World Culture and the Arts

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100 miles

100 km

4 miles

4 km

Bayol

Niaux Réseau Clastres

Fontanet

Chauvet

Vacheresse

Ebbou Le Colombier

Tête-du-Lion Les deux-Ouvertures

Chabot Le FiguierOulen

Le Portel

Gargas

Altamira Les Trois Freres`

Jovelle

Gabillou

Rouffignac Lascaux

La Mouthe Pech Merle Cougnac

La Baume-Latrone

Cosquer

Ardeche `

Marseilles

Lyons

Toulouse

Major Paleolithic caves in France and Spain

Cahors

Bordeaux Isle

FRANCE

SPAIN

ARDECHE REGION

ARDECHE REGION`

ATLANTIC

OCEAN R

h ôn

Garonne

Dordogne

Lot

Map 1.1 Major Paleolithic Caves in France and Spain.

Listen to the chapter audio on myartslab.com

THINKING AHEAD

What features characterize the beginnings of human cultures?

What is the role of myth in prehistoric culture?

What characteristics distinguish the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, and how do they differ from that of the Hebrews?

What accounts for the stability of Egyptian culture?

On a cold December afternoon in 1994, Jean-Marie Chauvet [show-VAY] and two friends were exploring the caves in the steep cliffs along the Ardèche [are- DESH] River gorge in southern France. After descending into a series of narrow passages, they entered a large chamber. There, beams from their headlamps lit up a group of drawings that would astonish the three explorers—and the world (Fig. 1.1).

Since the late nineteenth century, we have known that prehistoric peoples, peoples who lived before the time of writing and so of recorded history, drew on the walls of caves. Twenty-seven such caves had already been discovered in the cliffs along the 17 miles of the Ardèche gorge (Map 1.1). But the cave found by Chauvet [shoh-veh] and his friends transformed our thinking about prehistoric peoples. Where previously discovered cave paintings had appeared to modern eyes as childlike, this cave contained drawings comparable to those a contemporary artist might have done. We can only speculate that other comparable artworks were produced in prehistoric times but have not survived, perhaps because they were made of wood or other perishable materials. It is even possible that art may have been made earlier than 30,000 years ago, perhaps as people began to inhabit the Near East, between 90,000 and 100,000 years ago.

At first, during the Paleolithic [PAY-lee-uh-LITH-ik] era, or “Old Stone Age,” from the Greek palaios, “old,” and lithos,

“stone,” the cultures of of the world sustained themselves on game and wild plants. The cultures themselves were small, scattered, and nomadic, though evidence suggests some in- teraction among the various groups. As the ice covering the Northern Hemisphere began to recede around 10,000 bce, agri culture began to replace hunting and gathering, and with it, a nomadic lifestyle gave way to a more sedentary way of life.

The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations

The River Cultures of the Ancient World

Fig. 1.1 Wall painting with horses, Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, Ardèche gorge, France. ca. 30,000 BCE. Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. Direction Regionale des Affaires Culturelles de Rhone-Alpes. Service Regional de l’Archeologie. Paint on limestone, approx. height 6’. In the center of this wall are four horses, each behind the other in a startlingly realistic space. Below them, two rhinoceroses fight.

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00 01

02 71

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2 CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations

to create objects, the stone and bone tools and weapons of the prehistoric world were replaced by metal ones, inaugurat- ing the era archeologists have named the Bronze Age.

THE BEGINNINGS OF CULTURE A culture encompasses the values and behaviors shared by a group of people, developed over time, and passed down from one generation to the next. Culture manifests itself in the laws, customs, ritual behavior, and artistic production com- mon to the group. The cave paintings at Chauvet suggest that, as early as 30,000 years ago, the Ardèche gorge was a center of culture, a focal point of group living in which the values of a community find expression. There were others like it: In northern Spain, the first decorated cave was dis- covered in 1879 at Altamira [al-tuh-MIR-uh]. In the Dor- dogne [dor-DOHN] region of southern France, to the west of the Ardèche, schoolchildren discovered the famous Las- caux Cave in 1940 when their dog disappeared down a hole. And in 1991, along the French Mediterranean coast, a diver discovered the entrance to the beautifully decorated Cos- quer [kos-KAIR] Cave below the waterline near Marseille [mar-SAY].

Agency and Ritual: Cave Art Ever since cave paintings were first discovered, scholars have been marveling at the skill of the people who produced them, but we have been equally fascinated by their very existence.

The consequences of this shift were enormous, and ushered in the Neolithic [nee-uh-LITH-ik] era, or “New Stone Age.”

In the great river valleys of the Middle East and Asia (Map 1.2), distinct centers of people involved in a common pursuit began to form more and more sophisticated civiliza- tions. (The rise of these civilizations in India and China is discussed in Chapter 3.) A civilization is a social, economic, and political entity distinguished by the ability to express itself through images and written language. Civilizations develop when the environment of a region can support a large and productive population. An increasing population requires increased production of food and other goods, not only to support itself, but to trade for other commodities. Or- ganizing this level of trade and production also requires an administrative elite to form and to establish priorities. The existence of such an elite is another characteristic of civi- lization. Finally, as the history of cultures around the world makes abundantly clear, one of the major ways that societies have acquired the goods they want and simultaneously orga- nized themselves is by means of war.

We begin this book, then, with the first inklings of civi- lized cultures in prehistoric times, evidence of which survives in wall paintings in caves and small sculptures dating back more than 25,000 years. Before the invention of writing, sometime after 10,000 bce, these cultures created myths and legends that explained their origins and relation to the world. Then, beginning about 4000 bce, across the ancient world, the science of metallurgy developed. As people learned to separate metals from their ores and then work or treat them

1,000 km

1,000 miles

YELLOW RIVER (Shang)

INDUS-GANGES (Harappan and

Vedic civilizations)

TIGRIS-EUPHRATES (Ancient Mesopotamia

and Babylonia)

NILE (Ancient Egypt)

River Valley Civilizations

Jericho Susa Jiangzhai

GANSU

Ain Ghazal

CHINA

AFGHANISTAN

PACIFIC

OCEAN Arabian

Sea

Lake Balkhash

Lake Baikal

Black Sea

Aral Sea

Bay

Bengal

South

China

Sea

East

China

Sea

Brahamaputra

In du

Ganges

Yel

lo w

N ile

Persian Gulf

R e

d S

e a

C aspian Sea

Su tle

Euphrates

Tigris

Ya ng

tze

Danube

Mediterranean Sea

Map 1.2 The Great River Valley Civilizations, ca. 2000 BCE. Agriculture thrived in the great river valleys throughout the Neolithic era, but by the end of the period, urban life had developed there as well, and civilization as we know it had emerged.

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 3

and practiced a kind of perspectival drawing—that is, they were able to convey a sense of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. In the painting reproduced on the opening page of this chapter, several horses appear to stand one behind the other (see Fig. 1.1). The head of the top horse overlaps a black line, as if peering over a branch or the back of another animal. In no other cave yet discovered do drawings show the use of shading, or modeling, so that the horses’ heads seem to have volume and dimension. And yet these cave paintings, rendered over 30,000 years ago, predate other cave paintings by at least 10,000 years, and in some cases by as much as 20,000 years.

One of the few cave paintings that depict a human figure is found at Lascaux, in the Dordogne region of southwest- ern France. What appears to be a male wearing a bird’s-head mask lies in front of a disemboweled bison (Fig. 1.2). Below him is a bird-headed spear thrower, a device that enabled hunters to throw a spear farther and with greater force. (Several examples of spear throwers have survived.) In the Lascaux painting, the hunter’s spear has pierced the bison’s hindquarters, and a rhinoceros charges off to the left. We have no way of knowing whether this was an actual event or an imagined scene. One of the painting’s most interest- ing and inexplicable features is the discrepancy between the relatively naturalistic representation of the animals and the highly stylized, almost abstract realization of the human fig- ure. Was the sticklike man added later by a different, less tal- ented artist? Or does this image suggest that man and beast are different orders of being?

Before the discovery of Chauvet, historians divided the history of cave painting into a series of successive styles, each progressively more realistic. But Chauvet’s paintings, by far the oldest known, are also the most advanced in their realism, suggesting the artist’s conscious quest for visual naturalism, that is, for representations that imitate the ac- tual appearance of the animals. Not only were both red and black animals outlined, but their shapes were also modeled by spreading paint, either with the hand or a tool, in grad- ual gradations of color. Such modeling is extremely rare or unknown elsewhere. In addition, the artists further defined many of the animals’ contours by scraping the wall behind

Why were these paintings made? Most scholars believe that they possessed some sort of agency—that is, they were cre- ated to exert some power or authority over the world of those who came into contact with them. Until recently, it was generally accepted that such works were associated with the hunt. Perhaps the hunter, seeking game in times of scar- city, hoped to conjure it up by depicting it on cave walls. Or perhaps such drawings were magic charms meant to ensure a successful hunt. But at Chauvet, fully 60 percent of the ani- mals painted on its walls were never, or rarely, hunted—such animals as lions, rhinoceroses, bears, panthers, and woolly mammoths. One drawing depicts two rhinoceroses fighting horn to horn beneath four horses that appear to be looking on (see Fig. 1.1).

What role, then, did these drawings play in the daily lives of the people who created them? The caves may have served as some sort of ritual space. A ritual is a rite or ceremony habitually practiced by a group, often in a religious or quasi- religious context. The caves, for instance, might be under- stood as gateways to the underworld and death, as symbols of the womb and birth, or as pathways to the world of dreams experienced in the dark of night, and rites connected with such passage might have been conducted in them. The gen- eral arrangement of the animals in the paintings by species or gender, often in distinct chambers of the caves, suggests to some that the paintings may have served as lunar calendars for predicting the seasonal migration of the animals. What- ever the case, surviving human footprints indicate that these caves were ritual gathering places and in some way served the common good.

At Chauvet, the use of color suggests that the paintings served some sacred or symbolic function. For instance, al- most all of the paintings near the entrance to the cave are painted with natural red pigments derived from ores rich in iron oxide. Deeper in the cave, in areas more difficult to reach, the vast majority of the animals are painted in black pigments derived from ores rich in manganese dioxide. This shift in color appears to be intentional, but we can only guess its meaning.

The skillfully drawn images at Chauvet raise even more important questions. The artists seem to have understood

Fig. 1.2 Wall painting with bird- headed man, bison, and rhinoceros, Lascaux Cave, Dordogne, France. ca. 15,000–13,000 BCE. Paint on limestone, length approx. 9’ In 1963 Lascaux was closed to the public so that conservators could fight a fungus attacking the paintings. Most likely, the fungus was caused by carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors. An exact replica called Lascaux II was built and can be visited.

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used tools as a matter of course. They buried their dead in ritual ceremonies, often laying them to rest accompanied by stone tools and weapons.

The Paleolithic era is the period of Homo sapiens’s ascen- dancy. These Upper Paleolithic people carved stone tools and weapons that helped them survive in an inhospitable climate. They carved small sculptural objects as well, which, along with the cave paintings we have already seen, appear to be the first instances of what we have come to call “art”. Among the most remarkable of these sculptural artifacts are a large number of female figures, found at various archeological sites across Europe. The most famous of these is the limestone statuette of a woman found at Willendorf [VIL-un-dorf ], in modern Austria (Fig. 1.3), dating from about 24,000–21,000 bce and often called the Willendorf Venus. Markings on the Woman and other similar figures indicate that they were originally colored, but what these small sculptures meant and what they were used for remains unclear. Most are 4 to 5 inches high and fit neatly into a person’s hand. This sug- gests that they may have had a ritual purpose. Their exagger- ated breasts and bellies and their clearly delineated genitals support a connection to fertility and childbearing. We know, too, that the Woman from Willendorf was originally painted in red ochre, suggestive of menses. And, her navel is not

so that the beasts seem to stand out against a deeper white ground. Three handprints in the cave were evidently made by spitting paint at a hand placed on the cave wall, resulting in a stenciled image.

Art, the Chauvet drawings suggest, does not necessarily evolve in a linear progression from awkward beginnings to more sophisticated representations. On the contrary, already in the earliest artworks, people obtained a very high degree of sophistication. Apparently, even from the earliest times, human beings could choose to represent the world natural- istically or not, and the choice not to represent the world in naturalistic terms should not necessarily be attributed to lack of skill or sophistication but to other, more culturally driven factors.

Paleolithic Culture and Its Artifacts Footprints discovered in South Africa in 2000 and fossilized remains uncovered in the forest of Ethiopia in 2001 suggest that, about 5.7 million years ago, the earliest upright hu- mans, or hominins (as distinct from the larger classification of hominids, which includes great apes and chimpanzees as well as humans), roamed the continent of Africa. Ethiopian excavations further indicate that sometime around 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, hominid populations began to make rudi- mentary stone tools, though long before, between 14 million and 19 million years ago, the Kenyapithecus [ken-yuh-PITH- i-kus] (“Kenyan ape”), a hominin, made stone tools in east central Africa. Nevertheless, the earliest evidence of a cul- ture coming into being are the stone artifacts of Homo sapiens [ho-moh SAY-pee-uhnz] (Latin for “one who knows”). Homo sapiens evolved about 100,000–120,000 years ago and can be distinguished from earlier hominids by the lighter build of their skeletal structure and larger brain. A 2009 study of genetic diversity among Africans found the San people of Zimbabwe to be the most diverse, suggesting that they are the most likely origin of modern humans from which others gradually spread out of Africa, across Asia, into Europe, and finally to Australia and the Americas.

