This week's focus involves discovering the roots of Classicism, and studying influences from Egypt, the ancient Near East, the Bronze Age Aegean (especially Crete). In addition, we will discuss the origins of writing in the Near East, Egypt, and Aegean during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. In each of these areas of the ancient world, look for examples of different modes of human expression: architecture, painting and/or parietal art (art rendered on walls) and other decorative arts, sculpture and pottery, and writing. Fashion students might want to note developments in textiles and innovations in clothing design.

The textbook covers the ancient civilizations of the Near East (Mesopotamia) and Egypt, but we should also pay attention to very early locales and settlements like Göbekli Tepe and Çatal Höyük which provide a good transitional phase between Mesolithic and Neolithic. It is in places like these that people begin to till fields, build permanent dwellings, and discover how to create pottery. The so-called "Neolithic Revolution" involves the gradual shift from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agriculture and the building of the first cities and empires.

Two Web Explorations are associated with this week's material: Metropolitan Museum of Art's online tour of The Art of the First Cities and the National Gallery of Art's exhibit on The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. Please take the time to explore these sites, because they will help you absorb the material and will form the basis of some questions on the exams.

You are only responsible for images included on your slide list; these are bolded below. The remaining material is included to enrich your understanding of the contexts in which the featured art works were created.

Chronology: my Bronze Age Aegean chronology (created for my Humanities class) provides an overview of what was happening in the ancient Aegean and Egypt during the Bronze Age. For a brief but descriptive outline of major events, see the BBC's Overview: From Neolithic to Bronze Age, 8000 - 800 BC; it's focused on British prehistory, but the major technological and cultural innovations apply just about everywhere. For a pretty comprehensive timeline for Turkey/Anatolia/Asia Minor (beginning with the Neolithic), see the chronology pages from Ancient Anatolia.

A note on archaeology and its role in art history: Some questions have arisen in class about so-called "alternative" explanations of prehistoric (or early historic) artifacts and events. To those who seem more willing than others to accept less-than-credible interpretations, please see this article from Archaeology Magazine online: Raiders of the Faux Ark and the section on Hoaxes, Fakes, and Strange Sites. A good forum on these topics can be found at In the Hall of Ma'at: Weighing the Evidence for Alternative History; see also the no-nonsense information on Catchpenny Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. For those interested particularly in the Sphinx controversy, see the PBS Nova page on recent discoveries. As always, keep in mind that good interpretations are based on good science, and that extraordinary explanations demand extraordinary evidence.

Vocabulary/Terminology: Wikipedia has a useful page on architectural terms. You should become familiar enough with the terms on your bi-weekly vocabulary list that you can recognize them from a definition. An extensive list of art-related words is available through Archiseek (Online Architectural Resources).

Neolithic

Anatolia (Turkey): Göbekli Tepe. Please note that I'm only really including this archaeological site because Nigel Spivey discusses it in How Art Made the World, which I've recommended in a couple of places. The excavation is too new, and the context too undetermined at this point to know much except approximate dates. And precisely because its origins and context are so little understood, it's open to the wildest and silliest speculations possible. Stick with websites and images I showed in class, particularly the carved stelae. We actually know less about who built this place than we do about Lascaux and other Paleolithic locations. The initial link is to the Wikipedia page, which is translated from the German. Another reliable sources is the German Archaeological Institute's page. The Smithsonian article on the excavation (also linked on the side bar) has some oddly lit images, which are pretty dramatic, but remind me of the monolith-on-the-moon sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey (from a page about human evolution; scroll down to the section on the film).

Çatal Höyük: Here's a reconstruction drawing of the site in Spring; *"Great Mother" figure; *"Dancing Hunter" painting (the link is to the cover of Ian Hodder's book about the site; see also a context image from the dig's forum--scroll down); basket-handled jar with red painted design. The Çatalhöyük home page (note variant spellings) is difficult to navigate, but has good clear images and first-hand information. "Map" wall painting (with the original painting on the left from a page in Spanish on the history of visual communication) and a reconstruction (bottom of page). Wikipedia's article has more images and some further sources. There are some good photos of reconstructions, bits of the site, and artifacts on Wikimedia Commons.

Greece: Painted pot from Dimini (mainland) ca. 4000-3000 BCE (second image on page); Neolithic Steatopygous figure from the Cyclades, ca. 4500–4000 BCE.

The Ancient Near East

An early platform temple in Mesopotamia (diagram, c. 4000 BCE). To augment the material in the book, see this article on ziggurats in general, and another on the Ziggurat at Ur from the Met).

For more on the Standard of Ur, see The British Museum's History of Art in 100 objects page on it, which includes multiple zoomable views.

Ram in a Thicket, mid-3rd millennium BCE; on the British Museum's matching figure, see this article). "Great Lyre" with bull's head and inlaid front panel, ca. 2550–2400 BCE from Ur. (An interesting article on the lyre and what it might have sounded like--with audio files--can be found here.)

Egypt and Nubia

The evolution from mastaba to pyramid. This is from a Thinkquest project page on Architecture Through the Ages.

