[Assignment/Research]

1. Sumerian Art (c.4500-2270 BCE)
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/ancient-art/sumerian.htm
Introduction
Sumer (also known as Sumeria) was responsible for the earliest art of Antiquity. The
Sumerians were the first civilizing people to settle in the lands of southern
Mesopotamia, draining the marshes for agriculture, starting trade, and establishing
new forms of ancient pottery (first mass-produced bowls made at Uruk, about 4000
BCE), along with crafts like weaving, leatherwork and metalwork. These late forms
of Neolithic art benefited significantly from the surge in population that resulted from
the stable food supply and settled nature of Sumerian life.
Sumerian civilization outshone all others within the region at the time - including
Egyptian culture - due to their advanced laws, inventions and art. Only ancient
Anatolian sites, such as Gobekli Tepe (c.9500 BCE) dating to the era of Mesolithic
art, might be said to have yielded earlier signs of significant civilization. Sumerian
culture flourished during the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, before being overrun by the
Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BCE.
In a nutshell, up until about 3500 BCE, Sumerian art only really excelled at pottery -
albeit of a type and quality which was far superior to any form ofGreek
pottery produced up to that point. Thereafter, we see the emergence of free
standing sculpture, along with early bronze statuettes, primitive types of personal
jewellery and decorative designs on a wide range of artifacts. Evidence of advanced
copper and bronze casting techniques emerges during the Third Millennium, with
some bronze sculpture being made by the complexcire-perdue process. Excavations
at Ur have revealed a huge number of rich tombs, containing gold, silver, lapis lazuli,
and decorated shell objects as well as gaming-boards, harps, weapons and cylinder
seals. Clay steles (tablets of relief sculpture) began to be used by the educated
classes to narrate stories.
Characteristics of Sumerian Culture
Sumeria was an aggregate of at least 12 city-states on the Euphrates, close to the
Persian Gulf, each ruled by a King. They included: Adab, Akshak, Bad-Tibira, Erech,
Kish, Lagash, Larak, Larsa, Nippur, Sippar, Umma, Uruk and Ur. The Sumerians are
no longer supposed to have been the earliest inhabitants of the region, but rather
"invaders," though it is still undecided from where they came and who exactly they
displaced. At the dawn of known history they were dominant, contributing the
earliest and most lasting of the written languages of the region (the Sumerian
pictograph writing was father to the cuneiform characters that were to spread over
so much of the Near East); developing skills in metallurgy before their neighbours
(the first use of copper occurred in Sumer, as far back as 5,000 BCE); inventing the
potter's wheel (c.4500 BCE), as well as the first ever wheeled transport (3,200 BCE);
and taking epochal steps forward in civic organization, warfare, law, and the arts. It
is possible that they came from the Iranian Plateau to the east, bringing these
achievements with them from some still undiscovered Persian or Scythian birthplace
of culture.

2. Professor C. Leonard Woolley, who has done more than any other, as archeologist
and writer, to dig the Sumerians out of obscurity and place them prominently in the
first episode of the story of human civilization, is willing to give them precedence
over the once vaunted Akkadians, or true Babylonians, as founders of Mesopotamian
art and culture. He then goes further, placing them before the Egyptians, as pioneer
lawgivers, as inventors, and as artists. He points out that in the period when the
communities of Sumeria were flourishing - say, from 3500 BCE - Egypt still had no
metals, had not invented or discovered the potter's wheel, and owned no written
language.
Sumerian Arts
As to the legendary origins of the Sumerian arts, Professor Woolley quotes a
Babylonian named Berossus, of about 300 BCE, who stated that the towns of
Sumeria were founded by a race of half-men, half-fish, who came out of the Persian
Gulf under the leadership of Oannes; and "all things that make for the amelioration
of life were bequeathed to men by Oannes, and since that time no further inventions
have been made." And Berossus, in fact, mentions just those accomplishments which
modern historians count most critical in the rise of man: agriculture, use of metals,
and writing. It is likely that these advances developed together, in one push forward
of the human intelligence; and the earliest datable evidences of them are found in
Sumeria.