Homo sapiens were hunter-gatherers, whose survival de- pended on the animals they could kill and the foods they could gather, primarily nuts, berries, roots, and other edible plants. The tools they developed were far more sophisti- cated than those of their ancestors. They included cleav- ers, chisels, grinders, hand axes, and arrow- and spearheads made of flint, a material that also provided the spark to cre- ate an equally important tool—fire. In 2004, Israeli arche- ologists working at a site on the banks of the Jordan River reported the earliest evidence yet found of controlled fire created by hominids—cracked and blackened flint chips, presumably used to light a fire, and bits of charcoal dat- ing from 790,000 years ago. Also at the campsite were the bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, and small species, demonstrating that these early hominids cut their meat with flint tools and ate steaks and marrow. Homo sapiens cooked with fire, wore animal skins as clothing, and

Fig. 1.3 Woman (Venus of Willendorf), found at Willendorf, Austria. ca. 24,000–21,000 BCE. Limestone, height 4”. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna. For many years, modern scholars called this small statue the Venus of Willendorf. They assumed that its carvers attributed to it an ideal of female beauty comparable to the Roman ideal of beauty implied by the name Venus.

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hides, the Paleolithic peoples of the region built houses that ranged from 13 to 26 feet in diameter, with the largest measuring 24 by 33 feet. The total of bones incorporated in the structure belonged to approximately 95 different mam- moths. Here we see one of the earliest examples of archi- tecture—the construction of living space with at least some artistic intent. The remains of these structures suggest that those who built them gathered together in a village of like dwellings, the fact that most underscores their common culture. They must have shared resources, cooperated in daily tasks, intermarried, and raised their children by teach- ing them the techniques necessary for survival in the harsh climate of the Ukraine.

The Rise of Agriculture For 2,000 years, from 10,000 to 8000 bce, the ice covering the Northern Hemisphere receded farther and farther northward. As temperatures warmed, life gradually changed. During this period of transition, areas once covered by vast regions of ice and snow developed into grassy plains and abundant forests. Hunters developed the bow and arrow, which were easier to use at longer range on the open plains. They fashioned dugout boats out of logs to facilitate fishing, which became a major food source. They domesticated dogs to help with the hunt as early as 11,000 bce, and soon other animals as well— goats and cattle particularly. Perhaps most important, people began to cultivate the more edible grasses. Along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, they harvested wheat; in Asia,

carved; rather, it is a natural indentation in the stone. Who- ever carved her seems to have recognized, in the raw stone, a connection to the origins of life. But such figures may have served other purposes as well. Perhaps they were dolls, guard- ian figures, or images of beauty in a cold, hostile world where having body fat might have made the difference between sur- vival and death.

Female figurines vastly outnumber representations of males in the Paleolithic era, which suggests that women played a central role in Paleolithic culture. Most likely, they had considerable religious and spiritual influence, and their preponderance in the imagery of the era suggests that Paleo- lithic culture may have been matrilineal (in which descent is determined through the female line) and matrilocal (in which residence is in the female’s tribe or household). Such tradi- tions exist in many primal societies today.

The peoples of the Upper Paleolithic period followed herds northward in summer, though temperatures during the Ice Age rarely exceeded 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees centigrade). Then, as winter approached, they re- treated southward into the cave regions of northern Spain and southern France. But caves were not their only shelter. At about the same latitude as the Ardèche gorge but east- ward, in present-day Ukraine, north of the Black Sea, ar- cheologists have discovered a village with houses built from mammoth bone, dating from 16,000 to 10,000 bce (Fig. 1.4). Using long curving tusks as roof supports, construct- ing walls with pelvis bones, shoulder blades, jawbones, tusks, and skulls, and probably covering the structure with

Fig. 1.4 Reconstruction of a mammoth- bone house, Mezhirich, Ukraine. ca. 16,000–10,000 BCE. Kiev Museum of Paleontology, Mezhirich, Ukraine. Mammoth jawbones are inserted upside down into one another to form the base of the house. About three dozen huge, curving mammoth tusks were used as arching supports for the roof.

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decorative circular form. Hounds race around the band above the ibex, and wading birds form a decorative band across the beaker’s top.

In Europe, the production of pottery apparently devel- oped some time later, around 3000 bce. By this time, the pot- ter’s wheel was in use in the Middle East as well as China. A machine created expressly to produce goods, the potter’s wheel represents the first mechanical and technological

breakthrough in history. As skilled indi- viduals specialized in making and deco- rating pottery, and traded their wares for other goods and services, the first el- emental forms of manufacturing began to emerge.

Neolithic Ceramic Figures It is a simple step from forming clay pots and firing them to modeling clay sculptural figures and submitting them to the same firing process. Examples of clay modeling can be found in some of the earliest Paleolithic cave sites where, at Altamira, for instance, in Spain, an artist added clay to an existing rock outcropping in order to underscore the rock’s natural resemblance to an animal form. At Le Tuc d’Audoubert, south of Lascaux, an artist shaped two, 2-foot-long clay bison as if they were leaning against a rock ridge.

But these Paleolithic sculptures were never fired. One of the most interesting ex- amples of Neolithic fired clay figurines were the work of the so-called Nok peoples who lived in modern Nigeria. We do not know

what they called them- selves—they are identified instead by the name of the place where their artifacts were discovered. In fact, we know almost nothing about

the Nok. We do not know how their culture was organized, what their lives were like, or what they believed. But while most Neolithic peoples in Africa worked in materials that were not permanent, the Nok fired clay figures of animals and humans that were approximately life-size.

These figures were first unearthed early in the twen- tieth century by miners over an area of about 100 square kilometers. Carbon-14 and other forms of dating revealed that some of these objects had been made as early as 800 bce and others as late as 600 ce. Little more than the hol- low heads have survived intact, revealing an artistry based on abstract geometrical shapes (Fig. 1.6). In some cases, the heads are represented as ovals, and in other as cones, cylinders, or spheres. Facial features are combinations of ovals, triangles, graceful arches, and straight lines. These

they cultivated millet and rice; and in the Americas, they grew squash, beans, and corn. Gradually, farming replaced hunting as the primary means of sustaining life. A culture of the fields developed—an agriculture, from the Latin ager, “farm,” “field,” or “productive land.”

The rise of agricultural society defines the Neolithic era. Beginning in about 8000 bce, Neolithic culture concentrated in the great river valleys of the Middle East and Asia: and gradually, as the cli- mate warmed, Neolithic culture spread across Europe. By about 5000 bce, the valleys of Spain and south- ern France supported agriculture, but not until about 4000 bce is there evidence of farming in the northern reaches of the European continent and England. The Neolithic era does not end in these colder climates until about 2000 bce.

Meanwhile, the great rivers of the Middle East and Asia provided a consistent and predictable source of water, and people soon developed irrigation techniques that fostered organized agriculture and animal hus- bandry. As production outgrew neces- sity, members of the community were freed to occupy themselves in other endeavors—complex food preparation (bread, cheese, and so on), construction, religion, even military affairs. Soon, per- manent villages began to appear, and vil- lages began to look more and more like cities.

Neolithic Pottery Across Cultures The transition from cultures based on hunting and fishing to cultures based on agriculture led to the increased use of pottery vessels. Ceramic vessels are frag- ile, so hunter-gatherers would not have found them practical for carrying food, but people living in the more permanent Neo- lithic settlements could have used them to carry and store water, and to prepare and store certain types of food.

Some of the most remarkable Neolithic painted pottery comes from Susa [soo-suh], on the Iranian plateau. The pat- terns on one particular beaker (Fig. 1.5) from around 5000 to 4000 bce are highly stylized animals. The largest of these is an ibex, a popular decorative feature of prehistoric ceram- ics from Iran. Associated with the hunt, the ibex may have been a symbol of plenty. The front and hind legs of the ibex are rendered by two triangles, the tail hangs behind it like a feather, the head is oddly disconnected from the body, and the horns rise in a large, exaggerated arc to encircle a

Fig. 1.5 Beaker with ibex, dogs, and long-necked birds, from Susa, southwest Iran. ca. 5000–4000 BCE. Baked clay with painted decoration, height 11¼“. Musée du Louvre, Paris. The ibex was the most widely hunted game in the ancient Middle East, which probably accounts for its centrality in this design.

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[MEG-uh-liths], or “big stones,” these works were constructed without the use of mortar and represent the most basic form of architectural construction. Some- times, they consisted merely of posts—upright stones stuck into the ground—called menhirs [MEN-hir], from the Celtic words men, “stone,” and hir, “long.” Scholars disagree about their significance: some speculate that the stones may have marked out a ritual procession route, while others think they symbolized the body and the pro- cess of growth and maturation. But there can be no doubt that megaliths were designed to be permanent structures, where domestic architecture was not. Quite possibly the megaliths stood in tribute to the strength of the leaders re- sponsible for assembling and maintaining the considerable labor force required to construct them.

Perhaps the most famous type of megalithic structure is the cromlech [krahm-lek], from the Celtic crom, “circle,” and lech, “place.” Without doubt, the most famous megalithic

heads were probably shaped with wet clay and then, after firing, finished by carving details into the hardened clay. Some scholars have argued that the technical and artis- tic sophistication of works by the Nok and other roughly contemporaneous groups suggests that it is likely there are older artistic traditions in West Africa that have not as yet been discovered. Certainly, farther to the east, in the sub- Saharan regions of the Sudan, Egyptian culture had ex- erted considerable influence for centuries, and it may well be that Egyptian technological sophistication had worked its way westward.

The Neolithic Megaliths of Northern Europe A distinctive kind of monumental stone architecture appears late in the Neolithic period, particularly in what is now Britain and France. Known as megaliths

Fig. 1.6 Head, Nok. ca. 500 BCE– 200 CE. Terra cotta, height 143/16“ This slightly larger than life-size head was probably part of a complete body, and shows the Nok people’s interest in abstract geometrical representations of facial features and head shape. Holes in the eyes and nose were probably used to control temperature during firing.

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The site at Stonehenge reflects four major building pe- riods, extending from about 2750 to 1500 bce. By about 2100 bce, most of the elements visible today were in place. In the middle was a U-shaped arrangement of five groups of two-posts, each topped by a capstone—what we today call post-and-lintel construction. The one at the bottom of the U stands taller than the rest, rising to a height of 24 feet, with a 15-foot lintel three feet thick. A continuous circle of sandstone posts, each weighing up to 50 tons and all standing 20 feet high, surrounded the five trilithons. Across their top was a continuous lintel 106 feet in diameter. This is the Sarsen Circle. Just inside the Sarsen Circle was once another circle, made of bluestone—a bluish dolerite—found only in the mountains of southern Wales, some 120 miles away.

Why Stonehenge was constructed remains something of a a mystery, although a recent discovery at nearby Durrington Wells has shed new light on the problem. Durrington Wells lies about two miles northeast of Stonehenge itself (see Map 1.3). It consists of a circular ditch surrounding a ring of postholes out of which very large timber posts would have risen. The circle was the center of a village consisting of as many as 300 houses. The site is comparable in scale to Stone- henge itself. These discoveries—together with the ability to carbon-date human remains found at Stonehenge with in- creased accuracy—suggest that Stonehenge was itself a burial ground. Archeologist Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield speculates that villagers would have transported their dead down an avenue leading to the River Avon, then journeyed downstream in a ritual symbolizing the passage to the afterlife, finally arriving at an avenue leading up to Stonehenge from the river. “Stonehenge wasn’t set in isola- tion,” Parker Pearson says, “but was actually one-half of this

Fig. 1.7 Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England, ca. 2750–1500 BCE. Like most Neolithic sites, Stonehenge invites speculation about its significance. Of this, however, we are certain: At the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the sun rises directly over the Heel Stone. This suggests that the site was intimately connected to the movement of the sun.

SCOTLAND

UNITED KINGDOM

DOMAIN OF THE LIVING

DOMAIN OF THE ANCESTORS

IRELAND

Stonehenge

Stonehenge Avenue

Newly discovered avenue

Durrington Walls

ENGLAND WALES

NORTHERN IRELAND

SCOTLAND

London

Woodhenge Stonehenge

Cursus

(prehistoric b oundary)

Journey from life to death

Ri ve

r Av

Rive r Av

0 ml 1

0 km 1

S A L I S

B U R Y P

L A I N

Map 1.3 Durrington Wells in Relation to Stonehenge. Courtesy of the National Geographic.

View the Closer Look for Stonehenge on myartslab.com

structure in the world is the cromlech known as Stonehenge (Fig. 1.7), on Salisbury Plain, about 100 miles west of mod- ern London. A henge is a special type of cromlech, a circle surrounded by a ditch with built-up embankments, presum- ably for fortification.

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systems can be traced back for thousands of years. As a result, the meaning of their rock art that survives in open-air caves below the overhanging stone cliffs atop the hills of what is now Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe (Fig. 1.8), some of which dates back as far as 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, is not entirely lost. A giraffe stands above a group of smaller giraffes crossing a series of large, white, lozenge-shaped forms with brown rectangular centers, many of them overlapping one another. To the right, six humanlike figures are joined hand in hand, probably in a trance dance. For the San people, pro- longed dancing, activates num, a concept of personal energy or potency that the entire community can acquire. Led by a shaman, a person thought to have special ability to commu- nicate with the spirit world, the dance encourages the num to heat up until it boils over and rises up through the spine to explode, causing the dancers to enter into a trance. Sweat- ing and trembling, the dancers variously convulse or become rigid. They might run, jump, or fall. The San believe that in many instances, the dancer’s spirit leaves the body, travel- ing far away, where it might enter into battle with supernatu- ral forces. At any event, the trance imbues the dancer with almost supernatural agency. The dancers’ num is capable of curing illnesses, managing game, or controlling the weather.

