Fine art of the Ancient Near Due east

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Outset thing first ….

The BBC'sHow Fine art Fabricated the World (aired on PBS in America)is a thought-provoking five-part series, of which part iii – "The Fine art of Persuasion" – is particularly useful for the beginning of an fine art history survey class.

You lot can utilize information technology in a number of ways depending on the size of your class and the length of time/frequency per week you meet. Yous might wish to prove the showtime ten minutes at the stop of the lesson and take students watch at home on Netflix, or to have a "motion picture screening" in class (bringing popcorn can help brand things feel festive) and watch with guided questions.

In this episode, Dr. Nigel Spivey uses the 2004 ballot campaign of George Bush-league to explore the way in which art and architecture have been used to propagandize powerful figures since fourth dimension immemorial. Spivey's four instance studies hit iv keys areas in the early part of the art history survey – Stonehenge (Prehistory), Darius the Great and Persepolis (Ancient Virtually East), Alexander the Neat (Ancient Hellenic republic), and Augustus (Ancient Rome) in just under 56 minutes. Students begin the course prepared to see ancient art as connected to the gimmicky world around them, and to discuss how images can be used politically, economically, and socially – non but as objects of brandish in a museum or Powerpoint. The mess of electioneering today has nifty precedent in ancient cultures – they produced propaganda also.

Ask your students respond to the moving-picture show past either discussing in small groups, or through a short in-grade writing practise. You might enquire questions like:

  • Which major sites and historical figures does the narrator focus on during the picture? Keep track by taking note of names, places, countries, and major dates and so we tin can discuss after watching.
  • In what ways exercise ancient rulers or cultures use visual art? Do y'all notice any recurring themes, methods, or ideas?
  • Which historical figure covered in the film do you recollect used fine art most effectively in pursuit of ability?

Images and Readings ….

PPT Images

Background reading might include your survey textbook, and (much better) this comprehensive educator guide from the Met Museum. The Met's guide cuts to the chase and highlights key images with short, explanatory texts on each ane. Pages 126-129 offer splendid classroom discussion topics: How did the edifice blocks of society develop? How does merchandise affect cultural evolution? How is art affected by politics? What can images "do"?

Other resources include Smarthistory's excellent Aboriginal Near East section. There are at-domicile readings for students in the AHTR online syllabus.

Content suggestions ….

Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer Probably from southern Iraq, Late Prehistoric period, 3100-3000 BCE

Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer
Probably from southern Iraq, Belatedly Prehistoric period, 3100-3000 BCE

Our library favorite (and managing director of the British Museum) Neil MacGregor'southA History of the World in 100 Objects covers Ancient Near Eastern cuneiform tablets, which is a peachy place to begin investigating this part of the survey. Some of the primeval cuneiform writing was created in order to keep track of beer, of all things. (Find the text for gratuitous online on the BM website, or students can mind for free besides.*) Simply the Sumerians as well produced great literature. TheEpic of Gilgamesh predates Homer'sIlliadandOdysseyby some 1,500 years. With the advent of visual fine art in Prehistory, and now writing, nosotros're looking at the inflow of the idea of culture – the power by homo sapiens to enact creative or abstract thought. The Met educator guide outlines a group of objects from their collection perfect for investigating the visual culture of the Aboriginal Near Eastward.

In an hour and fifteen minutes, this  content area can be investigated through many aboriginal objects,including

  • Cuneiform tablets
  • Ziggurats
  • Vases, cylinder seals, and votive figure
  • Victory Stele of Naram-Sin
  • The Code of Hammurabi
  • Assyrian palace reliefs
  • The Ishtar Gate and throne room wall
  • Reliefs at Persepolis, including Darius and Xerxes Receiving Tribute

You may accept already discussed different interpretations of "culture" – equally learned behavior, not genetic or biological, including languages, community, beliefs, technology that is shared by a group. Civilization is irrevocably intertwined with the thought of civilisation, of settlement and the germination of rules and regulations, and the growth of urban centers.  And, every bit Neil MacGregor says, "Writing is essential for the creation of what nosotros recollect of as man civilization." This is why the tablets are such a great place to begin the discussion!

This "Urban Revolution" begins first in the "fertile crescent" of Mesopotamia (today = Iraq) and Egypt c. iii,500-3000 BC. It forms the symbolic boundary betwixt pre-history and history and during it mankind invented "civilization" – the development of permanent systems of social regulation; the beginning of infighting for control of these regulated resource; social bonds, social welfare; law; send; irrigation; agriculture; food surplus; and settlement.

Agriculture was the basis for wealth.  Religion played a central office in regime and daily life.  Leaders strongly identified themselves with the gods. Many societies rose and fell during the period we designate equally the Ancient Virtually Due east.  Stability was fleeting and this well-nigh of the objects pertained to religion and rule. The primeval of these communities were the Sumerians.  The Sumerians are credited with many firsts:  the cycle, the plow, casting objects in copper and bronze and cuneiform writing.

The city-state was another of the bang-up Sumerian "inventions." Activities that had once been individually initiated became institutionalized and the state took responsibleness for the safety and welfare of its inhabitants. Huge mud-brick temples like theZiggurat at Ur (2100 – 2050 BCE, present-twenty-four hours Muqaiyir, Republic of iraq)towered over the apartment plains. (These celebrated edifices became the backdrop for contemporary images photographed, filmed, and transmitted to the West during the Republic of iraq War.) Objects such as the Warka (or Uruk) Vase andcylinder seals (c. 2600 BCE) were establish in the vicinity of such temples during twentieth century archaeological excavations. (The Warka Vase was one of the thousands of artifacts which were looted from the National Museum of Iraq during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and was later returned during an amnesty.)Votive figureswere besides important artifacts of this period, and propose patronage of the arts.