Excavations at Tepe Gawra in Iraq in 1936-37 brought to light the foundation walls
of a "pre-Sumerian" acropolis, dated before 4000 BCE, and relics indicating that the
"Painted Pottery Peoples," long considered primitive except in their mastery
of ceramic art, "enjoyed an advanced and balanced civilization." There is also
evidence of planned community building, even of monumental architecture, with
interior piers and pilasters; of religious activities centered in temples; of seals; of the
first datable goldsmithing in the form of gold beads, and thus the first
datable jewellery art of the region; of musical instruments; of an earthen jar bearing
"the first landscape painting" - all ascribed to a time five hundred years or more
before the date previously accepted as marking the dawn of history and civilized art.
In other words, Sumerian culture - which previously had been considered to be on a
par with late Prehistoric art - is now known to have possessed many of the cultural
attributes commonly associated with later Egyptian civilization, among others.
Note: while Sumerian civilization flourished, it's worth remembering that Europe
remained in Stone Age darkness, beset by savagery and obscurity.
The Stele of the Vultures (c.2800 BCE)
Out of the excavated ruins of Lagash, a Sumerian city-state, archeologists recovered
fragments of a stone tablet (or stele), sculpted in low relief, which had been
commissioned as a war memorial by King Eannatum. On one side the monument
recounts in pictures and text the military successes of the all-conquering King
Eannatum. He is depicted oversize, leading his soldiers into battle. Nearby are heaps
of dead bodies belonging to their enemies, while vultures fly overhead c arrying away
dismembered parts of the slaughtered. The other side of the tablet shows the
approval of the Gods. It depicts a god holding the heraldic symbol of Lagash while
neatly destroying its enemies. This item of narrative relief sculpture is believed to be
the earliest known instance of a story told in pictures, of sustained visual art: its

3. theme being "war" - one of four main themes of the day; the others being Kings,
Gods and Hunting.
The Stele of the Vultures is an important example of Mesopotamian sculpturefrom
the late Sumerian period, but is less representative (of Sumerian art as a whole)
than the little animal figures, in the round and in low relief, the shell plaques and the
seals, all of which are more in character as products of the early city-states' studios.
The spirit is in general more human and more appealing than anything in the later
and larger cultures (like Assyrian art) into which the Sumerian was to be absorbed.
In these figures there is moredecorative art, and less boastful and violent narrative;
more ornament and more love of miniature refinement. And, curiously enough, there
is in one phase of art in early Sumeria a degree of unforced realism, of fidelity to
surface nature, not to be surpassed until Greek times. That is, in the centuries before
3000 BCE men were making statuettes and reliefs so characteristically "lifelike" that
not until the appearance of Greek High Classical sculpture (c.400 BCE) would
imitative skill go higher. The art works that survive have to do mostly with gods and
kings and nobles. They are votive figures, reliefs commemorative of honours paid to
the gods, and articles of luxury and show.
Sumerian Architecture
Architecture yields up only ruins too fragmentary to warrant detailed speculation
regarding the "looks" of monumental or domestic buildings, though it is a fact
technically of great significance that the Sumerians were using rudimentary arches
and vaults some 3000 years before Roman architecture left its mark across Europe.
The common building material was the clay brick, since the Tigris-Euphrates plain
lacked both stone and wood in any abundance, and the architectural forms were
doubtless plain and blocklike, like most early brick construction. The earliest feature
of monumental building seems to have been the temple tower, perhaps an artificial
substitute for the hilltop from which the gods had been worshiped, and this may
have been the ancestor of the Assyrian ziggurat, Moslem dome and minaret, and
Christian campanile and steeple. The ziggurat at Ur, as well as later ones in Babylon
and Assyria, was constructed in successively smaller stories, the one at the top
bearing an altar. Access from the ground (or platform) below was usually by ramps.
The "building" was really a shaped hill, without rooms - except for the temple on top
- a sort of stepped pyramid. Archeologists in Sumer have also discovered numerous
raised buildings with buttressed walls. These buttresses were structural as well as
decorative and became a feature of Sumerian architecture.
For a comparison with Egypt, see Ancient Egyptian Architectureand also Egyptian
Pyramid Architecture (c.2650-1800 BCE).
