The Ancient World

1
The Ancient World

• The arts of the ancient Mediterranean
• world of Egypt, Greece, and Rome as
• well as the ancient Near East and Islam
• are represented in this slideshow. The
• collection here is broad in both time and
• Geography. Artistic mediums represented
• include pottery, stone, glass, textile, and
• metal. Categories of art include sculpture,
• architecture, painting, weapons, armor,
• jewelry, textiles, and mummies.
• Many of the pictures and item/movement
  descriptions in this slideshow come from the
  Detroit Institute of Arts online collection,
  available at lthttp//www.dia.org/collections/ancie
  nt/ancientindex.htmlgt.

• Regions/eras included here
• Mesopotamia
• Persepolis/Ancient Iran
• Egypt
• Greece
• Rome
• Islamic Art

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Mesopotamia

• Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and
  Euphrates Rivers, was the fertile river plain
  where civilization was born and where writing
  first appeared. Southern Mesopotamia was under
  the control of a series of kings from 3000 B.C.
  to the 6th century B.C. In its early history,
  Mesopotamia was a collection of agricultural
  city-states. These later gave way to centrally
  controlled empires which spread through conquest.

• Gudea of Lagash
• Of all the rulers of ancient
• Mesopotamia, Gudea,
• ensi (governor) of Lagash,
• emerges the most
• clearly across the
• millennia due to
• the survival of
• many of his
• religious texts
• and statues.

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• The mythical Dragon of Marduk with scaly body,
  serpent's head, viper's horns, front feet of a
  feline, hind feet of a bird, and a scorpion's
  tail, was sacred to the god Marduk, principal
  deity of Babylon.

4
The Babylonian Gate of Ishtar
5

• This lamassu is one of many in Mesopotamia that
  protected and supported doorways and entryways to
  palaces. This human-headed winged lion dates
  883-859 B.C.

• Colossal Winged Bull from the palace of Sargon II.

6
Persepolis/Ancient Iran

• Court
  Official
• Court Servant with
  
• Covered Tray
• 
  Earring

• The Achaemenid Persians of central Iran ruled an
  empire which comprised Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria,
  Egypt, and parts of Asia Minor and India from the
  6th to the 4th century B.C. Their ceremonial
  capital was Persepolis in southern Iran founded
  by King Darius the Great (522-486 B.C.)
  Persepolis was burned by Alexander the Great in
  331 B.C. Only the columns, stairways, and door
  jambs of its great palaces survived the fire. The
  stairways, adorned with reliefs representing the
  king, his court, and delegates of his empire
  bringing gifts, demonstrate the might of the
  Persian monarch.

7
Egypt

• The works here demonstrate the basic principles
  of Egyptian sculpture in its symbolic formality.
  For over three thousand years the Egyptians
  adhered to a prescribed set of rules as to how a
  work of art in three dimensions should be
  presented. Egyptian art was highly symbolic and a
  painting or sculpture was not meant to be a
  record of a momentary impression. Apparent
  differences were the result of subtle changes,
  not an altered conception of art or its role in
  society. Of the materials used by the Egyptian
  sculptor -- clay, wood, metal, ivory, and stone
  -- stone was the most plentiful and permanent,
  available in a wide variety of colors and
  hardness. Sculpture was often painted in vivid
  hues as well. Egyptian sculpture has two
  qualities that are distinctive it can be
  characterized as cubic and frontal. It nearly
  always echoes in its form the shape of the stone
  cube or block from which it was fashioned, partly
  because it was an image conceived from four
  viewpoints. The front of almost every statue is
  the most important part and the figure sits or
  stands facing strictly to the front. This
  suggests to the modern viewer that the ancient
  artist was unable to create a naturalistic
  representation, but it is clear that this was not
  the intention.

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• Nebwenenef, High Priest of Amun
• Sebek em hat,
• a leader of priests

• Page from The Book of the Dead
• Papyrus of Nes-min

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Mummies

• Much of what we know about art and life in
  ancient Egypt has been preserved in the tombs
  that were prepared for the protection of the
  dead. The Egyptians believed that the next life
  had to be provided for in every detail and, as a
  result, tombs were decorated with depictions of
  the deceased at his funerary meal, activities of
  the estate and countryside, and the abundant
  offerings necessary to sustain the spirit.
• Sons of Horus Canopic Jars

• Coffin of Henettawy
• Mummy mask of
• Satdjehuty

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Ancient Greece Sculpture

• The Greeks developed a style that incorporated an
  idealized yet realistic approach to the
  representation of the figure. Greek artists moved
  toward an expression based on observation of
  living beings and refinement of anatomical
  elements. Gods and goddesses were imagined in
  human form but ideal in proportion, without
  imperfections. The unclothed human figure in its
  most perfect manifestation was admired for its
  harmonious beauty. The archetypical proportions
  of the human body were the measure and standard
  of beauty for all things.

