PREHISTORY & EARLY CIVILIZATIONS
This transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture fundamentally changed human settlement and contributed to the development of monumental architecture.
What is the Neolithic Revolution?
This writing system, developed in Mesopotamia, used wedge-shaped marks impressed into clay.
What is cuneiform?
This Egyptian deity is represented by rays ending in hands in the Amarna-period image of Akhenaten and his family.
What is the Aten?
This technique places most of a figure's weight on one leg, creating a natural shift in the hips and shoulders.
What is contrapposto?
A Roman politician might deliberately appear older and more wrinkled than he actually was in order to communicate these qualities.
What are experience, seriousness, traditional Roman virtues, and authority during the Roman Republic?
Because there is no written record from the creators of Chauvet's paintings, scholars must distinguish between what the paintings show and this type of explanation about what they may have meant.
What is interpretation?
In the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, this artistic device makes the Akkadian ruler appear more important than the defeated soldiers.
What is hierarchic scale?
The unusual poses and physical characteristics in Amarna-period royal art reflect changes in both artistic conventions and this aspect of Egyptian culture.
What is religion?
This Archaic Greek sculpture type typically depicts a nude young man, while its female counterpart is usually clothed.
What are the kouros and kore?
Roman architects were able to construct enormous vaulted interiors such as the Pantheon largely because of their sophisticated use of this material in combination with arches and vaults.
What is concrete?
This small Paleolithic sculpture is frequently associated with fertility because of its emphasis on reproductive features, although its original function cannot be established with certainty.
What is the Venus of Willendorf?
The monumental White Temple and Ziggurat at Uruk communicated religious authority while also demonstrating the ability of rulers and elites to organize this.
What is labor and resources?
These marble sculptures are associated with the Cycladic cultures of the Aegean and are often characterized by simplified human forms.
What are Cycladic figurines?
Compared with Classical sculpture, Hellenistic sculpture is particularly associated with these two qualities.
What are dramatic movement and intense emotional expression?
Augustus used idealized portraits, religious imagery, family imagery, and references to peace to present his rule as this.
What is legitimate, beneficial, and restoring Roman prosperity/order?
The enormous scale of Stonehenge provides evidence that Neolithic communities could organize this, even though we cannot establish its precise original purpose with certainty.
What is large-scale labor, resources, and social organization?
Egyptian royal statues were often rigid and frontal not because Egyptian artists lacked technical ability, but because frontality allowed the figure to perform this important religious function.
What is face ritual activity and serve as a permanent dwelling place for the deceased person's ka?
The discovery of Minoan pottery outside Crete and Mycenaean pottery throughout the Mediterranean provides evidence for this.
What is trade and cultural interaction?
This architectural order is characterized by sturdy columns and relatively simple capitals.
What is the Doric order?
This Andean site functioned as a major religious and monumental center and demonstrates connections between communities living in different ecological zones.
What is Chavín de Huántar?
A student argues that Paleolithic cave paintings must have been hunting records because many animals are represented. The strongest criticism of this argument is that this.
What is the presence of animals alone does not establish the paintings' original function or meaning?
Narmer's appearance with the White Crown on one side of the palette and the Red Crown on the other visually communicates this major political development.
What is the unification/control of Upper and Lower Egypt?
If an archaeologist discovers deliberately broken figurines buried together at a religious site, the context would most reasonably encourage the interpretation that the objects may have had this type of significance.
What is ritual or religious significance?
Unlike black-figure pottery, this Greek vase-painting technique allowed artists to paint internal anatomical details with a brush.
What is red-figure?
The enormous Olmec colossal heads were carved from basalt that had to be transported significant distances. This demonstrates not merely artistic skill, but evidence of this kind of social organization.
What is organized labor, resource acquisition, transportation, and social hierarchy?