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Art Appreciation – ART1204
Professor Will Adams

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v The first true civilization,
Sumer, was discovered in
Mesopotamia, which means
“land between the rivers.”
v The Fertile Crescent is an arc of
land stretching from the
Mediterranean Sea to the
Persian Gulf, spanned by the
Tigris & Euphrates Rivers, which
yielded rich soil and abundant
crops.
v The first Sumerian cities
emerged in southern
Mesopotamia around 3,200
B.C.

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v The Sumerians defined what constitutes a “civilization” today:
1. They built complex, advanced cities.
2. They employed specialized workers.
3. They designed complex social institutions, like centralized
government & religion.
4. They began the first system of record-keeping or writing
(cuneiform), which allowed history and literature to develop.
5. They developed advanced technologies like the wheel, sail, & plow.
6. They mastered agriculture, allowing them to create a surplus of
food, which led to trade.
7. Trade led to contact with outside cities and societies.
8. That ultimately led to cultural diffusion: the process of a new idea
or product spreading from one culture to another.

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v Food: By 5000 B.C.E.,
Mesopotamian resources were
running out, so people
moved to the plains &
established Sumerian city-
states.
v Protection: Sumerians built
city walls using mud bricks to
keep out enemies.
v To get natural resources,
Sumerians traded their grain,
cloth, and crafted tools for
the stone, wood, & metal
they needed.

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v Recognizable cities first
arose around 3,000 B.C.
v The first cities were Eridu,
Ur, & Uruk.
v Each city was surrounded
by barley and wheat fields.
v As cities grew, so did their
control of the surrounding
land.
v These large, city-governed
areas are called city-states.

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v Sumerian city-states were
surrounded by sun-dried
brick walls with gates.
v Within the walls were
inhabitants’ houses & large
government buildings (also
mud brick).
v Each city-state shared a
similar culture & history with
the others, but each had a
different government.
v There was no Sumerian
“nation”.

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v Sumerians believed that gods lived
on distant mountaintops & each god
had control of certain things.
v Each city was ruled by a different
god.
v The most revered Sumerian deities
were:
§ Enlil (supreme god & god of air)
§ Ishtar (goddess of fertility & life)
§ An (god of heaven)
§ Enki (god of water &
underworld)
§ Shamash (god of sun and giver
of law)

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v Ziggurats were built of many
layers of mud bricks in the
shape of a tiered pyramid.
v The mountain shape was
powerful because of the
rivers’ constant flooding &
the belief that the gods
resided on mountaintops.
v The cella (chapel) at the top
served as the god’s home &
was beautifully decorated.
v Inside was a room for
offerings of food & goods.
v One of the largest ziggurats
ever built was the Ziggurat
at Ur, built c. 2,100 B.C.E.

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v The Sumerians built towering
stepped platforms of mud bricks
called ziggurats, with a temple on
the summit.
v Usually only the foundations of
early Mesopotamian temples can
be recognized.
v The White Temple is a rare
exception.
v The White Temple at Uruk was
dedicated to Anu, the sky god.
v It has a central hall (cella) with a
stepped altar where the Sumerian
priests would await the
apparition of the deity.

12. v White Temple and
Ziggurat
v Uruk (Modern
Warka), Iraq
v ca. 3,200-3,000
B.C.E.
v Mud brick

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v The remains in the photograph were
once the base for Uruk’s White
Temple.
v Rising 40 feet above ground level,
the ziggurat would have lifted the
temple above the city’s fortification
wall, supposedly constructed on the
orders of Gilgamesh, the eponymous
protagonist of the epic tale and
legendary king of ancient Uruk
(reigned ca. 2700 BCE).
v The grandeur of monuments like this
one, as well as their ubiquity &
centrality, suggests the profound role
that religion played in the earliest
urban experiences.

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v Female Head (Possibly Inanna)
v From Uruk (Modern Warka),
Iraq
v ca. 3,200-3,000 B.C.E.
v Marble
v A marble & gold portrait
sculpture of Inanna, goddess of
the moon.
v The piece is a life-like head of a
woman carved from imported
white marble
v Originally, she had inlaid eyes
& eyebrows, & other
attachments such as a wig,
probably woven of gold leaf.

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v Warka Vase
v Uruk (Modern Warka) Iraq
v ca. 3,200-3,000 B.C.E.
v Alabaster
v In this oldest known
example of Sumerian
narrative art, the sculptor
divided the tall stone vase's
reliefs into registers, a
significant break with the
haphazard figure placement
found in earlier art.