• Torso of Apollo Torso of Aphrodite

11
Pottery

• Greece is particularly well known for its painted
  jars. They were given as prizes for games, used
  in funerary offerings, and used to store and
  transport daily commodities like oil and wine.
• Volute Krater
• Column Krater

• Panathenaic Prize Amphora
• Calyx-krater

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Friezes

• Parthenon Frieze
• The Return of
• Odysseus

• Gravestone

13
The gods

• The ancient Greeks lived in a world filled with
• divine and semi-divine beings. Their religious
• beliefs and folk traditions were expressed in
• human terms with gods and goddesses, demi-gods,
• and heroes often conquering animals and mythical
• beasts. Even such an abstract idea as poetic
• inspiration was given human form.
• Representations of all these beings are found in
• Greek art in temples or in public spaces, on
• everyday objects of bronze, ceramic,
• and precious materials.
• Concepts which today
• are considered exclusively
• religious were an integral
• part of daily existence.
• Greek Temple

• Winged Victory of Samothrace

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Architecture

• Temple of Dendur
• View of the
• Acropolis

• Delphi

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Sacred Animals

• Sacred Cat of Bast
• Falcon of Horus

• Sacred Scarab
• 
  Sphinx

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• The Rosetta Stone
• The Rosetta Stone is a Ptolemaic era stele
  written with the same passage of writing in two
  Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and
  demotic) and in classical Greek. It was created
  in 196 BC, discovered by the French in 1799 at
  Rosetta, a harbor on the Mediterranean coast in
  Egypt, and translated in 1822 by Frenchman
  Jean-Francois Campollion Comparative translation
  of the stone assisted in understanding many
  previously undecipherable examples of
  hieroglyphic writing. The text of the Rosetta
  Stone is a decree from Ptolemy V, describing the
  repealing of various taxes and instructions to
  erect statues in temples.

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Etruscans

• The Etruscans were a mysterious people, their
  place of origin unknown,
• their language little understood. In the 7th and
  6th centuries B.C. they
• controlled the major part of the Italian
  peninsula, living in walled city-
• states set on hilltops. Their art shows
  influences of earlier Italic cultures,
• the eastern Mediterranean, and Greece, but
• their style is uniquely their own.
• Most of the art of the Etruscans
• that has come down to us was created
  
• for funeral purposes.
  
• Black Figure Neck Amphora
• Head of a Man Horseman

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Rome

• The Romans inherited much from the Etruscans, but
  
• they also borrowed many ideas from the Greeks.
• Sculpture was used to decorate public and
  private
• buildings and much of Roman art was made as
• official propaganda to glorify the ruler,
  proclaim
• victories, or to make pious references to the
  state and
• its governance. From the time of Augustus, the
• first emperor, artists created idealized
• representations of the imperial family.
• Such statues could portray important
• personalities in armor to proclaim a
• military victory, as an orator in
• reference to learned activities, or
• even as a deity to suggest an
• association with the gods.
• The Emperor Augustus

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Roman Statuary

• Roman Market Togate Statue of
  a Venus de Milo
• Woman Youth
• Torso in Armor

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Painting and Mosaics

• A Roman Bedroom
• Personification of
• the River Tigris

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Frescos
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Decorative Arts

• Gold Earrings Ribbed
  Bowl Spoon

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Islamic Art

• The faith of Islam arose in western Arabia with
  God's revelation to the Prophet Muhammad (ca.
  570-632) by the angel Gabriel. These sacred
  messages were written down by 651 as the holy
  book, the Qur'an. In 622 Muhammad left Mecca for
  Medina in a journey called the hijra which marks
  the beginning of the Muslim calendar (1 A.H.). In
  630 he designated Mecca the spiritual and
  geographical center of Islam. Islam
  demonstrates its faith in the building of
  religious monuments and the illumination of the
  Qur'an and celebrates all aspects of daily life
  by adorning the most humble of objects. Arabic
  calligraphy was the vehicle that spread the
  message of Islam and thus became the central,
  most venerated art form. The arabesque, derived
  from the classical vine scroll, evolved into
  Islamic art's most distinctive motif.

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• Quran Manuscript Painted Doors
  
• Figure of a Court Official

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• Bottle Double
  Walled Ewer
• 
  
  Minai Bowl