SumerianBabylonianAssyrianPersianEgyptianIraq, Iran, Egypt3500 BCE - 331 BCE

Enduring Understandings• Mostly takes place in Mesopotamian city-states• Foundations of Art History• Where almost everything began: writing, cities, organized

religion, government, laws, agriculture, bronze casting, wheel.• Populations emerged between Tigris & Euphrates rivers.• Layering of civilizations• Egyptian art is created around ideas concerning eternity,

afterlife and rebirth• Egyptian art is dominated by funerary objects.• Egyptian stylistic formulas are applied to gods and pharaohs,

showing others to be subordinate, lacking idealization• Egypt begins in the unification of country under King Narmer• “Old Kingdom” features massive monuments (pyramids) to the

dead.

Egyptian Understandings…• Menhotep II unified Egypt for a second time in a period called

“Middle Kingdom”

White Temple and its ziggurat 3500-3000 BCE

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Mud Brick Sumerian - Uruk, Iraq

Statues of votive figures, from the Square Temple at Eshunna

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C. 2700 BCE Gypsum inlaid with shell & black limestoneSumerian - Tell Asmar, Iraq

Standard of Ur 2600-2400BCE

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Wood inlaid with shell, laps lazuli, and limestoneSumerian

Stele of Hammurabi c. 1792-1750 BCE

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BasaltBabylonian

Lamassu c. 720-705 BCE

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AlabasterAssyrian

Persepolis c. 520-465 BCE

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LimestonePersian - Iran

Narmer Palette 3000-2920 BCE – Slate

Cairo

Seated Scribe c. 2620-2500 BCE

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Painted LimestoneEgypt

Great Pyramids 2550-2490 BCE - Limestone

Giza, Egypt

Great Sphinx

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c. 2500 BCE – LimestoneGiza, Egypt

Menkaura and His Queen

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2490-2472 BCE - Greywacke

Temple of Amun-Re & Hypostyle Hall1550-1250 BCE - Sandstone & Mudbrick

Luxor, Egypt

Plan of Temple of Amun-Re & Hypostyle Hall

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

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1473-1458 BCE – SandstoneLuxor, Egypt

Queen Hatshepsut with Offering Jars

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1473 – 1458 BCE - Red Granite

Akhenaton, Nefertiti and Three Daughters

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1353 – 1335 BCE - Limestone

Innermost Coffin of King Tutankhamun

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c. 1323 BCE - gold, enamel, semiprecious stonesCairo, Egypt

Last Judgement of Hu-Nefer c. 1275 – painted papyrus scroll