Altamira Cave located in

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Altamira Cave located in Altamira Spain
20,000b.c.e. Images of bison many bison are life
size.
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Close-ups of bison Altamira cave 20,000
b.c.e. Paintings show amazing naturalism in the
depictions of bison. The bisons joints are
shown correctly and anatomy shown accurately.
The paint color made from natural substances has
remained vibrant because the temperature and
moisture level in caves is constant. The caves
also protect paintings from the elements.
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The Hall of Bulls Lascaux Cave, France 18,000
15,000 b.c.e. Found in 1939 by French teenagers
trying to retrieve a dog that had fallen down a
hole. This area is called the hall of bulls
because the dominant images are of cattle. Many
drawings Are over life- sized. Drawings only
show animals in profile and many overlap on top
of earlier Depictions. Scale relationships vary
greatly between animals.
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The DeadMan from Lascaux Cave 18,000 15,000
b.c.e. Paintings of human beings in pre
Historic art lack the naturalism used In
images of animals.
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Venus of Willendorf 25,000 20,000 b.c.e. See
also page three of Textbox.
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MESOPOTAMIA
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Stair case at Ziggurat of Ur
Ziggurats were multiple layered temples that
would Occupy the center of a Mesopotamian city.
It was walled Off from the town and only the
king and priests could Enter it. Offering were
left for the gods to enjoy. Ritual Meals were
left before the images of gods for the
gods Consumption.
Votive statues
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At the apogee of its effectiveness, the chariot
was overtaken in importance by a single element
in the chariot system, the horse itself. It has
been suggested that the Assyrians themselves were
responsible for this revolution.
By the eighth century BC, however, selective
breeding had produced a horse that Assyrians
could ride from the forward seat, with their
weight over the shoulders, and a sufficient
mutuality had developed between steed and rider
for the man to use a bow while in motion.
Mutuality, or perhaps horsemanship, was not so
far advanced, all the same, that riders were
ready to release the reins an Assyrian
bas-relief shows cavalrymen working in
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The Assyrians used torture spectacles as a
warningto any who would oppose them
When King Ashurnasirpal (883-859 B.C.) overcame a
conspiracy of princes in Syria, for example, he
made their punishment a public spectacle and
boasted of its brutality
I built a pillar over against his city gate and
I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted, and I
covered the pillar with their skin. Some I walled
up within the pillar, some I impaled upon the
pillar on stakes, and others I bound to stakes
round about the pillar. ... And I cut the .limbs
of the officers, of the royal officers who had
rebelled .... Many captives from among them I
burned with fire, and many I took as living
captives. From some I cut off their noses, their
fingers, of many I put out the eyes. I made one
pillar of the living and another of the dead, and
I bound their heads to tree trunks round about
the city. Their young men and maidens I burned in
the fire.
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Decline of Assyria The power, the terror, and the
armed might of the Assyrian empire did not
prevent the recurrence of rebellions, and every
Assyrian king spent most of his life waging
either external or civil wars. Gradually, in the
seventh century B.C., the rebels, aided by
outside forces, were able successfully to detach
pieces of the empire. The most effective group of
allies were the Babylonians, whose homeland was
in the southern part of Mesopotamia, and the
Medes, a nomadic horse-riding people living on
the high Persian plateau. Finally, in 612 B.C.,
the coalition successfully conquered and leveled
Nineveh itself. The biblical prophet Ezekiel
celebrated the destruction of Israel's
oppressors, the Assyrians, by declaring "all of
them slain, fallen by the sword which caused
terror in the land of the living."
The destroyed Assyrian fortress at Nimrud, with
remains the citys ziggurat on the right. All of
the Assyrian cities were reduced to this level.