Sumerian Relief Sculpture
Low relief sculpture was freely used on building walls and, in materials less heavy
than stone, as ornament on luxurious furniture; and the independent tablet -
monuments, or stelae, gradually became common. It is likely that the world's
treasure of sculptured works from Sumeria will be greatly increased, since only a few
sites have up to now been excavated - the most important being at Ur, Lagash,
Eridu, Kish, and Nippur - but from the examples that have come to light one can
already form a picture of societies that delighted in refined workmanship in metals

4. and stone and shell, and in colorful decoration and intricate pattern; and there are a
few examples that indicate a considerable sense of sheer plastic invention.
The reliefs commonly known as early Sumerian - such as the Tablet of Ur-Nina - and
made well before 3000 BCE, are rather inept and uncraftsmanlike. But the frieze of
figures of men and animals once affixed to a wall of a temple at al'Ubaid near Ur,
made of limestone reliefs set into darker stone panels, is uniquely effective and
engagingly decorative. The facade seems to have been extraordinarily enriched with
various types of mosaic art and stone sculpture. Examples of terracotta
sculpture have been found, as well as remains of several of the limestone friezes,
and there were extensive copper reliefs, including a large hammered panel over the
door, depicting a lion-headed eagle and two stags, and a pictorial frieze in copper.
Around a ledge below these relief features was a row of oxen in the round, made of
beaten sheet copper over wood. The building is of the middle of the thirty-first
century BCE.
While monumental works of an earlier date are lacking, there is some indication that
this art had been preceded by a long development of maturedrawing and carving.
The shell-plaques attached to gameboards, musical instruments, and furniture afford
evidence of exceptionally spirited patterning, with figures at once characteristic and
cunningly conventionalized for heraldic effect. Sometimes these are in carved in low
relief against a contrasting background. There are also patterns made up of squares
of shell with spirited linear designs engraved or incised. The lines were filled with a
red or sometimes black paste to make the drawing stand out clear and crisp, by a
process paralleled forty centuries later in European niello work.
Statues
There are statues in the round, of the true Sumerian period, which give evidence of
an aptitude for the full-sculptural medium, although there is nothing that approaches
the nobility and the subtle aesthetic expressiveness of the figurative Egyptian
sculpture of the Old Kingdom period. Indeed from the thirty-first century, down to
the time of King Gudea, about the twenty-fifth century, there appears to have been
very little change in the conventions of the art, and certainly no great improvement
in skill. Some of the later full-length statues of King Gudea are massive, effectively
simplified and reposeful, but there is little of the inner sculptural life, of the plastic
expressiveness, that so distinguishes contemporary rock-carving along the Nile.
NOTE: As in the case of Ancient Greece, nearly all Sumerian painting has been lost to
the effects of vandalism or weather. Luckily some mural painting has survived but
there are no known examples of encaustic painting or tempera painting along the
lines of the Egyptian Fayum Mummy Portraits (c.50 BCE - 250 CE).
Decorative Art
It is rather in the field of figurines, and particularly when animals are dealt with, that
a distinctive excellence is achieved. There is, for example, the figure of a donkey
(dated 3100 BCE) which Queen Shub-ad had attached as a mascot to the rein-guide
on the yoke of her chariot asses. It is a pretty bit of realistic sculpture, showing
canny observation, but with due regard to the figure's use and placing. Sculpturally
appealing also are certain bulls' heads in silver and copper. Some of these were
ornaments on lyres and perhaps should not be judged independently. But the values

5. are of the sort that render the fragments effective even when wrenched from the
original context.
Incidentally, the modern world owes its knowledge of Queen Shub-ad's donkey and
these bulls' heads, and the shell-plaques from game-boards, to one rich find at Ur,
and their preservation to a custom common during early human civilization.
According to the etiquette of the First Dynasty, about 3100 BCE, when the queen
died a large number of her ladies-in-waiting were entombed in her burial chamber in
the royal cemetery, to give her what aid and comfort they could in the afterlife. With
them were walled in such earthly treasures as the queen's chariot and harps and
chaplets and toilet articles.
