Essays

Question 1

What characterizes art/architecture from ancient Mesopotamia? Discuss materials, locations, representational styles (see the terms above for some ideas), themes/content, and functions, with at least three specific examples. For each example, please give relevant information (name, material, location, and time period/culture), and discuss how your example illuminates characteristics of ancient Mesopotamian art/architecture.

Answer 1

• Mesopotamian art was usually made out of various types of stone or copper, found around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (in settlements such as Uruk, Ur, Babylon, Persepolis, etc.), included representational styles such as the use of registers, profile and frontal view, and hierarchy of scale, with themes such as agriculture, kings, religion, and war, and usually functioned as religious offerings or to enforce the power of the leaders.
• • Warka vase (stone, Uruk, Sumerian): divided into registers, agriculture, and offering to god
• • Victory stele of Naram-Sin (stone, Susa, Akkadian): war, kings is bigger, and king has divine helmet
• • Elamite Queen (bronze and copper, Susa, Elamite): bronze, offering to god

Question 2

What characterizes art/architecture from ancient Egypt? Discuss materials, locations, representational styles (see the terms above for some ideas), themes/content, and functions, with at least three specific examples. For each example, please give relevant information (name, material, location, and time period/culture), and discuss how your example illuminates characteristics of ancient Egyptian art/architecture.

Answer 2

• Egyptian art was usually made out of various types of stone (sometimes painted, carved bardrock, diorite, or gold, found in settlements near Gizeh, Saqqara, and Thebes (among others), included representational styles such as the use of hierarchy of scale and idealized figures, with themes such as pharaohs, gods, and the afterlife, and usually was made for funerary or religious functions.
• • Khafre (diorite, Gizeh, Old kingdom): idealized, diorite, religious
• • Ti and the hunt (painted limestone, Saqqara, old kingdom): hierarchy, king, painted limestone
• • Hatshepsut (stone, Deir el-Bahri, new kingdom): religious offering, pharaoh, size

Question 3

In what ways were art/architecture used for political purposes in the time periods we’ve covered so far? Discuss one example from ancient Mesopotamia, one example from Ancient Egypt, and one example from the Ancient Aegean. For each example, please give relevant information (name, material, location, and time period/culture), and discuss how your example illuminates the ways in which art/architecture was used for political purposes in that time period.

Answer 3

• Used to show authority or make rules
  
  • oLaw code of Hammurabi (basalt, Susa, Babylonian)
• Display a leader’s power or exemplify a social hierarchy
  
  • oTi and the Hunt (painted limestone, Saqqara, Old kingdom)
• Display military power
  
  • oNaval “procession” (Fresco, akrotiti, minoan)

*Also: to show military victories (victory steles) or to keep order (Hammurabi’s code)

Question 4

In what ways were art/architecture used for religious purposes in the time periods we’ve covered so far? Discuss one example from ancient Mesopotamia, one example from Ancient Egypt, and one example from the Ancient Aegean. For each example, please give relevant information (name, material, location, and time period/culture), and discuss how your example illuminates the ways in which art/architecture was used for religious purposes in that time period.

Answer 4

• Offerings
  
  • oElamite queen (bronze and copper, susa, elamite)
  • oHatshepsut (stone, Deir el-Bahri, new kingdom)
• Showing religious powers or relationship to the divine, usually in an attempt to establish power
  
  • oVictory stele of Naram-Sin (stone, Susa, Akkadian)
• Honoring the gods
  
  • oWomen and child (ivory, Mycenae, mycenaeans)
  • oGoddess (faience, knossos, minoan)