Introduction to Humanities

Prehistoric CulturePaleolithic (“Old Stone”) ca. 6 million to

10,000 b.c.e.Tribal hunters and gatherersCrude stone and bone tools and weapons Cave painting and sculpture

Mesolithic (“Transitional Stone”) ca. 10,000 to 8,000 b.c.e.Domestication of plants and animals

Neolithic (“New Stone”) ca. 8,000 to 4,000 b.c.e.Farming and food production Polished stone and bone tools and weaponsArchitecturePottery and weaving

“Prehistory” may be defined as that period prior to written records.

Cave Paintings of Lascaux

•Cave paintings Dated 15,000-10,000 B.C.E.• Hall of Bulls, France

Great Black Bull at Lascaux

Paleolithic wall-paintings provide a visual record of such long-extinct animals as the hairy mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros.

What were the purpose and function of these vivid images?

•The depiction of the animal, that is, its “capture” on the cave wall, may have been essential to the hunt itself.

The world’s oldest clay vessels appear to have come from Japan.

•The Jomon Period, Japan 14,000 to 400 B.C.E.hoto:

Venus of Willendorf, Austria 4 3/8 ”

•25,000-20,000 b.c.e.

•They may have played a role in the performance of rites celebrating seasonal regeneration or they may have been with fertility cults that ensured successful childbirth.

2,600-2,400 b.c.e

Cyclades (the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea)

Female Cycladic idol, from Amorgos, 2600-2400 B.C.E. Marble, 4' 10 1/2" high. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Female Cycladic idol

Stonehenge, England•Ca. 3000-1800 b.c.e•Trilithons (lintel-topped pairs of stones) tallest upright 22 ft.•25 tons each•Dragged from quarry some 20 miles away.

What was its purpse?

StonehengePossibly served as a celestial observatory

predicting the movements of the sun and moon, clocking the seasonal cycle, providing information that would have been essential to an agricultural society.

The Birth of CivilizationFrom Counting to Writing

More process than an invention, writing evolved from counting.

Hieroglphs, Queen Nefertari before the Divine Scribe Thoth, from the tomb of Nefertari, north wall, Valley of the Queens, Egypt, New Kingdom, Nineteenth Dynasty, 1290-1224 B.C.E.

The development of Sumerian writing from a pictographic script to cuneiform script to a phonetic system.

Adapted from Samuel Noah Kramer, "The Sumerians," © 1957 by Scientific American, Inc.

Metal began to replace stone and bone.

Ceremonial vessel with a cover, late Shang dynasty, China, ca. 1000 B.C.E. Bronze, height 20-1/16 in. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Metallurgy: The Bronze Age

Mesopotamia “Land Between the

Rivers” (Tigris and Euphrates river)

Sargon conquered the Sumerian city-states .

Head of an Akkadian ruler (Sargon l), from Nineveh, Iraq, c. 2350 B.C.E. Bronze, 12" high. Museum of Antiquities, Baghdad.

Ziggurat at Ur, Iraq,2150-2050 B.C.E.

•A ziggurat is a massive terraced tower made of rubble and brick which symbolized the sacred mountain linking the realms of heaven and earth .•Serving as both a shrine and a temple it formed the spiritual center of the city-state.

Statuettes from the Abu Temple, Tell Asmar, Iraq, ca. 2900-2600 B.C.E.

Found in a shrine room at the top of the ziggurat . Probably they are votive (devotional) figures that represent the townspeople of Tell Asmar in the act of worshipping their local deities.

In perpetual prayer

Epic of GilgameshMesopotamia produced the

world’s first literary epic.An epic is a long, narrative poem

that recounts the deeds of a hero, one who undertakes some great quest or mission.

Gilgamesh between two human-headed bulls (top portion). Soundbox of a harp, from Ur, Iraq, ca. 2600 B.C.E.

Babylon: Hammurabi’s Law Codeinscribed with the

law code of Hammurabi, Susa, capital of Elam (now in Iran), c. 1792-1750. Basalt, height of stele approx. 7', height of relief 28". Louvre, Paris.

Iron Technology

King Assurnasirpal ll hunting lions (Lion Hunt), from Nimrud, Iraq, c. 883-859 B.C.E. Alabaster relief, 3' 3" x 8' 4". British Museum, London.