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v The vase is divided into
3 registers, showing:
v Rows of plants & sheep
v Nude males carrying
baskets or jars
v A ceremonial scene, in
which the ruler of Uruk
delivers provisions to the
temple of Inanna, & a
woman (probably her
priestess)

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v Statuettes of Worhippers
v Eshnunna (Modern Tell
Asmar), Iraq
v ca. 2,700 B.C.E.
v Gypsum, shell, black limestone
v The Statuettes show standing
men & women of varying size
with large eyes & tiny hands
clasped in a gesture of prayer
or holding small beakers.
v The beakers were used to pour
libations in honor of the gods.

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v Standard of Ur
v Royal Cemetery Ur (Modern
Tell Muqayyar) Iraq
v ca. 2,600 B.C.E.
v Wood, shell, lapis lazuli, red
limestone
v The spoils of war as well as
farming & trade brought
considerable wealth to some of
the city-states of ancient Sumer.
v Using a mosaic-like technique,
this Sumerian artist depicted a
battlefield victory in three
registers.

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v The War side shows the defeat of
some unknown enemy.
v At the bottom, war carts, drawn by
donkeys race from left to right,
trampling naked enemy soldiers.
v The second register shows a phalanx
of armed soldiers on the left, while
on the right soldiers dispatch some
captives & lead others away.
v The top register shows the ruler, his
height exceeding the border of the
field, facing right.
v Behind him, his cart is drawn by
four donkeys alongside his
attendants.
v In front of him, soldiers parade nude
and bound prisoners.

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v The Standard’s Peace side has a
completely different theme from
the War side.
v Its two lower registers illustrate
the bounty of the land.
v The bottom one depicts men
carrying produce on their
shoulders & in backpacks
supported by headbands, as well
as men leading donkeys by
ropes.
v The second register shows men
leading bulls & goats & carrying
fish, presumably the produce of
the pastures, rivers, and swamps.

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v The upper register depicts a
royal banquet. The ruler,
wearing a wool kilt, is
shown larger in scale than
the others.
v The other banqueters, who
wear plain kilts, face him &
raise their cups together
while attendants provide
food & drink.
v Banqueting in
Mesopotamia usually
involved music.
v A lyre player & singer stand
to the right of the scene.

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v Bull-Headed Lyre
v Royal Cemetery Ur (modern Tell
Muqayyar)
v ca. 2,600 B.C.E.
v Wood, gold leaf, lapis lazuli
v The people buried at the Royal
Cemetery were members of the elite
classes, who held ritual or managerial
roles in the temples or palaces at Ur.
v Lyres or harps were found in several of
the royal tombs. Some of these lyres
held inlays of feasting scenes.
v One of the bodies buried in the Royal
Cemetery was draped over a lyre like
this one, the bones of her hands
placed on what would have been the
strings.

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v The panels on the front of
the lyre represent:
v A scorpion man and a
gazelle serving drinks
v An ass playing a bull lyre
v A bear possibly dancing
v A fox or jackal carrying a
sistrum and drum
v A dog carrying a table of
butchered meat
v A lion with a vase and
pouring vessel
v A man wearing a belt
handling a pair of human-
headed bulls.

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v They were conquered by the
Akkadians, a Semitic (Arabic)
people.
v In 2350 B.C.E., the Akkadians
swept into the Fertile
Crescent, led by Sargon the
Great (King Sargon I).
v They conquered & assimilated
the Sumerians, thus creating
the world’s first empire.
v An empire is a large political
unit or state under a single
leadership, that controls large
areas of conquered and native
territory.

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v Head of an Akkadian Ruler
(Sargon I?)
v Nineveh (Modern Kuyunjik)
Iraq
v ca. 2,250-2,200 B.C.E.
v Copper
v The piece is a life-size,
hollow-cast copper head
with inlaid eyes (now lost) &
a curly beard, which shows a
high level of skill in
Akkadian metalworking.

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v Victory Stele of Naram-Sin
v Susa, Iran
v ca. 2,254-2,218 B.C.E.
v Sandstone
v Naram-Sin was Sargon's grandson.
v The god-like Akkadian kings ruled
with absolute authority.
v Naram-Sin's title was "King of the
Four Quarters" meaning "Ruler of
the World."
v This stele, carved in relief,
commemorates the victory of the
king & his army in the wooded
Iranian mountains.

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v When Akkadian
domination ended,
Sumerian culture was
revived.
v The new Sumerian kings
built a huge stepped
ziggurats with long ramp-
like stairways at the royal
city of Ur.
v The Neo-Sumerian ruler
Gudea had numerous
statues carved in his
image.

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v Ziggurat
v Ur (modern Tell Muqayyar)
v Iraq
v ca. 2,100 B.C.E.
v Mud brick
v One of the largest & best-
preserved ziggurats is the
great Ziggurat at Ur.
v It has three ramp-like
stairways of a hundred steps
each that originally ended at a
gateway to a brick temple.