Myth in the Native American Cultures of the Southwest The Pueblo [PWEB-loh] peoples of the American South- west trace their ancestry back to the Anasazi [ah-nuh-SAH- zee], who lived in the region from about 900 to 1300 ce, a time roughly contemporaneous with the late Middle Ages in Europe. They have maintained the active practice of their

monumental complex. We are looking at a pairing—one in timber to represent the transcience of life, the other in stone marking the eternity of the ancestral dead.”

THE ROLE OF MYTH IN PREHISTORIC CULTURAL LIFE Much of our understanding of prehistoric cultures comes from stories that have survived in cultures around the world that developed without writing—that is, oral cultures—such as the San cultures of Zimbabwe and the Oceanic peoples of Ta- hiti in the South Pacific. These cultures have passed down their myths and histories over the centuries, from generation to generation, by word of mouth. Although, chronologically speaking, many of these cultures are contemporaneous with the medieval, Renaissance, and even modern cultures of the West, they are actually closer to the Neolithic cultures in terms of social practice and organization, and especially in terms of myths and the rituals associated with them, they can help us to understand the outlook of actual Neolithic peoples.

A myth is a story that a culture assumes is true. It also em- bodies the culture’s views and beliefs about its world, often serving to explain otherwise mysterious natural phenomena. Myths stand apart from scientific explanations of the nature of reality, but as a mode of understanding and explanation, myth has been one of the most important forces driving the development of culture. Although myths are speculative, they are not pure fantasy. They are grounded in observed experi- ence. They serve to rationalize the unknown and to explain to people the nature of the universe and their place within it.

Both nineteenth-century and more recent anthropo- logical work among the San people suggests that their belief

Fig. 1.8 Wall painting with giraffes, zebra, eland, and abstract shapes, San people, Inanke, Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe. Before 1000 CE. Photo: Christopher and Sally Gable © Dorling Kindersley. The animals across the bottom are elands, the largest species of antelope, resembling cattle.

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Like other Neolithic cultures, the Anasazi were accomplished in pottery making, decorating their creations with elaborately abstract, largely geometric shapes and patterns.

The Anasazi abandoned their communities in the late thirteenth century, perhaps because of a great drought that lasted from about 1276 to 1299. Today, their descendants in- clude the Hopi [HO-pee] and the Zuni [ZOO-nee]. (Anasazi is in fact a Navajo word meaning “enemy ancestors”—we do not know what the Anasazi called themselves.) What is re- markable about the Pueblo peoples, who despite the fact that they speak several different languages share a remarkably common culture, is that many aspects of their culture have survived and are practiced today much as they were in an- cient times. For all Pueblo peoples, the village is not just the center of culture but the very center of the world. And the cultural center of the village life is the kiva [KEE-vuh] (Fig. 1.10), two of which have been restored at Spruce Tree House to form the plaza visible in Fig. 1.9. They are constructed of

ancient Anasazi religious rites and ceremonies, which they have chosen not to share with outsiders.

The Anasazi left us no written record of their culture, only ruins and artifacts. As William M. Ferguson and Arthur H. Rohn, two prominent scholars of the Anasazi, have described them, “They were a Neolithic people without a beast of burden, the wheel, metal, or a written language, yet they constructed magnificent masonry housing and ceremonial structures, irriga- tion works, and water impoundments.” At Mesa Verde [MAY- suh VER-day], in what is today southwestern Colorado, their cliff dwellings (Fig. 1.9) resemble many of the Neolithic cities of the Middle East, such as, ’Ain Ghazal [ine gah-zahl] (“spring of the gazelles”), just outside what is now Amman, Jordan. Though, ’Ain Ghazal flourished from about 7200 to 5000 bce, thousands of years before the Mesa Verde community, both complexes were constructed with stone walls sealed with a layer of mud plaster. Their roofs were made of wooden beams cross- layered with smaller twigs and branches and sealed with mud.

Fig. 1.10 Cribbed roof construction of a kiva. After a National Park Service pamphlet.

Fig. 1.9 Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde. Anasazi culture, ca. 1200– 1300 CE. The courtyard was formed by the restoration of the roofs over two underground kivas.

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READING 1.1

Zuni Emergence Tale, Talk Concerning the First Beginning

Yes, indeed. In this world there was no one at all. Always the sun came up; always he went in. No one in the morn- ing gave him sacred meal; no one gave him prayer sticks; it was very lonely. He said to his two children: “You will go into the fourth womb. Your fathers, your mothers, kä- eto·we, tcu-eto·we, mu-eto·we, le-eto·we, all the society priests, society pekwins, society bow priests, you will bring out yonder into the light of your sun father.”

From this point on in the tale, the people and priests, led by the two children, seek to find the sacred “middle place,” where things are balanced and orderly. Halona-Itiwana [ha- LOH-nah it-ee-WAH-nah] it is called, the sacred name of the Zuni Pueblo, “the Middle Ant Hill of the World.” In the process they are transformed from indeterminate, salaman- der-like creatures into their ultimate human form, and their world is transformed from chaos to order.

At the heart of the Zuni emergence tale is a moment when, to the dismay of their parents, many children are transformed into water-creatures—turtles, frogs, and the like—and the Hero Twins instruct the parents to throw these children back into the river. Here they become kachinas [kuh-CHEE-nuhs] or katcinas, deified spirits, who explain:

horizontally laid logs built up to form a dome with an ac- cess hole. The roof area thus created is used as a common area. Down below, in the enclosed kiva floor, was a sipapu [see-paw-poo], a small, round hole symbolic of the Anasazi creation myth, which told of the emergence of the Anasazi’s ancestors from the depths of the earth. In the parched South- western desert country, it is equally true that water, like life itself, also seeps out of small fissures in the earth. Thus, it is as if the Anasazi community, and everything necessary to its survival, were to emerge from Mother Earth.

Most Pueblo peoples do not allow their ceremonial dances to be photographed. These dance performances tell stories that relate to the experiences of the Pueblo peoples, from planting, hunting, and fishing in daily life, to the larger experiences of birth, puberty, maturity, and death. Still other stories explain the origin of the world, the emergence of a particular Pueblo people into the world, and their history. Most Pueblo people believe that they originated in the womb of Mother Earth and, like seeds sprouting from the soil in the springtime, were called out into the daylight by their Sun Father. This belief about ori- gins is embodied in a type of narrative known as an emergence tale, a form of creation myth (Reading 1.1).

So begins this emergence tale, which embodies the funda- mental principles of Zuni religious society. The Zuni, or “Sun People,” are organized into groups, each responsible for a par- ticular aspect of the community’s well-being, and each group is represented by a particular -eto·we, or fetish, connecting it to its spiritual foundation in the Earth’s womb. The pekwins mentioned here are sun priests, who control the ritual calen- dar. Bow priests oversee warfare and social behavior. In return for corn and breath given them by the Sun Father, the Zuni offer him cornmeal and downy feathers attached to painted prayer sticks symbolizing both clouds—the source of rain— and breath itself. Later in the tale the two children of the Sun Father bring everyone out into the daylight for the first time:

Into the daylight of their sun father they came forth standing. Just as early dawn they came forth. After they came forth there they set down their sacred possessions in a row. The two said, “Now after a little while when your

sun father comes forth standing to his sacred place you will see him face to face. Do not close your eyes.” Thus he said to them. After a little while the sun came out. When he came out they looked at him. From their eyes the tears rolled down. After they had looked at him, in a little while their eyes became strong. “Alas!” Thus they said. They were covered all over with slime. With slimy tails and slimy horns, with webbed fingers, they saw one another. “Oh dear! is this what we look like? Thus they said.

Then they could not tell which was which of their sacred possessions.

May you go happily. You will tell our parents, “Do not worry.” We have not perished. In order to remain thus for- ever we stay here. To Itiwana but one day’s travel remains. Therefore we stay nearby. . . . Whenever the waters are exhausted and the seeds are exhausted you will send us prayer sticks. Yonder at the place of our first beginning with them we shall bend over to speak to them. Thus there will not fail to be waters. Therefore we shall stay quietly nearby.

The Pueblo believe that kachina spirits, not unlike the num of the San people of Africa, manifest themselves in performance and dance. Masked male dancers impersonate the kachinas, taking on their likeness as well as their super- natural character. Through these dance visits the kachinas, although always “nearby,” can exercise their powers for the good of the people. The nearly 250 kachina personalities embody clouds, rain, crops, animals, and even ideas such as growth and fertility. Although kachina figurines (Fig. 1.11) are made for sale as art objects, particularly by the Hopi, the actual masks worn in ceremonies are not considered art ob- jects by the Pueblo people. Rather, they are thought of as ac- tive agents in the transfer of power and knowledge between the gods and the men who wear them in dance, just like the African Baule mask. In fact, kachina dolls made for sale are considered empty of any ritual power or significance.

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elements. Its beliefs, as embodied in its religion, stories, and myths, have always been closely tied to seasonal celebrations and agricultural production— planting and harvest in particular, as well as rain—the success of which was understood to be inextricably linked to the well-being of the community. In a fun- damental sense, myths reflect the community’s ide- als, its history (hence, the preponderance of creation myths in both ancient societies and contemporary religions), and its aspirations. Myths also tend to mir- ror the culture’s moral and political systems, its social organization, and its most fundamental beliefs.

A profound example is the indigenous Japa- nese religion of Shinto. Before 200 ce, Japan was fragmented; its various regions were separated by sea and mountain, and ruled by numerous com- peting and often warring states. The Records of Three Kingdoms, a classic Chinese text dating from about 297 ce, states that in the first half of the third century ce many or most of these states were unified under the rule of Queen Himiko. According to the Records: “The country formerly had a man as ruler. For some 70 or 80 years after that there were distur- bances and warfare. Thereupon the people agreed upon a woman for their ruler. Her name was Himiko.” After her rule, Japan was more or less united under the Yamato emperors, who modeled their rule after the Chinese, and whose imperial court ruled from modern-day Nara Prefecture, then known as Yamato Province. Its peoples shared a mythology that was finally collected near the end of the Yamato period, in about 700 ce, called the Kojiki [koh-JEE-kee] or Chronicles of Japan.

According to the Kojiki, the islands that consti- tute Japan were formed by two kami [KAH-mee], or gods—Izanagi [izah-NAH-gee] and his consort Izanami [iz-ah-NAH-mee]. Among their offspring was the sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami [AH-

mah-teh-rah-soo OH-mee-kah-mee], from whom the Japa- nese Imperial line later claimed to have descended. In other words, Japanese emperors could claim not merely to have been put in position by the gods; they could claim to be direct descendants of the gods, and hence divine.

Amaterasu is the principal goddess of the early indig- enous religious practices that came to be known as Shinto. She is housed in a shrine complex at Ise, a sacred site from prehistoric times. In many respects, Shinto shares much with Pueblo religions. In Shinto, trees, rocks, water, and mountains—especially Mount Fuji, the volcano just out- side Tokyo, which is said to look over the country as its protector—are all manifestations of the kami, which, like kachinas, are the spirits that are embodied in the natural world. Even the natural materials with which artists work, such as clay, wood, and stone, are imbued with the kami and are to be treated with the respect and reverence due to a god. The kami are revered in matsuri, festivals that usually occur on an annual basis in which, it is believed, past and present

Pueblo emergence tales, and the ritual practices that ac- company them, reflect the general beliefs of most Neolithic peoples. These include the following:

belief that the forces of nature are inhabited by living spir- its, which we call animism

belief that nature’s behavior can be compared to human behavior (we call the practice of investing plants, animals, and natural phenomena with human form or attributes anthropomorphism), thus explaining what otherwise would remain inexplicable

belief that humans can communicate with the spirits of nature, and that, in return for a sacrificial offering or a prayer, the gods might intercede on their behalf.

Japan and the Role of Myth in the Shinto Religion A culture’s religion—that is, its understanding of the divine—is thus closely tied to and penetrated by mythical

Fig. 1.11 Kachina doll (Maalo). Hopi culture. Late nineteenth century. Wood, pigment, feathers, fiber, string, 11½ × 2½“. Brooklyn Museum of Art. Museum Expedition 1904, Museum Collection Fund, 04.297.5604. Creative Commons-BY-NC. This Kachina is probably Maalo, an old-style traditional Kachina who appears during Angl’wa (a series of Night Dances), and whose dance portrays a prayer for rain and good crop yield.

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present, the human community to its gods and their original energies.

The three sacred treasures of Shinto—a sword, a mirror, and a jewel necklace—were said to be given by Amaterasu to the first emperor, and they are traditionally handed down from emperor to emperor in the enthronement ceremony. The mirror is housed at Ise, the sword at the Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya, and the jewel necklace at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. These imperial regalia are not considered mere sym- bols of the divine but “deity-bodies” in which the powers of the gods reside, specifically wisdom in the mirror, valor in the sword, and benevolence in the jewel necklace. To this day, millions of Japanese continue to practice Shinto, and they undertake pilgrimages to Ise each year.