Iron was introduced by the Hittites.Cheaper to produce and more durable then

bronze.

Scene from a Funerary Papyrus, Book of the Dead

A painted papyrus scroll brings to life the last judgment.

a set of Egyptian funerary prayers.

Egyptian pyramids function primarily as tombs.

The pyramids were built to assure the ruler’s comfort in the afterlife.

Pyramids at Giza, Egypt, c. 2500-2475 B.C.E.

King

Tut

ankh

amen

Ca. 1345-1325 B.C.E. the tomb housed riches of astonishing variety, including the pharaoh’s solid gold coffin, inlaid with semi-precious carnelian and lapis lazuli

Egyptian cover of the coffin of Tutankhamen (portion), from the Valley of the Kings, ca. 1360 B.C.E. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Canopic coffinette (coffin of Tutankhamon), c. 1327 B.C.E. Gold inlaid with enamel and semiprecious stones, 15 3/4" high. Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Presentation of Nubian tribute to Tutankhamon (restored), tomb chapel of Huy, Thebes, 18th Dynasty, c. 1336-1327 B.C.E. Wall painting, 6' x 17 1/4'.

King Tut’s pyramid

King Tutankhamen

Scene of Fowling, tomb of Neb-amon

Egyptian art mirrors the deep sense of order and regularity that dominated ancient Egyptian life.

Pharaoh Menkaure (Mycerinus) and his Queen Kha-merer-nebty IIca. 2599-1571 B.C.E.

•In this freestanding sculpture of the Old Kingdom pharaoh Mycerinus.

Egyptian Women

•Since all property was inherited through the female line, Egyptian women seem to have enjoyed a large degree of economic independence, as well as civil rights and privileges.

Hatshepsut, ca. 1500-1447 B.C.E.The most notable of all female pharaohs.She governed Egypt for 22 years.She is often pictured in male attire, wearing

the royal wig and false beard, and carrying the crook and flail- traditional symbols of rulership.

Akhenaten is associated with monotheism as a religious view.Defied the tradition

of polytheism by elevating Aten (God of the Sun Disk) to a positon of supremacy over all other gods.

(Akhenaten about 1351-1334 BCE. Abraham lived 1812 BCE to 1637 BCE)

Statue of Akhenaten, from Karnak, Egypt, Amarna Period, 1353-1350 B.C.E. Sandstone, approx. 13" high. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

•Akhenaten’s chief wife.•The mother of 6 daughters.

Ca.1355 B.C.E. New Kingdom 18th dynasty, painted limestone

Queen Nefertiti, Egyptian

Queen Nefertiti

These portrait like heads are the earliest known 3-dimentional artworks of sub-Saharan African.

Africa : Western Sudan

Head, Nok culture, ca. 500 B.C.E.-200 C.E. Terracotta, height 14-3/16 in. National Museum, Lagos/Bridgeman.

Colossal Heads, MexicoAround 1200 b.c.e., Meso-

America was the site of one of the largest and most advanced cultures: that of the Olmecs.

They were called “Olmecs” (“rubber people”) by the Aztecs, because of the trees that flourished in their region.

Probably to honor their rulers, the Olmecs carved colossal stone heads weighing some 20 tons .

Ancient India1500 B.C.E. -

Ayrans (light-skinned people) enslaved dark-skinned populations of Sind and established a set of societal divisions that anticipated the caste system. Bearded Man, Mohenjo Daro, Indus

Valley, c. 2000 B.C.E. Limestone, 7" high. National Museum, New Delhi. Scala/Art Resource, NY

Ancient ChinaChina’s royal

tombs were filled with treasures, most of which took the form of carved jade and worked bronze objects.

Standing figure, late Shang dynasty, ca. 1300-1100 B.C.E., from Pit 2 at Sanxingdui, Guanghan, Sichuan Province. Bronze, height 8 ft. 7 in.

Yin and the YangYin/Yang, “the foundation of the entire universe,” interprets all nature as the dynamic product of two interacting cosmic forces, or modes of energy.

Procession of female musicians with instruments, including a harp, double pipes, and a lyre, Tomb of Djeserkarasneb, Thebes, ca. 1580-1314 B.C.E.

Ramses III and Isis