The art in general, of headdresses, jewellery, gold vessels, and statues, runs to
excessive ornamentation and lack of taste in adapting observed natural detail to
decorative or plastic purposes. It is, in fact, already a decadent standard of art that
we have here, of a time when the ability to formalize beautifully, common to so
many primitive peoples, had passed into florid overabundance and into a striving
after exact representation for its own sake. Some of the discovered chaplets are like
flowered wreaths copied directly from nature into gold and other precious stuffs.
Each leaf is true to its botanical model; every vein is shown. Art is no longer creation
nor selective adaptation, but imitation of natural beauty.
NOTE: Sumer is believed to be the birthplace of nail art around 3200 BCE, when men
started colouring their nails with "kohl", a lotion containing lead sulfide.
Cylindrical Seals
A miniature art originated by the Sumerians, and to be perpetuated through the
Babylonian-Assyrian supremacy, was the sculpturing of cylindrical seals in low relief.
Writing in Mesopotamia was done on wet clay slabs, which later hardened into
permanent tablets. It is owing to the indestructible character of these tablet
documents and "books" that the twentieth-century world knows so much of the
details of Sumerian and later Mesopotamian literature and life. To sign the clay, or
mark it with his device, the important personage carried a personal seal, and this
commonly was ornamental and pictorial. "Every Babylonian," wrote Herodotus,
"carries a seal, and a staff carved at the top into the form of an apple, a rose, a lily,
an eagle, or a like device."
A small cylinder of hard stone, such as obsidian, agate, or quartz, or of the softer
alabaster, was carved as a "negative," in intaglio, so that the impression of it in the
clay came out in relief. It usually showed a composition with figures, and very often
was a token of the owner's devotion to a certain god. Literally thousands of cylinder
seals (not to mention flat, ring, and cone varieties) have been recovered, as well as
innumerable clay documents bearing their impressions.
The early examples may show roughly geometrical designs or solar images, and
there are also primitive pictographic inscriptions. Certainly soon after 3500 BCE the
figured seals begin to reflect a considerable skill in relief picturing and a high sense
of stylization. There is a sharpness, a crisp delineation of separated figures against
uninvolved backgrounds, which perfectly belongs to this exquisite lapidary art.

6. Ancient Egyptian Art
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/ancient-art/egyptian.htm#introduction
Introduction
A major contributor to late Neolithic art, Egyptian culture is probably the best known
form of ancient art in the Mediterranean basin, before the advent of
Greek civilization (c.600 BCE). Ancient Egyptian architecture, for example, is
world famous for the extraordinary Egyptian Pyramids, while other features unique
to the art of Ancient Egypt include its writing script based on pictures and symbols
(hieroglyphics), and its meticulous hieratic style of painting and stone carving.
Egyptian civilization was shaped by the geography of the country as well as the
political, social and religious customs of the period. Protected by its desert borders
and sustained by the waters of the Nile, Egyptian arts and crafts developed largely
unhindered (by external invasion or internal strife) over many centuries.
The Pharaoh (originally meaning 'palace') was worshipped as a divine ruler
(supposedly the incarnation of the god Horus), but typically maintained firm control
through a strict bureaucratic hierarchy, whose members were often appointed on
merit.
For a contemporary comparison, see: Mesopotamian Art (c.4500-539 BCE)
and Mesopotamian Sculpture (c.3000-500 BCE). For oriental painting, pottery and
sculpture, see: Chinese Art. See also: Neolithic Art in China (7500 on) and
also: Traditional Chinese Art.
The function of Egyptian art was twofold. First, to glorify the gods - including the
Pharaoh - and facilitate human passage into the after-life. Second, to assert,
propagandize and preserve the values of the day. Due to the general stability of
Egyptian life and culture, all arts - including architecture andsculpture, as well
as painting, metalwork and goldsmithing - were characterized by a highly
conservative adherence to traditional rules, which favoured order and form over
creativity and artistic expression. Decorative arts included the first examples of Nail
Art.
Timeline of Ancient Egypt
Egyptian culture evolved over three thousand years, a period usually divided as
follows:
The Early Dynastic Period; The Old Kingdom (26802258 BCE); The Middle
Kingdom (2134-1786 BCE); The New Kingdom (15701075 BCE), including the
controversial Amarna Period of King Amenhotep (Akhenaton) (13501320 BCE).