MESOPOTAMIA: POWER AND SOCIAL ORDER IN THE EARLY MIDDLE EAST In September 1922, British archeologist C. Leonard Woolley boards a steamer, beginning a jouney that would take him to Iraq. There, Woolley and his team would discover one of the richest treasure troves in the history of archeology in the ruins of the ancient city of Ur. Woolley concentrated his energies on the burial grounds surrounding the city’s central ziggurat [ZIG-uh-rat], a pyramidal temple structure consisting of suc- cessive platforms with outside staircases and a shrine at the top

merge into one, everyday reality fades away, and people come face to face with their gods. The matsuri serve to purify the territory and community associated with the kami, restoring them from the degradation inevitably worked upon them by the passing of time. During the festival, people partake of the original energies of the cosmos, which they will need to re- store order to their world. Offerings such as fish, rice, and vegetables, as well as music and dancing, are presented to the kami, and the offerings of food are later eaten.

The main sanctuary at Ise, or shoden [SHOH-dehn], consists of undecorated wooden beams and a thatched roof (Fig. 1.12). Ise is exceptional in its use of these plain and simple materials, which not only embody the basic tenet of Shinto—reverence for the natural world—but also the con- tinuity and renewal of a tradition where wood, rather than stone, has always been the principal building material. The most prominent festival at Ise is the shikinen-sengu ceremony, which involves the installation of the deity in a new shrine in a celebration of ritual renewal held every 20 years. The shrine buildings are rebuilt on empty ground adjacent to the older shrine, the deity is transferred to the new shrine, and the older shrine is razed, creating empty ground where the next shrine will be erected. The empty site is strewn with large white stones and is left totally empty except for a small wooden hut containing a sacred wooden pole, a practice that scholars believe dates back to very ancient times. This cycle of destruction and renewal connects the past to the

Fig. 1.12 Naiku (Inner) Shrine housing Amaterasu, Ise, Japan. Late fifth–early sixth century CE. Although the site has been sacred to Shinto since prehistoric times, beginning in the reign of the emperor Temmu (r. 673–86 CE), the Shinto shrine at Ise has been rebuilt by the Japanese ruling family, with some inevitable lapses, every 20 years. The most recent reconstruction occurred in 1993 and will occur again in 2013.

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when they first saw the paintings on the wall of Chauvet cave, Woolley was careful to keep what he called the “royal tombs” secret. On January 4, 1928, he telegrammed his colleagues in Latin. Translated to English it read:

I found the intact tomb, stone built, and vaulted over with bricks of queen Shubad [later known as Puabi] adorned with a dress in which gems, flower crowns and animal figures are woven. Tomb magnificent with jewels and golden cups.

—Woolley

When Woolley’s discovery was made public, it was world- wide news for years.

Archeologists and historians were especially excited by Woolley’s discoveries because they opened a window onto the larger region we call Mesopotamia [mes-uh-po-TAY-mee-uh], the land between the Tigris [TIE-gris] and Euphrates [you- FRAY-teez] rivers. Ur was one of 30 or 40 cities that arose in Sumeria, the southern portion of Mesopotamia (Map 1.4). Its people abandoned Ur more than 2,000 years ago, when the Euphrates changed its course away from the city.

Sumerian Ur Ur is not the oldest city to occupy the southern plains of Mesopotamia, the region known as Sumer [SOO-mur]. That distinction belongs to Uruk [oo-RUK], just to the north. But the temple structure at Ur is of particular note because it is the most fully preserved and restored. It was most likely de- signed to evoke the mountains surrounding the river valley, which were the source of the water that flowed through the two rivers and, so, the source of life. Topped by a sanctuary, the ziggurat might also have symbolized a bridge between heaven and earth. Woolley, who supervised the reconstruc- tion of the first platform and stairway of the ziggurat at Ur, speculated that the platforms of the temple were originally not paved but covered with soil and planted with trees, an idea that modern archeologists no longer accept.

Visitors—almost certainly limited to members of the priesthood—would climb up the stairs to the temple on top. They might bring an offering of food or an animal to be sac- rificed to the resident god—at Ur, it was Nanna or Sin, god of the moon. Visitors often placed in the temple a statue that represented themselves in an attitude of perpetual prayer. We know this from the inscriptions on many of the statues. One, dedicated to the goddess Tarsirsir, protector of Girsu, a city- state across the Tigris and not far upstream from Ur, reads:

To Bau, gracious lady, daughter of An, queen of the holy city, her mistress, for the life of Nammahani . . . has dedi- cated as an offering this statue of the protective goddess of Tarsirsir which she has introduced to the courtyard of Bau. May the statue, to which let my mistress turn her ear, speak my prayers.

A group of such statues, found in 1934 in the shrine room of a temple at Tell Asmar, near modern Baghdad, includes seven men and two women (Fig. 1.15). The men wear belted, fringed

Fig. 1.14 Reconstruction drawing of the ziggurat at Ur (modern Muqaiyir, Iraq). ca. 2100 BCE. British archeologist Sir Leonard Woolley undertook reconstruction of the ziggurat in the 1930s. In his reconstruction, a temple on top, which was the home of the patron deity of the city, crowned the three-tiered platform, the base of which measures 140 by 200 feet. The entire structure rose to a height of 85 feet. Woolley’s reconstruction was halted before the second and third platforms were completed.

Fig. 1.13 The ziggurat at Ur (modern Muqaiyir, Iraq). ca. 2100 BCE. The best preserved and most fully restored of the ancient Sumerian temples, this ziggurat was the center of the city of Ur, in the lower plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

(Figs. 1.13, 1.14). Digging there in the winter of 1927, he un- earthed a series of tombs with several rooms, many bodies, and spectacular objects—vessels, crowns, necklaces, statues, and weapons—as well as jewelry and lyres made of electrum and the deep blue stone, lapis lazuli. With the same sense of excitement that was felt by Jean-Marie Chauvet and his companions

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 15

represents Abu, god of vegetation, due to his especially large eyes, but all of the figures are probably worshippers.

Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia Although power strug- gles among the various city-states dominate Mesopotamian history, with one civilization succeeding another, and with each city-state or empire claiming its own particular divinity

skirts. They have huge eyes, inlaid with lapis lazuli (a blue semiprecious stone) or shell set in bitumen. The single arching eyebrow and crimped beard (only the figure in the at the right is beardless) are typical of Sumerian sculpture. The two women wear robes. All figures clasp their hands in front of them, sug- gestive of prayer when empty and of making an offering, when holding a cup. Some scholars believe that the the tallest man

250 km

250 miles

Fertile area of early agriculture

modern-day coastline

Susa

Ur Eridu

LagashGirsu

Uruk

Babylon

Nineveh Kalhu

Tell Asmar

Assur

Sippar

Jerusalem SUMER

A N A T O L I A

T U R K E Y

S Y R I A

I R A Q

I R A N

JORDAN

ASSYRIA

S A U D I

A R A B I A

C A

N A A N

BABYLONIA

CHALDEA

AKKAD L EB

A N

O N

N ile

P e r s i a n G

u l f

Euphrates

Tigris

M e d i t e r r a n e a n

S e a

Z a

g r o

s M

o u n

t a

i n s

Dead Sea

C a s p i a n

S e a

Red Sea

M E

S O

P O

T A

M I

Map 1.4 Major Mesopotamian capitals, ca. 2600–500 BCE.

Fig. 1.15 Dedicatory statues, from the Abu Temple, Tell Asmar, Iraq. ca. 2900–2700 BCE. Marble, alabaster, and gypsum, height of tallest figure approx. 30”. Excavated by the Iraq Expedition of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, February 13, 1934. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The wide- eyed appearance of these figures is probably meant to suggest they are gazing in perpetual awe at the deity.

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The Mesopotamian ruler, often represented as a “priest- king,” and often believed to possess divine attributes, acts as the intermediary between the gods and humankind. His ultimate re- sponsibility is the behavior of the gods—whether Ea blesses the crop with rains, Ishtar his armies with victory, and so on.

Royal Tombs of Ur Religion was central to the people of Ur, and the cemetery at Ur, discovered by Sir Leonard Wool- ley in 1928, tells us a great deal about the nature of their be- liefs. Woolley unearthed some 1,840 graves, most dating from between 2600 and 2000 bce. The greatest number of graves were individual burials of rich and poor alike. However, some included a built burial chamber rather than just a coffin and contained more than one body, in some cases as many as 80. These multiple burials, and the evidence of elaborate burial rituals, suggest that members of a king or queen’s court accom- panied the ruler to the grave. The two richest burial sites, built one behind the other, are now identified as royal tombs, one belonging to Queen Puabi [poo-AH-bee], the other to an un- known king (but it is not that of her husband, King Meskalam- dug [mes-kah-LAM-doog], who is buried in a different grave).

One of Woolley’s most important discoveries in the Royal Cemetery was the so-called Royal Standard of Ur (Fig. 1.16).

as chief among the Mesopotamian gods, the nature of Meso- potamian religion remained relatively constant across the cen- turies. With the exception of the Hebrews, the religion of the Mesopotamian peoples was polytheistic, consisting of multiple gods and goddesses connected to the forces of nature—sun and sky, water and storm, earth and its fertility. We know many of them by two names, one in Sumerian and the other in the Se- mitic language of the later, more powerful Akkadians.

To the Mesopotamians, human society was merely part of the larger society of the universe governed by these gods and a reflection of it. Anu, father of the gods, represents the author- ity, which the ruler emulates as lawmaker and [law] giver. Enlil [EN-lil], god of the air—the calming breeze as well as the vio- lent storm—is equally powerful, but he represents force, which the ruler emulates in his role as military leader. The active prin- ciples of fertility, birth, and agricultural plenty are those of the goddess Belitili [bell-eh-TEE-lee], while water, the life force itself, the creative element, is embodied in the god Ea, or Enki [EN-kee], who is also god of the arts. Both Belitili and Ea are subject to the authority of Anu. Ishtar is subject to Enlil, ruled by his breezes (in the case of love) and by his storm (in the case of war). A host of lesser gods represented natural phenomena, or, in some cases, abstract ideas, such as truth and justice.

Fig. 1.16 Royal Standard of Ur, front (“War”) and back (“Peace”) sides, from tomb 779, cemetery at Ur (modern Muqaiyir, Iraq). ca. 2600 BCE. Shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone, originally on a wooden framework, height 8“, length 19“. For all its complexity of design, this object is not much bigger than a sheet of legal paper. Its function remains a mystery, though it may have served as a pillow or headrest. Sir Woolley’s designation of it as a standard was purely conjectural.

View the Closer Look for the Standard of Ur on myartslab.com

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 17

city-state. Sargon named himself “King of the Four Quarters of the World” and equated himself with the gods, a status bestowed upon Akkadian rulers from Sargon’s time forward. Legends about Sargon’s might and power survived in the re- gion for thousands of years. Indeed, the legend of his birth gave rise to what amounts to a narrative genre (a class or category of story with a universal theme) that survives to the present day: the boy from humble origins who rises to a posi- tion of might and power, the so-called “rags-to-riches” story.

As depicted on surviving clay tablets, Sargon was an illegitimate child whose mother deposited him in the Euphra- tes River in a basket. There, a man named Akki [AK-kee] (after whom Akkad itself is named) found him while drawing

water from the river and raised him as his own son. Such stories of abandonment, orphanhood, and

being a foundling raised by foster parents will become a standard feature in the narratives of mythic heroes.

Although the Akkadian language was very different from Sumerian, through most of the third millennium bce—that is, until Sargon’s dynastic ambitions altered the bal-

ance of power in the region—the two cultures coexisted peacefully. The Akkadians adopted Sumerian culture and customs and their style of cuneiform writing, a script made of wedge- shaped characters, although not their language. In fact, many bilingual dictionaries and Sume- rian texts with Akkadian translations survive. The Akkadian language was Semitic in origin, having more in common with other languages of the region, particularly Hebrew, Phoenician, and Arabic. It quickly became the common lan- guage of Mesopotamia, and peoples of the region spoke Akkadian, or dialects of it, throughout the second millennium and well into the first.

Although Akkad was arguably the most in- fluential of the Mesopotamian cultures, few

Akkadian artifacts survive, perhaps be- cause Akkad and other nearby Akkadian cities have disappeared under Baghdad and the alluvial soils of the Euphrates plain. Two impressive sculptural works do remain, however. The first is the bronze

head of an Akkadian man (Fig. 1.17), found at Nineveh [NIN-eh-vuh]. Once believed to be Sargon the Great himself, many modern scholars now think it was part of a statue of Sargon’s grandson, Naramsin [nuh-RAHM-sin] (ca. 2254–2218 bce). It may be neither, but it is certainly the bust of a king. Highly realistic, it depicts a man who appears both powerful and majestic. In its damaged con- dition, the head is all that survives of a life-size statue that was destroyed in antiquity. Its original gemstone eyes were removed, perhaps by plundering soldiers, or possibly by a political enemy who recognized the sculpture as an emblem of absolute majesty. In the fine detail surround- ing the face—in the beard and elaborate coiffure, with

Music plays a large part here too. The main panels of this rectangular box of unknown function are called “War” and “Peace,” because they illustrate, on one side, a military vic- tory and, on the other, the subsequent banquet celebrating the event, or perhaps a cult ritual. Each panel is composed of three registers, or self-contained horizontal bands within which the figures stand on a ground-line, or baseline.

At the right side of the top register of the “Peace” panel (the lower half of Fig. 1.16), a musician plays a lyre, and be- hind him another, apparently female, sings. The king, at the left end, is recognizable because he is taller than the others and wears a tufted skirt, his head breaking the register line on top. In this convention, known as social perspective, or hieratic scale, the most important figures are represented as larger than the others. In other registers on the “Peace” side of the Standard, servants bring cattle, goats, sheep, and fish to the celebra- tion. These represent the bounty of the land and perhaps even delicacies from lands to the north. (Notice that the costumes and hairstyles of the fig- ures carrying sacks in the lowest regis- ter are different from those in the other two.) This display of consumption and the distribution of food may have been intended to dramatize the power of the king by showing his ability to control trade routes.