If you're curious about how the pyramids were built, and would like a solid, scientific information, see How Were the Pyramids Built? and Pyramid Design and Construction. For information on two excellent television programs regarding the building of the pyramids see Nova Online: Pyramids, the Inside Story and National Geographic's The Pyramid Builders. These should help dispel notions of slaves and aliens as being responsible for the construction. New: Explore the Pyramids from National Geographic online. And be sure to check out the Pyramid Cam for fun.

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about pyramids in Egypt can be found on the Tour Egypt site; the index is here.

Stepped Pyramid of Djoser, Giza. Old Kingdom, Third dynasty from the Wikipedia page. Here's a clickable map and an in-depth exploration of the site. "Bent" Pyramid, built (but never used) by the fourth Dynasty Pharaoh Sneferu in Memphis. More images: see The Egypt Archive.

See also the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago's Giza Plateau Mapping Project. Remember that pyramids were few, and built for only a short period of time. Be sure to look at other aspects of Egyptian architecture; see the links at right for appropriate sites.

Diagram: Egyptian column types (with an example from the temple of Amenophis III at Luxor). This commercial 3D model of a lotus bud column is nicely rendered (click on "columns" under "Categories" for more). See also Mark Andrews's extensive article on the Temples of Ancient Egypt, and Monroe Edgar's page on columns.

Egyptian sculpture

Old Kindgom: Menkaure and His Wife, Queen Khamerernebty, Giza. Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty. The link is to Chris Witcombe's essay about Menkaure's queen.

Middle Kingdom (2050-1800 BCE): Scribes from Meketre's model granary, Bakers from Meketre's model bakery (and brewers), House and Garden (in Stokstad), and Riverboat, ca. 1975 BCE. Digital Egypt's page on Wooden Models, from its section on burial customs (and here's one from the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and another from the Ashmolean Museum collection); see also Bluffton College's page on art from the Middle Kingdom. Be able to identify these primarily as funerary models from the Middle Kingdom. A single example should be enough, but you could "collect" various examples to supplement your slide list.

New Kingdom: (ca. 1348-1336 BCE) Queen Tiy, and a painting of Akhenaten's daughters. The Berger Foundation page on Akhenaten and Amarna.

Egyptian pottery: Middle Kingom: Statuette of a Hippopotamus, Middle Kingdom, ca. 1981–1885 BCE. For more information on the process, see this article by Florence Friedman on Ancient Egyptian Faience.

Greece, the Aegean Islands and Crete (some of these, and what follows below, duplicate images in the book)

Cyclades: More Cycladic figurines, this one from the National Gallery of Australia (c.2700-2300), and one from the Getty (c. 2400) that may be pregnant. A group of musicians (in the Athens museum) also from the Cyclades, c. 2600. This exhibit from the Getty Museum, Prehistoric Arts of the Eastern Mediterranean, offers more information and examples.

For a good introduction to these figures, see the material available on the Bradshaw Foundation page about Mediterranean Figurines. (Note: one example each for male and female are all you need for your slide list.)

Minoan Crete: The Cretan Labyrinth: The Palace of Knossos (ca. 1900-1450 BCE). HistoryWiz has a neat little site on The Minoans with images and information, and Dr. Rozmeri Basic's site on Aegean Art has a large number of images on the subject. Good pictures and maps are also available on the Odyssey Adventures pages. The image of the throne room showed is available here.

Painting/ceramics: Bull Leapers fresco (Knossos, ca. 1550 BCE; scroll down slightly). "Queen's Megaron": The Dolphin fresco from Knossos, from Sacred Destinations. Here's a link to Piet de Jong's famous reconstruction of the Queen's Megaron, with the fresco at left. The Hagia Triada Sarcophagus (and more views). Water flask ("Octopus vase" ca. 1580-1100 BCE), wine jug in Kamares style (1900-1700 BCE) and similar jug in floral style--the "Jug of the Reeds" (16th c. BCE). Sacred Destinations also has a nice shot of the "courtly ladies" fresco I showed you last week on the Screw Kappa Napa wine bottle. It's not, however, on your slide list.

Sculpture: Snake goddess (and a second one) both from Knossos, ca. 1600-1580 BCE. The first link is to Chris Witcombes's discussion of the "snake goddess" in Minoan culture, from his larger article on Images of Women in Ancient Art. Model of a Minoan house.

Many of the above listed artifacts, plus many more, can be found on this page about the Heraklion Museum where they're housed.

Mycenaean/Helladic (Mainland Greece)

Mycenae: The Lion Gate, and the so-called Treasury of Atreus (and interior). On the Greek Landscapes page on Mycenae you can find a nice article and some photos, including a reconstruction drawing of Mycenae with an aerial view of the site. Megaron and hearth in the Palace of Nestor at Pylos; Piet de Jong's reconstruction drawing of the Megaron at Pylos and a courtyard (in German). A nifty QuickTime reconstruction of Nestor's Palace is available here (loads slowly, but worth it). What you're responsible for in this section: the Lion Gate, Mycenaean fresco of a woman from Tiryns, Gold Death Mask ("Agamemnon"), Vapheio cup.