In 2334 BCE, the loosely linked group of cities known as Sumer (Southern Mesopotamia), came under the domination Sargon of Akkad who came from the N of Mesopotamia. Sargon's grandson, Naram-Sin, called himself "Male monarch of the 4 Quarters," and theStele of Naram-sin (c. 2250 BCE, six.5 anxiety high!) offers an opportunity to discuss how leadership and power is portrayed in visual arts of this period through h ieratic calibration. The Votive Statue of Gudea, c. 2090 BCE, may but be 29" high, just Gudea ruled the one urban center state that managed to fend off the Akkadians. Gudea'due south image is therefore a peachy comparison with Naram-sin's. How do the two portrayals of leadership differ?  Are there contemporary connections to be made with portraits of electric current political leaders?

The Stele of Hammurabi, c. 1792-1750 BCE, is approximately 7 feet tall. Rex Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 BCE) established a centralized regime nether the Babylonians and ruled southern Mesopotamia in the early second millennium. He is known for his conquests, merely also for his law code. This is the outset systematic codification of his people'due south rights, duties, penalties for infringements. There are 300 or so entries, some dealing with commercial and property matters, others with domestic issues and physical assail. (Meet this Yale translation which offers great groundwork context as well as the code translated in full.)

After centuries of struggle in Southern Mesopotamia amidst Sumer, Akkad, and Lagash, the Assyrians rise to dominance in Northern Mesopotamia, coming to power in 1400 BCE.  Past the ninth century BCE they controlled most of Mesopotamia. Their palaces were busy with scenes of battles, Assyrian victories, presentations of tribute to the king, combat between men and beasts, and religious imagery. Palace reliefs like that of Assurnasirpal II Killing Lions, c 875 BCE,provide an opportunity for in-class formal analysis.

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Briefly introduce the object:The Assyrian kings expected their greatness to be recorded. They commissioned sculptors to create a series of narrative reliefs exalting majestic power and piety. These narratives recorded battles but also conquests of wildlife.  This is 1 of the earliest and most extensive forms of narrative relief found before the Roman Empire.

Grouping discussion might begin with wide questions like "What do we come across? What are our very first observations?" earlier asking students to differentiate between course ("What elements of course can we discern (line, color, material, composition, technique)") and context  ("What elements of context tin can nosotros discern (narrative, characters involved, does this compare to other works nosotros know in similar or unlike ways?, historical context)"). Summing up responses will advise that the form and the context of the work are interdependent – the strong key effigy, the employ of the bow and the chase, hieratic scale, and the royal dominance of the "king of the beasts," the lion, underlines that visual narrative is an important memorializing aspect of this ruler'due south reign and "speak his power."

The visual history of the ANE is brindled with the ascension and autumn of rulers and city-states, one reason why such rulers were corking to immortalize themselves in architecture and art. Our final ruler is the one who continued the Neo-Babylonian empire, delivering it from the Assyrians in the n. The near renowned of the Babylonian kings was Nebuchadnezzar 2 (r. c. 605 BC – 562 BC), whose exploits the biblical volume of Daniel recounts, he is notorious today for his suppression of the Jews. Like cracking rulers across time, Nebuchadnezzar II used architecture as a mode to demonstrate his power, and the precious stone in the crown of his building campaign was the Ishtar Gate (c.575 BCE).Today, parts of the Ishtar Gate and the processional fashion leading to it are in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Information technology was dedicated to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar and faced with a rare blue stone chosen lapis lazuli. (A smaller reproduction of the gate was built in Republic of iraq under Saddam Hussein as the archway to a museum that has not been completed. Damage to this reproduction has occurred since the Iraq War.)

The king had left instructions in cuneiform scrip on tablets of dirt.  He urged his successors to repair his majestic edifices, which for identification purposes, had bricks inserted in the walls, with an inscription announcing that they were the work of "Nebuchadnezzar, Rex of Babylon from far ocean to far sea."  The new inscribed bricks relay that the New Babylon was "rebuilt in the era of the leader Saddam Hussein." Today, rulers all over the world in many different cultures all the same utilise architecture to demonstrate their ability as Hussein did, linking his rule with an aboriginal, 1000 era in Republic of iraq's history.

Although Nebudchadnezzar had boasted that "I had caused a mighty wall to delimit Babylon…so that the enemy who would do evil would not threaten," Cyrus of Persia captured the city in the sixth century BCE. Babylon was simply one of the Persian conquests. Arab republic of egypt fell to them in 525 BCE and by 480 BCE the Persian Empire was the largest the world had however known extending from the Indus River in southeastern Asia to the Danube in northeastern Europe. The most important source of Persian compages is the palace of Persepolis. It was built by Darius I, successors of Cyrus (a figure Dr. Spivey introduces in his documentary). Reliefs on the walls of Persepolis depict processions of royal guards, Western farsi nobles, dignitaries and representatives from over 23 subject nations bringing the king tributes.  Every one of them wears his national costume.

The Achaemenid line ended with the death of Darius 3 in 330 BCE at the hands of Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia. Alexander conquered Persepolis, and fix the stage for the next chapter – Ancient Hellenic republic!

At the end of the class ….

The Met Educator guide (linked above) has some great suggestions for writing and discussion activities linked to this content expanse, ii of which are below. Alternatively, students could consummate a short writing response to the guided questions for Dr. Nigel Spivey's "The Art of Persuasion."

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* The volume started life every bit a 100-office series on BBC Radio 4.  His text is a good replacement for the fine art history survey textbook. It's free and – unlike any art history survey textbook – it's fascinating and compellingly written.