On the “War” side of the Standard, the king stands in the middle of the top register. War chariots trample the en- emy on the bottom register. (Note that the chariots have solid wheels; spoked wheels were not invented until ap- proximately 1800 bce.) In the middle register, soldiers wearing leather cloaks and bronze helmets lead naked, bound prisoners to the king in the top regis- ter, who will presumably decide their fate. Many of the bodies found in the royal tombs were wearing similar military garments. The importance of the Royal Standard of Ur is not simply as documentary evidence of Sumerian life but as one of the earliest examples we have of historical narrative.

Akkad At the height of the Sumerians’ power in southern Meso- potamia, a people known as the Akkadians arrived from the north and settled in the area around modern Baghdad. Their capital city, Akkad [AK-ad], has never been discov- ered and in all likelihood lies under Baghdad itself. Under Sargon [SAR-gun] I (r. ca. 2332–2279 bce), the Akkadians conquered virtually all other cities in Mesopotamia, includ- ing those in Sumer, to become the region’s most powerful

Fig. 1.17 Head of an Akkadian Man, from Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik, Iraq). ca. 2300– 2200 BCE. Copper alloy, height 141/8“. Iraq Museum, Baghdad.

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neglectful or unjust husbands). Incest is strictly forbidden. Fathers cannot arbitrarily disinherit their sons—a son must have committed some “heavy crime” to justify such treat- ment. The code’s strongest concern is the maintenance and protection of the family, though trade practices and property rights are also of major importance.

The following excerpts from the code, beginning with Hammurabi’s assertion of his descent from the gods and his status as their favorite (Reading 1.2), give a sense of the code’s scope. But the code is, finally, and perhaps above all,

its braid circling the head—it testifies to the Akkadian mastery of the lost-wax casting technique, which origi- nated in Mesopotamia as early as the third millennium bce. It is the earliest monumental work made by that technique that we have.

Babylon The Akkadians dominated Mesopotamia for just 150 years, their rule collapsing not long after 2200 bce. For the next 400 years, various city-states thrived locally. No one in Mesopotamia matched the Akkadians’ power until the first decades of the eighteenth century bce, when Hammurabi [ham-uh-RAH-bee] of Babylon [BAB-uh-lon] (r. 1792–1750 bce) gained control of most of the region.

Hammurabi imposed order on Babylon, where laxness and disorder, if not chaos, reigned. A giant stele—an upright stone slab carved with a commemorative design or inscrip- tion—the so-called Law Code of Hammurabi, survives (Fig. 1.18). By no means the first of its kind, though by far the most complete, the stele is a record of decisions and decrees made by Hammurabi over the course of some 40 years of his reign. Its purpose was to celebrate his sense of justice and the wisdom of his rule. Atop the stele, in sculptural relief, Hammurabi receives the blessing of Shamash, the sun god; notice the rays of light coming from his shoulders. The god is much larger than Hammurabi; in fact, he is to Hammurabi as Hammurabi, the patriarch, is to his people. If Hammurabi is divine, he is still subservient to the greater gods. At the same time, the phallic design of the stele, like such other Mesopo- tamian steles as the Stele of Naramsin, asserts the masculine prowess of the king.

Below the relief, 282 separate “articles” cover both sides of the basalt monument. One of the great debates of legal history is the question of whether these articles actually constitute a code of law. If by code we mean a comprehen- sive, systematic, and methodical compilation of all aspects of Mesopotamian law, then it is not. It is instead selective, even eccentric, in the issues it addresses. Many of its articles seem to be “reforms” of already existing law, and as such they define new principles of justice.

Chief among these is the principle of talion [TAL-ee-un]— an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—which Hammurabi introduced to Mesopotamian law. (Sections of earlier codes from Ur compensate victims of crimes with money.) This principle punished the violence or injustice perpetuated by one free person upon another, but violence by an upper- class person on a lower-class person was penalized much less severely. Slaves (who might be either war captives or debt- ors) enjoyed no legal protection at all—only the protection of their owner.

The code tells us much about the daily lives of Mesopo- tamian peoples, including conflicts great and small. In rules governing family relations and class divisions in Mesopo- tamian society, inequalities are sharply drawn. Women are inferior to men, and wives, like slaves, are the personal prop- erty of their husbands (although protected from the abuse of

Fig. 1.18 Stele of Hammurabi, from Susa (modern Shush, Iran). ca. 1760 BCE. Diorite, height of stele, approx. 7’; height of relief, 28”. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Like the Stele of Naramsin, this stele was stolen by invading Elamites and removed to Susa, where, together with the Stele of Naramsin, it was excavated by the French in 1898.

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Even if Hammurabi meant only to assert the idea of justice as the basis for his own divine rule, the stele established what amounts to a uniform code throughout Mesopotamia. It was repeatedly copied for over 1,000 years, long after it was re- moved to Susa in 1157 bce with the Naramsin stele, and it established the rule of law in Mesopotamia for a millennium. From this point on, the authority and power of the ruler could no longer be capricious, subject to the whim, fancy, and sub- jective interpretation of his singular personality. The law was now, at least ostensibly, more objective and impartial. The ruler was required to follow certain prescribed procedures. But the law, so prescribed in writing, was now also much less flexible, hard to change, and much more impersonal. Excep- tions to the rule were few and difficult to justify. Eventually, written law would remove justice from the discretion of the ruler and replace it by a legal establishment of learned judges charged with enacting the king’s statutes.

Mesopotamian Literature and the Epic of Gilgamesh Sumerian literature survives on nearly 100,000 clay tablets and fragments. Many deal with religious themes in the form of poems, blessings, and incantations to the gods. One of the great surviving manuscripts of Mesopotamian culture, and the oldest story ever recorded, is the Epic of Gilgamesh. An epic is a long, narrative poem in elevated language that follows characters of a high position through a series of adventures, often including a visit to the world of the dead. For many literary scholars, the epic is the most exalted poetic form. The central figure is a legendary or historical figure of heroic proportion, in this case the Sumerian king Gilgamesh. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (see Chapter 2) had been considered the earliest epics until late in the nineteenth century, when Gilgamesh was discovered in the library of King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, believed to be the first library of texts systematically collected and organized in history.

The scope of an epic is large. The supernatural world of gods and goddesses usually plays a role in the story, as do bat- tles in which the hero demonstrates his strength and courage. The poem’s language is suitably dignified, often consisting of

the gift of a king to his people, as Hammurabi’s epilogue, at the end of the excerpt, makes clear:

READING 1.2

from the Law Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1792–1750 BCE)

When the august god Anu, king of the Anunnaku deities, and the god Enlil, lord of heaven and earth, who deter- mines the destinies of the land, allotted supreme power over all peoples to the god Marduk, the firstborn son of the god Ea, exalted him among the Igigu deities, named the city of Babylon with its august name and made it su- preme exalted within the regions of the world, and estab- lished for him within it eternal kingship whose foundations are as fixed as heaven and earth, at that time, the gods Anu and Bel, for the enhancement of the well-being of the people, named me by my name, Hammurabi, the pious prince, who venerates the gods, to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to rise like the Sun-god Shamash over all humankind, to illuminate the land. . . . 1. If a man accuses another man and charges him with homicide but cannot bring proof against him, his accuser shall be killed. . . . 8. If a man steals an ox, a sheep, a donkey, a pig, or a boat—if it belongs either to the god or to the palace, he shall give thirtyfold; if it belongs to a commoner, he shall replace it tenfold; if the thief does not have anything to give, he shall be killed. . . . 32. If there is either a soldier or a fisherman who is taken captive while on a royal campaign, a merchant redeems him, and helps him get back to his city—if there are suf- ficient in his own estate for the redeeming, he himself shall redeem himself: if there are not sufficient means in his estate to redeem him he shall be redeemed by his city’s temple; if there are not sufficient means in his city’s temple to redeem him, the palace shall redeem him; but his field, orchard, or house shall not be given for his redemption. . . . 143. If [a woman] is not circumspect, but is wayward, squanders her household possessions, and disparages her husband, they shall cast that woman into the water. . . . 195. If a child should strike his father, they shall cut off his hand. 196. If an awilu [in general, a person subject to law] should blind the eye of another awilu, they shall blind his eye. 197. If he should break the bone of another awilu, they shall break his bone. . . . 229. If a builder constructs a house for a man but does not make his work sound, and the house he constructs collapses and causes the death of the householder, that builder shall be killed. . . . 282. If a slave should declare to his master, “You are not my master,” he (the master) shall bring charge and proof against him that he is indeed his slave, and his master shall cut off his ear. . . .

These are the decisions which Hammurabi, the able king, has established, and thereby has directed the land along the course of truth and the correct way of life.

I am Hammurabi, noble king . . . May any king who will appear in the land in the future,

at any time, observe the pronouncements of justice that I have inscribed upon my stele. May he not alter the judgments that I rendered and verdicts that I gave, nor remove my engraved image. If that man has discern- ment, and is capable of providing just ways for his land may he heed the pronouncements I have inscribed upon my stele, may the stele reveal for him the traditions, the proper conduct, the judgements of the land that I ren- dered, the verdicts of the land that I gave and may he, too, provide just ways for all humankind in his care. . . .

I am Hammurabi, king of justice. . . .

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many long, formal speeches. Lists of various heroes or catalogs of their achievements are frequent.

Epics are often compilations of preexisting myths and tales handed down generation to generation, often orally, and fi- nally unified into a whole by the epic poet. Indeed, the main outline of the story is usually known to its audience. The po- et’s contribution is the artistry brought to the subject, dem- onstrated through the use of epithets, metaphors, and similes. Epithets are words or phrases that characterize a person (for example, “Enkidu, the protector of herdsmen,” or “Enkidu, the son of the mountain”). Metaphors are words or phrases used in place of another to suggest a similarity between the two, as when Gilgamesh is described as a “raging flood-wave who destroys even walls of stone.” Similes compare two un- like things by the use of the word “like” or “as” (for example, “the land shattered like a pot”).

Perhaps most important, the epic illuminates the develop- ment of a nation or race. It is a national poem, describing a people’s common heritage and celebrating its cultural iden- tity. It is hardly surprising, then, that Ashurbanipal preserved the Epic of Gilgamesh. Just as Sargon II depicted himself at the gates of Khorsabad in the traditional horned crown of Akkad and the beard of Sumer, containing within himself all Mesopotamian history, the Epic of Gilgamesh preserves the historical lineage of all Mesopotamian kings—Sumerian, Ak- kadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian. The tale embodies their own heroic grandeur, and thus the grandeur of their peoples.

Gilgamesh consists of some 2,900 lines written in Ak- kadian cuneiform script on 11 clay tablets, none of them completely whole. It was composed sometime before Ashur- banipal’s reign, possibly as early as 1200 bce, by Sinleqqi- unninni [sin-lek-KEE-un-nin-nee] a scholar-priest of Uruk. This would make Sinleqqiunninni the oldest known author. We know that Gilgamesh was the fourth king of Uruk, ruling sometime between 2700 and 2500 bce. (The dates of his rule were recorded on a clay tablet, the Sumerian King List.) Re- covered fragments of his story date back nearly to his actual reign, and the story we have, known as the Standard Version, is a compilation of these earlier versions.

At the center of the poem, in Tablet VI, Ishtar, goddess of both love and war, offers to marry Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh refuses, which unleashes Ishtar’s wrath. She sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy Gilgamesh and Enkdu, but they slay it instead (Reading 1.3a)

READING 1.3a

from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VI (ca. 1200 BCE)

A Woman Scorned

. . . When Gilgamesh placed his crown on his head Princess, Ishtar raised her eyes to the beauty of Gilgamesh. “Come along, Gilgamesh, be you my husband, to me grant your lusciousness.1

Be you my husband, and I will be your wife.

I will have harnessed for you a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold,

with wheels of gold . . . Bowed down beneath you will be kings, lords,

and princes. The Lullubu people2 will bring you the produce of the

mountains and countryside as tribute. Your she-goats will bear triplets, your ewes twins, your donkey under burden will overtake the mule, your steed at the chariot will be bristling to gallop, your ox at the yoke will have no match.”

Gilgamesh addressed Princess Ishtar saying: Do you need oil or garments for your body? Do you lack anything for food or drink? I would gladly feed you food fit for a god, I would gladly give you wine fit for a king . . . a half-door that keeps out neither breeze nor blast, a palace that crushes down valiant warriors, an elephant who devours its own covering, pitch that blackens the hands of its bearer, a waterskin that soaks its bearer through, limestone that buckles out the stone wall, a battering ram that attracts the enemy land, a shoe that bites its owner’s feet! Where are your bridegrooms that you keep forever? . . . You loved the supremely mighty lion, yet you dug for him seven and again seven pits. You loved the stallion, famed in battle, yet you ordained for him the whip, the goad,

and the lash, ordained for him to gallop for seven and seven hours, ordained for him drinking from muddied waters,3

you ordained for his mother Silili to wail continually. You loved the Shepherd, the Master Herder, who continually presented you with bread

baked in embers, and who daily slaughtered for you a kid. Yet you struck him, and turned him into a wolf, so his own shepherds now chase him and his own dogs snap at his shins. You loved Ishullanu, your father’s date gardener, who continually brought you baskets of dates, and brightened your table daily. You raised your eyes to him, and you went to him:

‘Oh my Ishullanu, let us taste of your strength, stretch out your hand to me, and touch our “vulva.”’4

Ishullanu said to you: ‘Me? What is it you want from me? . . . ’

As you listened to these his words you struck him, turning him into a dwarf(?)5, . . . And now me! It is me you love, and you will ordain

for me as for them!”