Troy: "Priam's Treasure" (2400 BCE). For some reconstructions of the approximate period of Homer's poem, see TroiaVR: Troy VI. More information and reconstructions from other periods are also avaiable via the home site, Project Troia. The University of Pennsylvania has an article about the "Gold of Troy" on its website.

Design Conventions and the Origins of Writing

Map of The Four Old-World River Valley Cultures (Including the Indus River in South Asia, and the Yellow River in China).

Writing system chronology

Summary of Writing Systems

pictograph The image I showed is no longer available online, but scroll down for a similar one.

Example of a logographic system: Classic Yi (which belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family spoken in parts of China. A nice article on the origins and development of Chinese writing systems is available at Logoi.

Example of a syllabic system: Linear B, the first script used by the Greeks, adapted from Cretan Linear A (Minoan; it has not been deciphered); see also the undeciphered The Phaistos Disk (ca. 1600 BCE)

Ancient Near Eastern accounting tokens. Prof. Denise Schmandt-Besserat's theory about the relationship between tokens and early Mesopotamian writing is both convincing and interesting. The images I showed are no longer available online, but see this page for kids for a simple explanation, From Counting to Writing. The introduction to her book is available through the UT Press, and some pictures are available on the UT website about her.

Akkadian cylinder seals (Figures 7 and 8). Although somewhat technical, this page by Robert B. Mason on Ancient Near Eastern Seals provides a helpful history of seal types and materials

Another seal, with its imprint, from Iraq, 3000 BCE (photo by Tanja Golhert, Smith College). And if you just can't get enough of these, here's a page on seals and seal impressions from ancient Iran and Persepolis.

Mesopotamian clay tablet with envelope, from the Oriental Institute (scroll down). The black and white image is clearer than the color one.

Sumerian Cuneiform from Ancient Scripts of the World

Write Like A Babylonian: a nifty little page from the University of Pennsylvania that transliterates your initials for you into Cuneiform. This is also linked on the workshop page for week 2.

Earliest Egyptian glyphs (and a related BBC Online article); BBC also has a really good article on the decipherment of hieroglyphs.

Possible earliest writing examples found in Harappa (Pakistan) (BBC Online article). The truly devoted can survey the ancient Indus Valley civilization by taking a 90-slide tour (it's actually pretty interesting). A map, some seals, and a very brief history are available at India History.

Evolution of the modern Roman alphabet from Greek and Semitic origins (scroll down). The source site contains some good historical information.

Ido and Benin Chromatographic writing system from northern Nigeria.

Kelley Library Resources

Groenewegen-Frankfort, H. A. Art of the Ancient World: Painting, Pottery, Sculpture, Architecture from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, Greece, and Rome. Ref N 5330 .G764

The Visual Dictionary of Ancient Civilizations. CB 311.V584 1994

Everyday Life in Ancient Times: Highlights of the Beginnings of Western Civilization in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. CB 311 N3 1961

Ancient Egypt

Andreu, Guillemette. Ancient Egypt at the Louvre. N 5336 .F7 P3713 1997

The Egyptian Museum Cairo Official Catalog. DT 59 .C243 S25 1987

Gifts of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Faience. TP 804 .E3 G548 1998

Málek, Jaromír. Egypt : 4000 Years of Art. N 5350 .M243 2003

Müller, Hans Wolfgang. Gold of the Pharaohs. NK 7107.15 .M8513 1999

Smith, William Stevenson. The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt. N 5350 .S5 1998

Ancient Near East

Saggs, H. W. F. Everyday Life in Babylonia & Assyria. DS 71 .S245

Soden, Wolfram von. The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East. D5 57 .S5813 1994

Sumer: Cities of Eden. DS 69.5 .S78 1993

Sumer, Babylon, Assyria. VHS GE 817

Bronze Age Aegean

Aegean: Legacy of Atlantis. VHS GE 1446

Dickinson, O. T. The Aegean Bronze Age. DF 220 .D49 1994

Minoan Civilization. VHS GE 1030

Preziosi, Donald and Louise A. Hitchcock. Aegean Art and Architecture. N 5630 .P74 1999

Wondrous Realms of the Aegean (Time Life Books). DF 220 .W66 1993

History of Writing

Altman, Rochelle. Absent voices : the story of writing systems in the West. New P211.A53 2004

Drucker, Johanna. The Alphabetic Labyrinth: The Letters In History and Imagination. P 211 .D75 1995

Goldman, David J. A Is For Ox. P 211 .G6

Haley, Allan. Alphabet: The History, Evolution and Design of the Letters We Use Today. PE 211 .H3 1995

Healey, John F. The early alphabet. P 211 .H44 1991

Marcus, Joyce. Mesoamerican writing systems: propaganda, myth, and history in four ancient civilizations. F1219.3.W94 M371992

Ouaknin, Marc-Alain. The Mysteries of the Alphabet: The Origins of Writing. P 211 .O913 1999

Robinson, Andrew. The Story of Writing. P211 .R6 1995

Woodard, Roger. Greek writing from Knossos to Homer. PA 273.W66 1997

The video, Out of the Past: Signs and Symbols, explains how writing systems developed in ancient Sumer and in Mesoamerica. VHS GE 668