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v Then a single staircase led up to
a second terrace, which
supported a platform on which
a temple and the final & highest
terrace stood.
v The Ziggurat at Ur and the
temple on its top were built
around 2100 B.C.E. for the
moon goddess Inanna, patron
goddess of the city-state.
v The core of the ziggurat was
made of mud brick, covered
with baked bricks laid with
bitumen, a naturally occurring
tar.

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v Each of the baked bricks
measured about 11.5 x 11.5 x
2.75 inches & weighed as
much as 33 lbs.
v The lower portion of the
ziggurat, which supported
the first terrace, would have
used 720,000 baked bricks
alone.
v The resources needed to
build the Ziggurat at Ur are
staggering.

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v The most important part
of the Ziggurat at Ur was
the Inanna temple at its
top, but this does not
survive, although some
blue glazed bricks have
been found.
v The surviving lower parts
of the ziggurat include
amazing details of
engineering & design.

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v For instance, because the core
of the temple was unbaked
mud brick, which would,
according to season, be more
or less damp, the architects
included holes through the
baked exterior layer of the
temple that allowed water to
evaporate from its core.
v Additionally, drains were
built into the ziggurat’s
terraces to carry away the
winter rains.

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v Seated Statue of Gudea
(Holding Temple Plan)
v Girsu (Modern Telloh),
Iraq
v ca. 2,100 B.C.E.
v Diorite
v The most conspicuous,
preserved sculptural
monuments of the Neo-
Sumerian age portray the
ensi of Lagash, Gudea.

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v In 1792 B.C.E., the
Akkadian empire was
absorbed into a new
empire centralized in the
city of Babylon.
v The Babylonians were led
by their King Hammurabi.
v As leader of the newly-
minted Babylonian
Empire, Hammurabi
introduced a standardized
law code and promoted
the use of a single
language empire-wide.

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v Stele With Code of Hammurabi
v Susa, Iran
v ca. 1,780 B.C.E.
v Basalt
v A stone pillar features a relief
carving at the top & text
inscribed below.
v The stele that records
Hammurabi's remarkably early
law code also is one the of the
first examples of an artist
employing foreshortening – the
representation of a figure or
object at an outward angle.

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v Over five thousand
years ago, people living
in Mesopotamia
developed a form of
writing to record and
communicate different
types of information.
v The earliest writing was
based on pictograms.
v Pictograms were used
to communicate basic
information about
crops and taxes.

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v Over time, the need for
writing changed & the signs
developed into a script we
call cuneiform.
v Over thousands of years,
Mesopotamian scribes
recorded daily events,
trade, astronomy, &
literature on clay tablets.
v Cuneiform was used by
people throughout the
ancient Near East to write
several different languages.

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v Around 3100 BCE,
people began to
record amounts of
different crops.
v Barley was one of the
most important crops
in southern
Mesopotamia and
when it was first
drawn it looked like
this.

44. A reed stylus was the main writing tool used
by Mesopotamian scribes.

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v It is at this point that
the signs became what
we call cuneiform.
v The barley sign had to
be written using several
wedges.

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v The Sumerian writing
system during the early
periods was constantly in
flux.
v The original direction of
writing was from top to
bottom, but for reasons
unknown, it changed to
left-to-right very early on
(perhaps around 3000
BCE).
v This also affected the
orientation of the signs by
rotating all of them 90°
counterclockwise.

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v Knowledge of cuneiform was
lost until 1835 AD, when Henry
Rawlinson, an English army
officer, found some inscriptions
on a cliff at Behistun in Persia.
v Carved in the reign of King
Darius of Persia (522-486 BCE),
they consisted of identical texts
in three languages: Old Persian,
Babylonian & Elamite.
v After translating the Persian,
Rawlinson began to decipher the
others.
v By 1851 he could read 200
cuneiform signs.

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v Scribes were very important
people. They were trained to
write cuneiform and record many
of the languages spoken in
Mesopotamia.
v Without scribes, letters would not
have been written or read, royal
monuments would not have been
carved with cuneiform, and stories
would have been told and then
forgotten.
v Scribes wrote on different shaped
objects depending on the type of
information they wanted to
record.

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v Literacy was a highly valued
skill.
v Sumerians set up the first
institutions of formal
education that they called
edubbas.
v Education included writing
and mathematics
v Tuition was paid for
education.
v The educated were
privileged elite: government
officials, scribes, etc.

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v This is known today as
a curriculum tablet.
v It was used in
Mesopotamian schools
to teach pupils about
the different types of
texts written by scribes.

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v As a class, I will divide you into groups.
v Each group will be given a quotation from a
Classical philosopher, written in standardized
cuneiform.
v Using the key projected onto the screen, work
together as a group to translate your quotation.
v One person should act as the “scribe” for the
group, and write out the English version of the
quotation as the other two work to translate it.
v The group that finishes first wins a prize!

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