1Literally “fruit.” 2The Lullubu were a wild mountain people living in the area of modern-day west- ern Iran. The meaning is that even the wildest, least controllable of peoples will recognize Gilgamesh’s rule and bring tribute. 3Horses put their front feet in the water when drinking, churning up mud. 4This line probably contains a word play on hurdatu as “vulva” and “date palm,” the latter being said (in another unrelated text) to be “like the vulva.” 5Or “frog”?

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 21

Her Fury

When Ishtar heard this in a fury she went up to the heavens, going to Anu, her father, and crying, going to Antum, her mother, and weeping:

“Father, Gilgamesh has insulted me over and over, Gilgamesh has recounted despicable deeds about me, despicable deeds and curses!”

Anu addressed Princess Ishtar, saying: “What is the matter? Was it not you who provoked

King Gilgamesh? So Gilgamesh recounted despicable deeds about you, despicable deeds and curses!”

Ishtar spoke to her father, Anu, saying: “Father, give me the Bull of Heaven, so he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling. If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven, I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat

down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living!”

Anu addressed Princess Ishtar, saying: “If you demand the Bull of Heaven from me, there will be seven years of empty husks for the land of

Uruk. Have you collected grain for the people? Have you made grasses grow for the animals?”

Ishtar addressed Anu, her father, saying: “I have heaped grain in the granaries for the people,

I made grasses grow for the animals, in order that they might eat in the seven years of empty

husks. I have collected grain for the people, I have made grasses grow for the animals. . . . ”

When Anu heard her words, he placed the nose-rope of the Bull of Heaven in her hand. Ishtar led the Bull of Heaven down to the earth. When it reached Uruk . . . It climbed down to the Euphrates . . . At the snort of the Bull of Heaven a huge pit opened up, and 100 Young Men of Uruk fell in. At his second snort a huge pit opened up, and 200 Young Men of Uruk fell in. At his third snort a huge pit opened up, and Enkidu fell in up to his waist. Then Enkidu jumped out and seized the Bull of Heaven by its

horns. The Bull spewed his spittle in front of him, with his thick tail he flung his dung behind him (?). Enkidu addressed Gilgamesh, saying:

“My friend, we can be bold(?) . . . Between the nape, the horns, and . . . thrust your

sword.” Enkidu stalked and hunted down the Bull of Heaven. He grasped it by the thick of its tail and held onto it with both his hands (?), while Gilgamesh, like an expert butcher,

boldly and surely approached the Bull of Heaven. Between the nape, the horns, and . . . he thrust his sword. . . . Ishtar went up onto the top of the Wall of Uruk-Haven, cast herself into the pose of mourning, and hurled her woeful

curse: “Woe unto Gilgamesh who slandered me and killed the

Bull of Heaven!” When Enkidu heard this pronouncement of Ishtar, he wrenched off the Bull’s hindquarter and flung it in her face:

“If I could only get at you I would do the same to you! I would drape his innards over your arms!” . . .

Gilgamesh said to the palace retainers: “Who is the bravest of the men? Who is the boldest of the males? —Gilgamesh is the bravest of the men, the boldest of the males! She at whom we flung the hindquarter of the Bull of

Heaven in anger, Ishtar has no one that pleases her . . . ”

But Gilgamesh and Enkidu cannot avoid the wrath of the gods altogether. One of them, the gods decide, must die, and so Enkidu suffers a long, painful death, attended by his friend, Gilgamesh, who is terrified (Reading 1.3b):

READING 1.3b

from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet X (ca. 1200 BCE)

My friend. . . . Enkidu, whom I love deeply, who went through every hardship with me,

the fate of mankind has overtaken him. Six days and seven nights I mourned over him and would not allow him to be buried until a maggot fell out of his nose. I was terrified by his appearance, I began to fear death, and so roam the wilderness. The issue of Enkidu, my friend, oppresses me, so I have been roaming long trails through the wilderness. How can I stay silent, how can I be still? My friend whom I love has turned to clay. And I not like him? Will I lie down, never to get up again?

Dismayed at the prospect of his own mortality, Gilgamesh embarks on a journey to find the secret of eternal life from the only mortal known to have attained it, Utnapishtim [ut-na-PISH-tim], who tells him the story of the Great Flood. Several elements of Utnapishtim’s story deserve ex- planation. First of all, this is the earliest known version of the flood story that occurs also in the Hebrew Bible, with Utnapishtim in the role of the biblical Noah. The motif of a single man and wife surviving a worldwide flood brought

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about by the gods occurs in several Middle Eastern cultures, suggesting a single origin or shared tradition. In the Sume- rian version, Ea (Enki) warns Utnapishtim of the flood by speaking to the wall, thereby technically keeping the agree- ment among the gods not to warn mortals of their upcom- ing disaster. The passage in which Ea tells Utnapishtim how to explain his actions to his people without revealing the secret of the gods is one of extraordinary complexity and wit (Reading 1.3c). The word for “bread” is kukku, a pun on the word for “darkness,” kukkû. Similarly, the word for “wheat,” kibtu, also means “misfortune.” Thus, when Ea says, “He will let loaves of bread shower down, / and in the evening a rain of wheat,” he is also telling the truth: “He will let loaves of darkness shower down, and in the evening a rain of misfortune.”

READING 1.3c

from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI (ca. 1200 BCE)

Utanapishtim spoke to Gilgamesh, saying: “I will reveal to you, Gilgamesh, a thing that is hidden, a secret of the gods I will tell you! Shuruppak, a city that you surely know, situated on the banks of the Euphrates, that city was very old, and there were gods inside it. The hearts of the Great Gods moved them to inflict the

Flood. . . . Ea, the Clever Prince, was under oath with them so he repeated their talk to the reed house: ‘Reed house, reed house! Wall, wall! Hear, O reed house! Understand, O wall! O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubartutu: Tear down the house and build a boat! Abandon wealth and seek living beings! Spurn possessions and keep alive human beings! Make all living beings go up into the boat. The boat which you are to build, its dimensions must measure equal to each other: its length must correspond to its width, Roof it over like the Apsu.’ I understood and spoke to my lord, Ea: ‘My lord, thus is your command. I will heed and will do it. But what shall I answer the city, the populace, and the

Elders?’

Ea spoke, commanding me, his servant: ‘ . . . this is what you must say to them: “It appears that Enlil is rejecting me so I cannot reside in your city, nor set foot on Enlil’s earth. I will go . . . to live with my lord, Ea, and upon you he will rain down abundance,

a profusion of fowls, myriad fishes. He will bring you a harvest of wealth, in the morning he will let loaves of bread shower down, and in the evening a rain of wheat.”’ . . .

I butchered oxen for the meat(?), and day upon day I slaughtered sheep. I gave the workmen(?) ale, beer, oil, and wine, as if it were

river water, so they could make a party like the New Year’s Festival. . . . The boat was finished. . . . Whatever I had I loaded on it: whatever silver I had I loaded on it, whatever gold I had I loaded on it. Al the living beings that I had I loaded on it, I had all my kith and kin go up into the boat, all the beasts and animals of the field and the craftsmen I

had go up. . . .

I watched the appearance of the weather— the weather was frightful to behold! I went into the boat and sealed the entry. . . . Just as dawn began to glow there arose on the horizon a black cloud. Adad rumbled inside it. . . . Stunned shock over Adad’s deeds overtook the heavens, and turned to blackness all that had been light. The . . . land shattered like a . . . pot.

All day long the South Wind blew . . . , blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water, overwhelming the people like an attack. No one could see his fellow, they could not recognize each other in the torrent. The gods were frightened by the Flood, and retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu. The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer

wall. Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth. . . . Six days and seven nights came the wind and flood, the storm flattening the land. When the seventh day arrived, the storm was pounding, the flood was a war—struggling with itself like a woman

writhing (in labor). The sea calmed, fell still, the whirlwind (and) flood stopped

up. I looked around all day long—quiet had set in and all the human beings had turned to clay! The terrain was flat as a roof. I opened a vent and fresh air (daylight?) fell upon the side

of my nose. I fell to my knees and sat weeping, tears streaming down the side of my nose. I looked around for coastlines in the expanse of the sea, and at twelve leagues there emerged a region (of land). On Mt. Nimush the boat lodged firm, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.

Read the document from the Epic of Gilgamesh on myartslab.com

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 23

to Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Baby- lonian king Nebuchadnezzar [neb-uh-kud-NEZ-ur] in 587 bce, and their eventual return to Jerusalem after the Persians conquered the Babylonians in 538 bce. The stories represent the Hebrews’ attempt to maintain their sense of their own history and destiny. But it would be a mistake to succumb to the temptation to read the Hebrew Bible as an accurate account of the historical record. Like all ancient histories, passed down orally through generation upon generation, it contains its fair share of mythologizing.

The Hebrews differed from other Near Eastern cultures in that their religion was monotheistic—they worshipped a single god, whereas others in the region tended to have gods for their clans and cities, among other things. According to Hebrew tradition, God made an agreement with the Hebrews, first with Noah after the flood, later renewed with Abraham and each of the subsequent patriarchs (scriptural fathers of the He- brew people): “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you. The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your descendants after you” (Genesis 35:11–12). In return for this promise, the Hebrews, the “cho- sen people,” agreed to obey God’s will. “Chosen people” means that the Jews were chosen to set an example of a higher moral standard (a light unto the nations)—not chosen in the sense of favored, which is a common misunderstanding of the term.

Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, tells the story of the creation of the world out of a “formless void.” It de- scribes God’s creation of the world and all its creatures and his continuing interest in the workings of the world, an in- terest that would lead, in the story of Noah, to God’s near- destruction of all things. It also posits humankind as easily tempted by evil. It documents the moment of the introduc- tion of sin (and shame) into the cosmos, associating these with the single characteristic separating humans from ani- mals—knowledge. And it shows, in the example of Noah, the reward for having “walked with God,” the basis of the covenant.

Moses and the Ten Comandments The biblical story of Moses and the Ten Commandments embodies the central- ity of the written word to Jewish culture. The Hebrew Bible claims that in about 1600 bce drought forced the Hebrew people to leave Canaan for Egypt, where they prospered until the Egyptians enslaved them in about 1300 bce. Defying the rule of the pharaohs, the Jewish patriarch Moses led his peo- ple out of Egypt. According to tradition, Moses led the Jews across the Red Sea (which miraculously parted to facilitate the escape) and into the desert of the Sinai [SYE-nye] pen- insula. (The story became the basis for the book of Exodus.) Most likely, they crossed a large tidal flat, called the Sea of Reeds; subsequently that body of water was misidentified as the Red Sea. Unable to return to Canaan, which was now occupied by local tribes of considerable military strength, the Jews settled in an arid region of the Sinai desert near the Dead Sea for a period of 40 years, which archeologists date to sometime between 1300 and 1150 bce.

When the gods discover Utnapishtim alive, smelling his incense offering, they are outraged. They did not want a sin- gle living being to escape. But since he has, they grant him immortality and allow him to live forever in the Faraway. As a reward for Gilgamesh’s own efforts, Utnapishtim tells Gil- gamesh of a secret plant that will give him perpetual youth. “I will eat it,” he tells the boatman who is returning him home, “and I will return to what I was in my youth.” But when they stop for the night, Gilgamesh decides to bathe in a cool pool, where the scent of the plant attracts a snake who steals it away, an echo of the biblical story of Adam and Eve, whose own immortality is stolen away by the wiles of a serpent—and their own carelessness. Broken-hearted, Gil- gamesh returns home empty-handed.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the first known literary work to con- front the idea of death, which is, in many ways, the very em- bodiment of the unknown. Although the hero goes to the very ends of the earth in his quest, he ultimately leaves with nothing to show for his efforts except an understanding of his own, very human, limitations. He is the first hero in Western literature to yearn for what he can never attain, to seek to understand what must always remain a mystery. And, of course, until the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh had seemed, in his self-confident confrontation with Ishtar and in the defeat of the Bull of Heaven, as near to a god as a mortal might be. In short, he em- bodied the Mesopotamian hero-king. Even as the poem asserts the hero-king’s divinity—the poem first introduces him as two parts god, one part human—it emphasizes his humanity and the mortality that accompanies it. By making literal the first words of the Sumerian King List—“After the kingship had descended from heaven”—the Epic of Gilgamesh acknowledges what many Mesopotamian kings were unwilling to admit, at least publicly: their own, very human, limitations, their own powerlessness in the face of the ultimate unknown—death.

The Hebrews The Hebrews (from Habiru, “outcast” or “nomad”) were a people forced out of their homeland in the Mesopotamian basin in about 2000 bce. According to their tradition, it was in the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was there that Noah survived the same great flood that Utnapishtim survived in the Epic of Gilgamesh. And it was out of there that Abraham of Ur led his people into Canaan [KAY-nun], in order to escape the warlike Akkadians and the increas- ingly powerful Babylonians. There is no actual historical evidence to support these stories. We know them only from the Hebrew Bible—a word that derives from the Greek, bib- lia, “books”—a compilation of hymns, prophecies, and laws transcribed by its authors between 800 and 400 bce, some 1,000 years after the events the Hebrew Bible describes. Al- though the archeological record in the Near East confirms some of what these scribes and priests wrote, especially about more contemporaneous events, the stories themselves were edited and collated into the stories we know today. They re- count the Assyrian conquest of Israel, the Jews’ later exile

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Fig. 1.19 The Ark of the Covenant and sanctuary implements, mosaic floor decorations from Hammath near Tiberias, Israel. Fourth century CE. Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem. Two menorahs (seven-branched candelabras) flank each side of the Ark. The menorah is considered a symbol of the nation of Israel and its mission to be “a light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6). Instructions for making it are outlined in Exodus 25:31–40. Relatively little ancient Jewish art remains. Most of it was destroyed as the Jewish people were conquered, persecuted, and exiled.