After this, came an Intermediate Period until the Ptolemaic Era(323-30 BCE) and
the period of Roman rule (30 BCE - 395 CE).
Ancient Egyptian civilization is symbolized by the Pyramids, most of which were
constructed during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods, when the Pharaoh's power
was absolute. Even today, the full significance of these funerary monuments and
tombs is imperfectly understood by archeologists and Egyptologists. Testifying to the

7. social organization and architectural ingenuity of Ancient Egyptian culture, the Great
Pyramid of Giza (c.2565 BCE) remains the sole surviving member of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World, as compiled by the Greek poet Antipater of Sidon.
Egyptian Artists and Craftsmen
Egyptian sculptors and painters were not artists in the modern sense of being a
creative individual. Ancient Egyptian art was rather the work of paid artisans who
were trained and who then worked as part of a team. The leading master craftsman
might be very versatile, and capable of working in many branches of art, but his part
in the production of a statue or the decoration of a tomb was anonymous. He would
guide his assistants as they worked, and help to train novices, but his personal
contribution cannot be assessed. Artists at all stages of their craft worked together.
The initial outline sketch or drawing would be executed by one or more, who would
then be followed by others carving the intermediate and final stages. Painters would
follow in the same manner. Where scenes have been left unfinished it is possible to
see the corrections made to the work of less-skilled hands by more practised
craftsmen. Many master craftsmen reached positions of influence and social
importance, as we know from their own funerary monuments. Imhotep, the architect
who built the Step Pyramid complex for King Zoser, 2660-2590 BC, was so highly
revered in later times that he was deified. The credit for any work of art, however,
was believed to belong to the patron who had commissioned it.
Rules of Painting
Egyptian civilization was highly religious. Thus most Egyptian artworks involve the
depiction of many gods and goddesses - of whom the Pharaoh was one. In addition,
the Egyptian respect for order and conservative values led to the establishment of
complex rules for how both Gods and humans could be represented by artists. For
example, in figure painting, the sizes of figures were calculated purely by reference
to the person's social status, rather than by the normal artistic rules of linear
perspective. The same formula for painting the human figure was used over
hundreds if not thousands of years. Head and legs always in profile; eyes and upper
body viewed from the front. For Egyptian sculpture and statues, the rules stated that
male statues should be darker than female ones; when seated, the subject's hands
should be on knees. Gods too were depicted according to their position in the
hierarchy of deities, and always in the same guise. For instance, Horus (the sky god)
was always represented with a falcon's head, Anubis (the god of funeral rites) was
always depicted with a jackal's head.
Use of Pigments
The use of colour in Egyptian paintings was also regulated and used symbolically.
Egyptian artists used six colours in their paintings red, green, blue, yellow, white and
black. Red, being the colour of power, symbolized life and victory, as well as anger
and fire. Green symbolized new life, growth, and fertility, while blue symbolized
creation and rebirth, and yellow symbolized the eternal, such as the qualities of the
sun and gold. Yellow was the colour of Ra and of all the pharaohs, which is why the
sarcophagi and funeral masks were made of gold to symbolize the everlasting and
eternal pharaoh who was now a god. White was the colour of purity, symbolizing all
things sacred, and was typically used used in religious objects and tools used by the
priests. Black was the colour of death and represented the underworld and the night.

8. For details of the colour pigments used by painters in Ancient Egypt, see: Egyptian
Colour Palette.
Egyptian Arts And The Afterlife
Nearly all of Ancient Egypt's surviving paintings were discovered in tombs of the
pharaohs or high governmental officials, and portrays scenes of the afterlife. Known
as funerary art, these pictures depicted the narrative of life after death as well as
things like servants, boats and food to help the deceased in their trip through the
after life. These paintings would be executed on papyrus, on panels,
(using encaustic paint) or on walls in the form of frescomurals (using tempera). In
addition, models (eg. of boats, granaries, butcher shops, and kitchens) were
included in the tomb in order to guarantee the future well-being of the dead person.
