Western Civilizations (Ancient Times, Egypt, Greece, and Rome) Flashcards
A linear civilization for nearly a thousand miles, along the Nile River; its concept of environment was one of absolute stability, based on an annual repetitive cycle of natural events
Ancient Egypt
The sun god of the Egyptians, greatest of the gods
Ra
Accepted as the son of Ra on earth, and therefore considered as a god; a ruler of Egypt
Pharaoh
Egyptian term for ‘soul,’ conceived to be within Pharaoh and, to a lesser extent, in his subject; the spiritual link between the eternal life and the present
Ka
An ancient Egyptian system of writing using pictures as words
Hieroglyphic
A tropical water plant (common name and genus), believed to be sacred by the Egyptians; eating the fruit was supposed to induce a dreamy euphoria
Lotus (Nymphaea)
Aquatic plant used by the Egyptians for the construction of primitive reed huts, and a recurrent motif in Egyptian architectural sculpture; used to make a paper-like writing material
Cyperus papyrus (Papyrus)
A device invented in Egypt for raising irrigation water from one level to another using a bucket and fulcrum
Shaduf
An ancient Egyptian stone figure having a lion’s body and a human or animal head, especially the huge statue near the Pyramids at Giza
Sphinx
The sepulchres, or burial chamber, of IVth Dynasty pharaohs (2613-2494 BC); possibly the simplest and most fundamental form in architecture (abstract geometry); monumental structures that are related asymmetrically one to another, yet precisely oriented to the cardinal points
Pyramids at Giza
Locations of the temples of the living and the mortuary temples, following the sun pattern, also influenced by the Egyptian’s belief that the cycle of nature is parallel to the cycle of human life, death and resurrection
East and West
Of Egyptian origin, symbolic of procreation; a tall vertical monument, usually monolithic, square in section and tapering up toward a pyramidal apex
Obelisk
The monumental entrance of an Egyptian temple or other wall enclosed space; symbolic of the mountains on each side of the Nile
Pylon
(1380 BC) A garden that depicts the elegant and ephemeral nature of domestic architecture and the decorative use of plants such as the fine trellis and the pomegranate; shows an ordered arrangement of specific plants around a rectangular basin stocked with fish
Tomb of Nebamun, Thebes
(1400 BC) A tomb dramatically sited at the base of a cliff on the west bank of the Nile River, comprised a series of monumental terraces and colonnades symmetrically organized around a processional axis, the Avenue of Sphinxes; with presence of exotic vegetation on its terraces such as myrrh trees from Somalia
Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatsheput, Deir el-Bahri, Egypt
A Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete (c. 2000-1470 BC)
Minoan Civilization
A term coined by Sir Arthur Williams; a religious or ceremonial symbol found extensively in Minoan contexts, also placed about the unfortified palace at Knossos; represented the bull sacrifice and symbolized the sacredness of the place
“Horns of Consecration” (bull horns)
Situated on a rugged, mountainous indented peninsulas and islands, including the Peloponnesus (mainland), the Aegean archipelago of islands and the western coast of Anatolia; composed of people isolated by separate political units; with hot, arid climate and little arable land area
Greece
An ancient city of Magna Graecia on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, founded by settlers from Euboea in the 8th century BC, was the earliest Greek colony in Italy
Cumae
A late Bronze Age Aegean civilization after the collapse of the Crete (1400 BC) located on the mainland
Mycenaean Civilization
Site of the cave of Persephone, also the site of the annual celebration of the rebirth of spring, reenacted as the mystery of Persephone’s return from the underworld
Eleusis, Greece
Legendary center of the world, which symbolized the religious unity of all Greece, and an oracular shrine of Gaia, the Earth Goddess; in the 7th century BC, the site had been rededicated to the worship of Apollo
Delphi, Greece
The sacred precinct allotted to the deity, containing the altar, temple (if any), and other sacral or natural features
Temenos
A Greek mystic and mathematician, who believed that universal essences or truth had an existence apart from the visible work of matter, man and time, and that here lay God; an ancient Athenian philosopher, pupil of Socrates, and teacher of Aristotle
Plato
Recognition and expression of the spirit of particular places; the most enduring legacy of Greece in landscape design
Genius loci
An Ionian Greek philosopher and mathematician (6th century BC), who first discovered a relation between spatial and musical proportions
Pythagoras of Samos
Basic order and idealized harmonies of forms
Golden Mean or Golden Section
The Greek word for “city-state”
Polis
The religious symbolic center of the Greek community; the citadel on the summit of most ancient Greek cities (“the high city”); comprised of the temples to local patron deity; non-axial grouping of structures that were arrived at obliquely
Acropolis
The national goddess and a legendary Athenian king, to whom the Acropolis of Athens was dedicated to
Pallas Athena and Erechtheus
An Athenian statesman who undertook a major campaign to restore the city of Athens and rebuild its temples, after the war with Persia
Pericles
An ancient Greek who codified principles of planning (c. 450)
Hippodamus
A system governing the design of columns and entablatures in classic architecture; a proportioning system based on the length and width of the column style
Order
The most famous of all temples located in the acropolis in Athens, Greece, which was completed c. 438 B.C.; considered the finest of all the Doric-style structures built during the golden age of Greece
Parthenon
An Ionic-style temple on the acropolis in Athens, Greece, built c. 420 BC; notable for the six caryatids on its south porch; left incomplete owing to the Peloponessian War (429-404 BC)
Erectheum (In Greek, Erechtheion)
Named after the procession which took place during an Anthenian festival in honour of Athena Polias and Erechtheus; marked the route from the city gates (Doric Propylaea) to the acropolis
Panathenaic Way
A central civic marketplace in a Greek town, also used as an open-air assembly; usually surrounded by porticos (forum); can be found the civic heart of the Athens, where people gathered to conduct personal business and participate in municipal affairs (200 BC)
Agora
A circular temple in Athena’s sanctuary
Tholos
Burned navel of the earth, where vapors emanated from the natural fissures
Omphalos
Of or relating to ancient Greek or Latin literature, art, or culture
Classical
A characteristic of the Greek and Roman, especially relating to the arts and literature; a type or architecture that created rules and forms or orders
Classic
Of the Greek culture from the late eight century B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great, 323 B.C.
Hellenic