Whenever the Hebrews talked, wherever they looked, wherever they went, they focused on the commandments of their God. Their monotheistic religion was thus also an ethi- cal and moral system derived from an omnipotent God. The Ten Commandments were the centerpiece of the Torah [tor- AH], or Law (literally “instructions”), consisting of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. (Christians would later incorporate these books into their Bible as the first five books of the Old Testament.) The He- brews considered these five books divinely inspired and at- tributed their original authorship to Moses himself, although, as we have noted, the texts as we know them were written much later.

The body of laws outlined in the Torah is quite different from the code of Hammurabi. The code was essentially a list of punishments for offenses; it is not an ethical code (see Fig. 1.18 and Reading 1.2). Hebraic and Mesopotamian laws are distinctly different. Perhaps because the Hebrews were once themselves aliens and slaves, their law treats the lowest members of society as human beings. As Yahweh declares in Exodus 23:6: “You will not cheat the poor among you of their rights at law.” At least under the law, class distinc- tions, with the exception of slaves, did not exist in Hebrew society, and punishment was levied equally. Above all else,

In the Sinai desert, the Hebrews forged the principal tenets of a new religion that would eventually be based on the wor- ship of a single god. There, too, the Hebrew god supposedly revealed a new name for himself—YHWH, a name so sacred that it could neither be spoken nor written. The name is not known and YHWH is a cipher for it. There are, however, many other names for God in the Hebrew Bible, among them Elohim [eh-loe-HEEM], which is plural in Hebrew, meaning “gods, deities”; Adonai [ah-dun-EYE] (“Lord”); and El Shaddai [shah-die], literally “God of the fields” but usually translated “God Almighty.” Some scholars believe that this demonstrates the multiple authorship of the Bible. Others argue that the Hebrews originally worshipped many gods, like other Near Eastern peoples. Still other scholars suggest that God has been given different names to reflect different aspects of his divin- ity, or the different roles that he might assume—the guard- ian of the flocks in the fields, or the powerful master of all. Translated into Latin as “Jehovah” [ji-HOH-vuh] in the Mid- dle Ages, the name is now rendered in English as “Yahweh.” This God also gave Moses the Ten Commandments, carved onto stone tablets, as recorded in Deuteronomy 5:6–21. Sub- sequently, the Hebrews carried the commandments in a sacred chest, called the Ark of the Covenant (Fig. 1.19), which was lit by seven-branched candelabras known as menorahs [men- OR-uhz]. The centrality to Hebrew culture of these written words is even more apparent in the words of God that follow the commandments (Reading 1.4):

READING 1.4

from the Hebrew Bible (Deuteronomy 6:6–9)

6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.

7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 25

of Solomon in Jerusalem and deporting the Hebrews to Baby- lon. Not only had the Hebrews lost their homeland and their temple, but the Ark of the Covenant itself disappeared. For nearly 60 years, the Hebrews endured what is known as the Babylonian Captivity. As recorded in Psalm 137, “By the riv- ers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion.”

Finally, invading Persians, whom they believed had been sent by Yahweh, freed them from the Babylonians in 520 bce. They returned to Judah, known now, for the first time, as the Jews (after the name of their homeland). They rebuilt a Second Temple of Jerusalem, with an empty chamber at its center, meant for the Ark of the Covenant should it ever re- turn. And they welcomed back other Jews from around the Mediterranean, including many whose families had left the northern kingdom almost 200 years earlier. Many others, however, were by now permanently settled elsewhere, and they became known as the Jews of the Diaspora [die-AS-puh- ruh], or the “dispersion.”

Hebrew culture would have a profound impact on West- ern civilization. The Jews provided the essential ethical and moral foundation for religion in the West, including Chris- tianity and Islam, both of which incorporate Jewish teach- ings into their own thought and practice. In the Torah, we find the basis of the law as we understand and practice it today. So moving and universal are the stories recorded in

rich and poor alike were united for the common good in a common enterprise, to follow the instructions for living as God provided.

After 40 years in the Sinai had passed, it is believed that the patriarch Joshua led the Jews back to Canaan, the Promised Land, as Yahweh had pledged in the covenant. Over the next 200 years, they gradually gained control of the region through a protracted series of wars described in the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel in the Bible. They named themselves the Israelites [IZ-ree-uh-lites], after Is- rael, the name that was given by God to Jacob. The nation consisted of 12 tribes, each descending from one of Jacob’s 12 sons. By about 1000 bce, Saul had established himself as king of Israel, followed by David, who as a boy rescued the Israelites from the Philistines [FIL-uh-steenz] by killing the giant Goliath with a stone thrown from a sling, as described in First Samuel, and later united Israel and Judah into a single state (Map 1.5).

Solomon, the Prophets, and the Diaspora Solomon under- took to complete the building campaign begun by his father, and by the end of his reign, Jerusalem was, by all reports, one of the most beautiful cities in the Near East. A magnificent palace and, most especially, a splendid temple dominated the city. First Kings claims that Yahweh himself saw the temple and approved of it.

The scriptural covenant between God and the Hebrews was the model for the relationship between the Hebrew king and his people. Each provided protection in return for obe- dience and fidelity. The same relationship existed between the family patriarch and his household. His wife and children were his possessions, whom he protected in return for their unerring faith in him.

After Solomon’s death, the United Monarchy of Israel split into two separate states. To the north was Israel, with its capital in Samaria [suh-MAR-ee-uh], and to the south, Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem. In this era of the two kingdoms, Hebrew culture was dominated by prophets, men who were prophetic not in the sense of foretelling the future, but rather in the sense of serving as mouthpieces and interpreters of Yahweh’s purposes, which they claimed to understand through visions. The prophets instructed the people in the ways of living according to the laws of the Torah, and they more or less freely confronted anyone guilty of wrongful actions, even the Hebrew kings. They at- tacked, particularly, the wealthy Hebrews whose commer- cial ventures had brought them unprecedented material comfort and who were inclined to stray from monotheism and worship Canaanite [KAY-nuh-nite] fertility gods and goddesses. The moral laxity of these wealthy Hebrews trou- bled the prophets, who urged the Hebrew nation to reform spiritually.

In 722 bce, Assyrians attacked the northern kingdom of Israel and scattered its people, who were thereafter known as the Lost Tribes of Israel. The southern kingdom of Judah sur- vived another 140 years, until Nebuchadnezzar and the Bab- ylonians overwhelmed it in 587 bce, destroying the Temple

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The United Monarchy under David and Solomon, c.1100 BCE

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Map 1.5 The United Monarchy of Israel under David and Solomon. ca. 1100 BCE.

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the Torah that over the centuries they have inspired—and continue to inspire—countless works of art, music, and lit- erature. Most important, the Hebrews introduced to the world the concept of ethical monotheism: the idea that there is only one God, and that God demands that humans behave in a certain way, and rewards and punishes accord- ingly. Few, if any, concepts have had a more far-reaching effect on history and culture.

The Persian Empire In 520 bce, the Persians, formerly a minor nomadic tribe that occupied the plateau of Iran, defeated the Babylonians and freed the Jews. Their imperial adventuring had begun in 559 bce with the ascension of Cyrus II (called the Great, r. 559–530 bce), the first ruler of the Achaemenid dynasty, named after Achaemenes [eck-KEE-min-ees], a warrior-king whom Persian legend says ruled on the Iranian plateau around 700 bce. By the time of Cyrus’s death, the Per- sians had taken control of the Greek cities in Ionia on the west coast of Anatolia. Under King Darius [duh-RY-us] (r. 522–486 bce), they soon ruled a vast empire that stretched from Egypt in the south, around Asia Minor, to the Ukraine [you-KRAIN] in the north. The capital of the empire was Parsa, which the Greeks called Persepolis [per- SEP-uh-lis], or city of the Persians, located in the Zagros [ZAG-rus] highlands of present-day Iran. Built by artisans and workers from all over the Persian Empire, including Greeks from Ionia, it reflected Darius’s multicultural ambi- tions. If he was, as he said, “King of King, King of countries, King of the earth,” his palace should reflect the diversity of his peoples.

Rulers are depicted at Persepolis in relief sculptures with Assyrian beards and headdresses (Fig. 1.20). In typical Meso- potamian fashion, they are larger than other people in the works. These decorations further reflect the Persians’ sense that all the peoples of the region owed them allegiance. Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greek styles all in- termingle in the palace’s architecture and decoration. The relief in Figure 1.20, from the stairway to the audience hall where Darius and his son Xerxes [ZURK-zees] received visi- tors, is covered with images of their subjects bringing gifts to the palace—23 subject nations in all—Ionian, Babylonian, Syrian, Susian, and so on—each culture recognizable by its beards and costumes. Darius can be seen receiving tribute as Xerxes stands behind him as if waiting to take his place as the Persian ruler. These are the same two Persian leaders who, in the first decades of the fifth century bce, would in- vade Greece, the son destroying, as we will see in the next chapter, the city of Athens, but in his destruction of the Greek capital, ushering in the great building campaign that was the hallmark of the Greek Golden Age.

THE STABILITY OF ANCIENT EGYPT: FLOOD AND SUN Civilization in Mesopotamia developed across the last three millennia bce almost simultaneously with civilization in Egypt. The two civilizations have much in common. Both formed around river systems—the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia; the Nile in Egypt. Both were agrarian societ- ies that depended on irrigation, and their economies were hostage to the sometimes fickle, sometimes violent flow of

Fig. 1.20 Darius and Xerxes Receiving Tribute, detail of a relief from a stairway leading to the Apadana ceremonial complex, Persepolis, Iran. 491–486 BCE. Limestone, height 8’4”. Iranbastan Museum, Teheran. This panel was originally painted in blue, scarlet, green, purple, and turquoise. Objects such as Darius’s necklace and crown were covered in gold.

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their respective river systems. As in Mesopotamia, Egyptians learned to control the river’s flow by constructing dams and irrigation canals, and it was probably the need to cooperate with one another in such endeavors that helped Mesopota- mia and Egypt to create the civilization that would eventu- ally arise in the Nile Valley.

The Mesopotamians and the Egyptians built massive ar- chitectural structures dedicated to their gods—the ziggurats in Mesopotamia (see Fig. 1.13) and the pyramids in Egypt (Fig. 1.21). Though the former appears to be dedicated, at least in part, to water and the latter to the sun, both unite earth and sky in a single architectural form. Indeed, the earli- est Egyptian pyramids were stepped structures on the model of the Mesopotamian ziggurat. Both cultures developed forms of writing, although the cuneiform style of Mesopotamian culture and the hieroglyph style of Egyptian society were very different. There is ample evidence that the two civilizations traded with one another, and to a certain degree influenced one another.

What most distinguishes Egyptian from Mesopotamian culture, however, is the relative stability of the former. Meso- potamia was rarely, if ever, united as a single entity. When- ever it was united, it was through force, the power of an army, not the free will of a people striving for the common good. In contrast, political transition in Egypt was dynastic—that is, rule was inherited by members of the same family, sometimes

for generations. As in Mesopotamia, however, the ruler’s au- thority was cemented by his association with divine author- ity. He was, indeed, the manifestation of the gods on Earth. In fact, there is clear reason to believe that the sculptural image of a ruler was believed to be, in some sense, the ruler himself.

The Nile and Its Culture Like the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Nile could be said to have made Egypt possible. The river begins in the heart of Africa, one tributary in the mountains of Ethiopia and another at Lake Victoria in Uganda, from which it flows north for over 4,000 miles. Egyptian civilization developed along the last 750 miles of the river’s banks, extending from the granite cliffs at Aswan, north to the Mediterranean Sea (see Map 1.6).

Nearly every year, torrential rains caused the river to rise dramatically. Most years, from July to November, the Egyp- tians could count on the Nile flooding their land. When the river receded, deep deposits of fertile silt covered the valley floor. Fields would then be tilled, and crops planted and tended. If no flood occurred for a period of years, famine could result. The cycle of flood and sun made Egypt one of the most productive cultures in the ancient world and one of the most stable. For 3,000 years, from 3100 bce until the

Fig. 1.21 The pyramids of Menkaure (ca. 2470 BCE), Khafre (ca. 2500 BCE), and Khufu (ca. 2530 BCE). Giza was an elaborate complex of ritual temples, shrines, and ceremonial causeways, all leading to one or another of the three giant pyramids.

Watch an architectural simulation of pyramids on myartslab.com

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defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra by the Roman general Octavian in 31 bce, Egypt’s institutions and culture remained remarkably unchanged.

As a result of the Nile’s annual floods, Egypt called itself Kemet, meaning “Black Land.” In Upper Egypt, from Aswan to the Delta, the black, fertile deposits of the river covered an extremely narrow strip of land. Surrounding the river’s al- luvial plain were the “Red Lands,” the desert environment that could not support life, but where rich deposits of min- erals and stone could be mined and quarried. Lower Egypt, consisting of the Delta itself, began some 13 miles north of Giza [GHEE-zuh], the site of the Great Pyramids, across the river from what is now modern Cairo.