As the spirit inhabited the body, the preservation of the latter against decay was also
critical. The use of tightly wrapped bandages to mummify the corpse, and the
removal and packaging of internal organs within ceramic canopic jars and other
opulent sarcophagi became widespread among the ruling elite. All these
arrangements helped to support a nationwide industry of Egyptian artists and
craftsmen who laboured to produce the artworks (paintings, scultures, pottery,
ceramics, jewellery and metalwork) required.
Egyptian sculpture was highly symbolic and for most of Egyptian history was not
intended to be naturalistic or realistic. Sculptures and statues were made from
clay, wood, metal, ivory, and stone - of which stone was the most permanent and
plentiful. Many Egyptian sculptures were painted in vivid colours.
NOTE: In addition to pyramid architecture, stone sculpture, goldsmithing and the
Fayum Mummy portraits, Egyptian craftsmen are also noted for their ancient pottery,
especially Egyptian faience, a non-clay-based ceramic art developed in Egypt from
1500 BCE, although it began in Mesopotamia. The oldest surviving faience workshop,
complete with advanced lined brick kilns, was found at Abydos in the mid-Nile area.
Egyptian faience is a non-clay based ceramic composed of powdered quartz or sand,
covered with a vitreous coating, often made with copper pigments to give a
transparent blue or blue-green sheen. See Pottery Timeline.
The Rule of King Amenhotep (Akhenaton) (13501320 BCE)
Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (husband of Queen Nefertiti) triggered a sort ofcultural
revolution in Egypt. Born into the cult of Amon (Amen), a line that worshipped a
wide range of gods, he changed his name to Akhenaton and, strengthened by his
control of the army, instituted the worship only of Aten, a sun god. The Egyptian
capital and royal court was moved to Amarna in Middle Egypt. All this led to a radical
break with tradition, especially in the arts, such as painting and sculpture. They
became more naturalistic and more dynamic than the static rule-bound art of
previous eras. In particular, the Amarna style of art was characterized by a sense of
movement and activity. Portraits of Egyptian nobles ceased to be idealized, and
some were even caricatured. The presence of Aten in many pictures was represented
by a golden disc shining down from above.
After the death of Akhenaton, the next Pharaoh - the child Tutankhaten - was
persuaded to move back to Memphis and change his name to Tutankhamen, thus

9. reverting to Amon. As a result, Egyptian painters and sculptors largely returned to
the old traditions which continued until the Hellenistic era from 323 BCE onwards.
NOTE: To compare earlier Middle Eastern works of Sumerian art (c.3,000 BCE),
please see the Ram in a Thicket (c.2500 BCE, British Museum, London),Kneeling Bull
with Vessel (3,000 BCE, Metropolitan Museum, New York) andThe Guennol
Lioness (3000 BCE, Private Collection). For contemporaneous sculpture, see for
instance the Human-headed Winged Bull and Lion (859 BCE) from Ashurnasirpal's
palace at Nimrud, and the alabaster reliefs of lion-hunts featuring Ashurnasirpal II
and Ashurbanipal, both characteristic examples ofAssyrian art (c.1500-612 BCE).
Hellenistic Era (c.323-27 BCE)
The influence of Greek Hellenistic art on Egyptian artists, a process accelerated
during the Ptolemaic Era, encouraged the naturalistic representation of individuals in
paintings and sculpture, not unlike the process initiated by Akhenaton. Portraits
became realistic and the rules of colour were relaxed. This trend was further
encouraged by the practical Roman style of art.
The most famous example of Hellenistic-Egyptian painting during the era ofclassical
antiquity, is the series of Fayum Mummy Portraits, discovered mainly around the
Faiyum basin, west of the Nile, near Cairo. A type of naturalistic portraiture, strongly
influenced by Greek art, notably Hellenistic Greek painting (323-27 BCE), Fayum
portraits were attached to the burial cloth of the deceased person. Preserved by the
exceptionally dry conditions, these paintings represent the largest single body of
original art which has survived from Antiquity.
Collections of Egyptian artworks can be seen in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo;
the British Museum, London; the Louvre Museum, Paris; the Agyptisches Museum,
Berlin; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.