HUMA113 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Cuneiform Script, Plautus, Eshnunna
HUMA113 Lecture Notes Tuesday 15th August 2017
Arts and Culture: Ancient Beginnings
- Arts go back to the dawn of time.
- Is very much a form of storytelling
- Ancient cave drawings are an early form of storytelling
- Ancient Greeks and Romans and the renaissance era
- Sculptures even tell stories
Painting
- So where does it all begin? Where do the arts begin to take form? The Ancient World
illuminates this for us.
- The Cave of Lascaux (lahs-Koh) in France discovered by school children in 1940 and
sealed in 1963 – replica now exists.
o Sealed because of vandalism
o Contains many prehistoric cave paintings
o Created by the Magdalenians
o Artefacts were the originals
- The cave was a sanctuary for performance of sacred rites and ceremonies – the most
famous part of the cave is the Hall of Bulls.
o Tells about their three most sacred animals of the time
▪ Horses
▪ Bulls
- Painted by capable artists equal to our own – over a successive of time – lit by stone
lamps of oil or animal fat.
The painted tomb of Thebes
- Provides most of our knowledge of Egyptian painting from the period of the New
Kingdom 1575 – 1000 BCE
- Funerary art – the rituals of death, pervasive force in Egyptian life
- Representation of gods and humour of life – workmen and peasants
Sculpture
- A major part of Egyptian art culture – overcame difficulties that considered lifelike
portrayal of human figures as dangerous, capable of capturing the soul – early
sculptures rough and simple relying on memory
- Sculpture of Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret – lifelike colours – paint as surface
for sculpture, quartz for eyes, eyelids black, skin tones lighted for female than man –
rose from peasant stock so well-muscled, strength, wisdom, vitality
- Less than a century later – the divine kingship of the pharaoh and his embodiment of
the sun god created the GREAT SPHINX. Head rises up to 20 meters. The height of a
six storey building
The reign of Akhenaton (1385-1358 BCE) – a beak in the continuity of artistic style:
- Stories begin to change
- Stiff poses replaced by more natural forms of representation.
- Intimate scenes of domestic life
- Not only with other gods but with his queen as they worship the disc of the sun
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- We then see a shift to represent individuals through their faces. Sculptures from Tell
el Amarna, although lifelike, transcends the merely natural and enters the spiritual
realm.
The Sumerians
- 4000 BC Ancient Sumerian culture emerged on a sun-scorched floodplain along the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now southern Iraq
- These enigmatic Mesopotamians are best known for inventing cuneiform script
o The orlds oldest etat ritig sste
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Arts go back to the dawn of time. Ancient cave drawings are an early form of storytelling. Ancient greeks and romans and the renaissance era. The cave was a sanctuary for performance of sacred rites and ceremonies the most famous part of the cave is the hall of bulls: tells about their three most sacred animals of the time, horses, bulls. Painted by capable artists equal to our own over a successive of time lit by stone lamps of oil or animal fat. Provides most of our knowledge of egyptian painting from the period of the new. Funerary art the rituals of death, pervasive force in egyptian life. Representation of gods and humour of life workmen and peasants. A major part of egyptian art culture overcame difficulties that considered lifelike portrayal of human figures as dangerous, capable of capturing the soul early sculptures rough and simple relying on memory.
