is NOT told in registers, but rather placed in a setting

People who stole this during battle, wrote on it, that they stole it during battle

Woman Holding a Bison Horn

Paleolithic

Relief sculpture, painted limestorne

Large female form = fertility ritual

Touching her stomach = pregnant?

Ziggurat

Sumerian

Mudbricks, did not have stone yet, required lots of maintenance

Dedicated to Anu, sky god

Diagonal stairs: makes you walk around and look at the building in its entirety; and it limits access to royals and priests

"Waiting room": god's room, images dedicated to a god

Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and 3 Daughters

Armarna style

Limestone

Husband and wife are = in size? No hierarchy?

Daughter are like mini stretched out aliens... creepy...

One daughter is caressing her mother's face, another is kissing her father = very emotional and friendly, realistic

Sunken relief (very rare)

Drawing of Pyramid of Gizeh

Old Kingdom, Egypt

3 Pyramids/Pharaohs: Menkaure, Khafre, and Khufu

Necropolis: city of dead

West of the nile = dead (where sun sets) ---> but then rises again in the east, continuity, reincarnation

Largest pyramids, amazing shape, well preserved

Fragmentary Head of Senusret III

Middle Kingdom

Red Quartzite

Nose missing, destroyed senses

Pharaoh looks much older and more realistic than the Old Kingdom idealized sculptures of the pharaohs

Hatshepsut with Offering Jars

New Kingdom

No represenation of her as a female; in disguise as a male pharaoh

Red Granite

In her mortuary temple

Even wears the pharaoh beard = dress like the pharaoh, be the pharaoh

Khafre Enthroned

Old Kingdom, Egypt

Ka: spirit, soul; also name for this type of sculpture in the surdab 

Surdab: room of tomb/dead in pyramid

Diorite, not painted

Generic, idealized; looks like a god; no accurate representation

Depicted as youthful, prime age

Right emblems of power: false beard, falcon on back (Horus)

Last Judgment of Hunefer

New Kingdom, Egypt

Painted papyrus scrolls

Anubis: god of embalming

Ma'at: protects truth and right

Ammit: devourer of the sinful

Horus: Osiris' sun

Osiris: god of underworld

Isis and Nephthys: Osiris' sisters

Narmer's Palette

Pre-dynastic, Egypt

Slate

King Narmer unified lower and upper Egypt

Functional, but not used as a palette (to mix paint)

Back side: Narmer's name (catfish + chisel); Goddess Hathor/Bat (upper egypt); Crown of upper egypt; Horus (king's protector); Papyrus (lower Egypt; upper seems to be winning

Front Side: Narmer's name, Goddess Hathor, crown for lower Egypt;

Stylistic Conventions: multiple perspectives, hierarchic scale, use of emblems, registers for narratives

Nebamun Hunting Fowl

New Kingdom, Egypt

From tomb of Nebamun

Fresco Secco: fresco on dry plaster

Triumph over death: hunt associated with Horus, who "hunts down his father's murderer"

Nefertiti, Thutmose

Thutmose: sculptor

Nefertiti: wife of Akhenaton

Painted limestone

Armarna style

Very loved, beautiful, generous, powerful woman

Rock Cut Tombs at Beni Hasan

Middle Kingdom

Lots of columns, more decorative

Lots of writing; but only certain classes could read

Drastic difference in burial from the pyramids of the old kingdom

Stepped Pyramid of Djoser

Pre-dynastic, Egypt

Imhotep: architect

Stone pyramid, first in Egypt

False rooms = prevent looters

Engaged and fluted columns

Planned before Djoser died

Taharqo as a Sphinx

Granite

Nubian, but WRITE DOWN: Egyptian, New Kingdom?

Taking from old Egyptian art, sphinx

Tiye

New Kingdom, Egypt

Wood with gold, silver, alabaster, and lapis  lazuli

Mother of Akhenaton

Had several headdresses, kept changing her politics

Old, ugly; strength, intimidating; realistic!