In this land of plenty, great farms flourished, and wildlife abounded in the marshes. In fact, the Egyptians linked the marsh to the creation of the world and represented it that way in the famous hunting scene that decorates the tomb of Nebamun [NEB-ah-mun] at Thebes [theebz] (Fig. 1.22). Ne- bamun is about to hurl a snake-shaped throwing stick into a flock of birds as his wife and daughter look on. The painting is a sort of visual pun, referring directly to sexual procreation. The verb “to launch a throwing stick” also means “to ejacu- late,” and the word for “throwing stick” itself, to “create.” The hieroglyphs written between Nebamun and his wife

translate as “enjoying oneself, viewing the beautiful, … at the place of constant renewal of life.”

Scholars divide Egyptian history into three main periods of achievement. Almost all of the conventions of Egyptian art were established during the first period, the Old Kingdom. During the Middle Kingdom, the “classical” literary language that would sur- vive through the remainder of Egyptian his- tory was first produced. The New Kingdom was a period of prosperity that saw a renewed interest in art and architecture. During each of these periods, successive dynasties—or royal houses—brought peace and stability to the country. Between them were “Intermedi- ate Periods” of relative instability.

Egypt’s continuous cultural tradition— lasting over 3,000 years—is history’s clearest example of how peace and prosperity go hand in hand with cultural stability. As opposed to the warring cultures of Mesopotamia, where city-state vied with city-state and empire with successive empire, Egyptian culture was predicated on unity. It was a theocracy,

a state ruled by a god or by the god’s representative—in this case a king (and very occasionally a queen), who ruled as the living representative of the sun god, Re [reh]. Egypt’s govern- ment was indistinguishable from its religion, and its religion manifested itself in nature, in the flow of the Nile, the heat of the sun, and in the journey of the sun through the day and night and through the seasons. In the last judgment of the soul after death, Egyptians believed that the heart was weighed to determine whether it was “found true by trial of the Great Balance.” Balance in all things—in nature, in so- cial life, in art, and in rule—this was the constant aim of the individual, the state, and, Egyptians believed, the gods.

Whereas in Mesopotamia the flood was largely a destruc- tive force, in Egypt it had a more complex meaning. It could, indeed, be destructive, sometimes rising so high that great devastation resulted. But without it, the Egyptians knew, their culture could not endure. So, in Egyptian art and cul- ture, a more complex way of thinking about nature, and about life itself, developed. Every aspect of Egyptian life is countered by an opposite and equal force, which contradicts and negates it, and every act of negation gives rise to its opposite again. As a result, events are cyclical, as abundance is born of devastation and devastation closely follows abun- dance. Likewise, just as the floods brought the Nile Valley

Map 1.6 Nile River Basin with archeological sites in relation to modern Cairo. The broad expanse of the Lower Nile Delta was crisscrossed by canals, allowing for easy transport of produce and supplies.

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back to life each year, the Egyptians believed that rebirth necessarily followed death. So their religion, which played a large part in their lives, reflected the cycle of the river itself.

Eguptian Religion: Cyclical Harmony The religion of ancient Egypt, like that of Mesopotamia, was polytheistic, consisting of many gods and goddesses who were associated with natural forces and realms. When represented, gods and goddesses have human bodies and human or animal heads, and wear crowns or other headgear that identifies them by their attributes. The religion reflected an ordered universe in which the stars and planets, the various gods, and basic hu- man activities were thought to be part of a grand and harmo- nious design. A person who did not disrupt this harmony did not fear death because his or her spirit would live on forever.

At the heart of this religion were creation stories that ex- plained how the gods and the world came into being. Chief among the Egyptian gods was Re, god of the sun. According to these stories, at the beginning of time, the Nile created a great mound of silt, out of which Re was born. It was understood that Re had a close personal relationship with the king, who was considered the son of Re. But the king could also identify closely with other gods. The king was simultaneously believed to be the personification of the sky god, Horus [HOR-us], and was identified with deities associated with places like Thebes or Memphis when his power resided in those cities. Though not a full-fledged god, the king was netjer nefer [net-jer nef-er], literally, a “junior god.” That made him the representative of the people to the gods, whom he contacted through statues of divine beings placed in all temples. Through these statues, Egyptians believed, the gods manifested themselves on earth. Not only did the orderly functioning of social and political events depend upon the king’s successful communication with the gods, but so did events of nature—the ebb and flow of the river chief among them.

Like the king, all the other Egyptian gods descend from Re, as if part of a family. As we have said, many can be traced back to local deities of predynastic times who later assumed greater significance at a given place—at Thebes, for in- stance, the trinity of Osiris, Horus, and Isis gained a special significance. Osiris [oh-SY-ris], ruler of the underworld and god of the dead, was at first a local deity in the eastern Delta. According to myth, he was murdered by his wicked brother Seth, god of storms and violence, who chopped his brother into pieces and threw them into the Nile. But Osiris’s wife

and sister, Isis [EYE-zis], the goddess of fertility, collected all these parts, put the god back together, and restored him to life. Osiris was therefore identified with the Nile itself, with its annual flood and renewal. The child of Osiris and Isis was Horus, who defeated Seth and became the mythical first king of Egypt. The actual, living king was considered the earthly manifestation of Horus (as well as the son of Re). When the living king died, he became Osiris, and his son took the throne as Horus. Thus, even the kingship was cyclical.

At Memphis, the triad of Ptah, Sekhmet, and Nefertum held sway. A stone inscription at Memphis describes Ptah as the supreme artisan and creator of all things (Reading 1.5):

Fig. 1.22 Nebamun Hunting Birds, from the tomb of Nebamun, Thebes. Dynasty 18, ca. 1400 BCE. Fresco on dry plaster, approx. 2’8” high. The British Museum, London. The fish and the birds, and the cat, are completely realistic, but this is not a realistic scene. It is a conventional representation of the deceased, in this case Nebamun, spearing fish or hunting fowl, almost obligatory for the decoration of a tomb. The pigments were applied directly to a dry wall, a technique that has come to be known as fresco secco [FRES-coh SEK-koh], dry fresco. Such paintings are extremely fragile and susceptible to moisture damage, but Egypt’s arid climate has preserved them.

READING 1.5

“This It Is Said of Ptah,” from Memphis, ca. 2300 BCE

This it is said of Ptah: “He who made all and created the gods.” And he is Ta-tenen, who gave birth to the gods, and from whom every thing came forth, foods, provisions, divine offerings, all good things. This it is recognized and understood that he is the mightiest of the gods. Thus Ptah was satisfied after he had made all things and all divine words.

He gave birth to the gods, He made the towns, He established the nomes [provinces], He placed the gods in their shrines, He settled their offerings, He established their shrines, He made their bodies according to their whishes, Thus the gods entered into their bodies, Of every wood, every stone, every clay, Every thing that grows upon him In which they came to be.

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Sekhmet is Ptah’s female companion. Depicted as a lion- ess, she served as protector of the king in peace and war. She is also the mother of Nefertum, a beautiful young man whose name means “perfection,” small statues of whom were often carried by Egyptians for good luck.

The cyclical movement through opposing forces, embod- ied in stories such as that of Osiris and Isis, is one of the earli- est instances of a system of religious and philosophic thought that survives even in contemporary thought. Life and death, flood and sun, even desert and oasis, were part of a larger harmony of nature, one that was predictable both in the di- urnal cycle of day and night and in its seasonal patterns of repetition. A good deity like Osiris was necessarily balanced by a bad deity like Seth. The fertile Nile Valley was balanced by the harsh desert surrounding it. The narrow reaches of the upper Nile were balanced by the broad marshes of the Delta. All things were predicated upon the return of their opposite, which negates them, but which in the process completes the whole and regenerates the cycle of being and becoming once again.

Pictorial Formulas in Egyptian Art This sense of duality, of opposites, informs even the earliest Egyptian artifacts, such as the Palette of Narmer, found at Hi- erakonpolis [hy-ruh-KAHN-puh-liss], in Upper Egypt (see Closer Look, pages 32–33). A palette is technically an ev- eryday object used for grinding pigments and making body or eye paint. The scenes on the Palette of Narmer are in low relief. Like the Royal Standard of Ur (see Fig. 1.16), they are arranged in registers that provide a ground line upon which the figures stand (the two lion-tamers are an exception). The figures typically face to the right, though often, as is the case here, the design is symmetrical, balanced left and right. The artist represents the various parts of the human figure in what the Egyptians thought was their most characteristic view. So, the face, arms, legs, and feet are in profile, with the left foot advanced in front of the right. The eye and shoulders are in front view. The mouth, navel and hips, and knees are in three-quarter view. As a result, the viewer sees each person in a composite view, the integration of multiple perspectives into a single unified image.

In Egyptian art, not only the figures but the scenes them- selves unite two contradictory points of view into a single image. In the Palette of Narmer, the king approaches his dead enemies from the side, but they lie beheaded on the ground before him as seen from above. Egyptian art often represents architecture in the same terms. At the top middle of the Pal- ette of Narmer, the external facade of the palace is depicted simultaneously from above, in a kind of ground plan, with its niched facade at the bottom. The design contains Narmer’s Horus-name, consisting of a catfish and a chisel. The hiero- glyphic signs for Narmer could not be interpreted until the nineteenth century, but we are still not sure whether it is to be read “Narmer,” which are the later phonetic values of the signs. In fact, later meanings of these signs suggest that it might be read “sick catfish,” which seems rather unlikely.

The Old Kingdom Although the Palette of Narmer probably commemorates an event in life, as a votive object it is devoted, like most sur- viving Egyptian art and architecture, to burial and the af- terlife. The Egyptians buried their dead on the west side of the Nile, where the sun sets, a symbolic reference to death and rebirth, since the sun always rises again. The pyramid was the first monumental royal tomb. A massive physical manifestation of the reality of the king’s death, it was also the symbolic embodiment of his eternal life. It would en- dure for generations as, Egyptians believed, would the king’s ka [kah]. This idea is comparable to an enduring “soul” or “life force,” a concept found in many other religions. The ka, which all persons possessed, was created at the same time as the physical body, itself essential for the person’s existence since it provided the ka with an individual iden- tity in which its personality, or ba [bah], might also mani- fest itself. This meant that it was necessary to preserve the body after death so that the ba and ka might still recognize it for eternity. All the necessities of the afterlife, from food

Some of the Principal Egyptian Gods A Horus, son of Osiris, a sky god closely linked with

the king; pictured as a hawk, or hawk-headed man. B Seth, enemy of Horus and Osiris, god of storms;

pictured as an unidentifiable creature (some believe a wild donkey), or a man with this animal’s head.

C Thoth, a moon deity and god of writing, counting, and wisdom; pictured as an ibis, or ibis-headed man, often with a crescent moon on his head.

D Khnum, originally the god of the source of the Nile, pictured as a bull who shaped men out of clay on his potter’s wheel; later, god of pottery.

E Hathor, goddess of love, birth, and death; pictured as a woman with cow horns and a sun disk on her head.

F Sobek, the crocodile god, associated both with the fertility of the Nile, and, because of the feroc- ity of the crocodile, with the army’s power and strength.

G Re, the sun god in his many forms; pictured as a hawk-headed man with a sun disk on his head.

E F GA B C DD

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to furniture to entertainment, were placed in the pyramid’s burial chamber with the king’s body.

Monumental royal sculpture was designed to embody the enduring nature of the royal ka. The word for sculpture in Egyptian is the same as for giving birth. Indeed, funerary sculpture served the same purpose as the pyramids them- selves—to preserve and guarantee the king’s existence after death, thereby providing a kind of rebirth. The stone materi- als used for funerary images had to be the hardest, most dura- ble kind, as enduring as the ka itself. Sandstone or limestone would not do. The materials of choice were diorite, schist, and granite, stones that can also take on a high polish and, because they are not prone to fracture, they can be finely de- tailed when carved. Most Egyptian statues were monolithic (carved out of a single piece of stone), even those depicting more than a single figure. such as the statue of Menkaure with a woman—perhaps his queen, his mother, or even a goddess—that was found at his valley temple at Giza (Fig. 1.23). Here, the deep space created by carving away the side of the stone to expose fully the king’s right side seems to free him from the stone. He stands with one foot ahead of the other in the second traditional pose, the conventional depiction of a standing figure. He is not walking. Both feet are planted firmly on the ground (and so his left leg is, of necessity, slightly longer than his right). His back is firmly implanted in the stone panel behind him, but he seems to have emerged farther from it than the female figure who accompanies him, as if to underscore his power and might. Although the woman is almost the same size as the king, her stride is markedly shorter than his. She embraces him, her arm reaching round his back, in a gesture that reminds us of Horus’s protective embrace of Khafre, but suggests also the simple marital affection of husband and wife. The ultimate effect of this sculpture—its solidity and unity, its sense of resolute purpose—testifies finally to its purpose, which is to endure for eternity.

The New Kingdom and Its Moment of Change Throughout the Middle Kingdom and well into the New Kingdom, Egyptian artistic and religious traditions re- mained intact. But toward the end of the Eighteenth Dy- nasty, Egypt experienced one of the few real crises of its entire history when, in 1353 bce, Amenhotep IV (r. 1353– 1337 bce) assumed the throne of his father Amenhotep III (r. 1391–1353 bce).

Although previous Egyptian kings may have associated themselves with a single god whom they represented in hu- man form, Egyptian religion supported a large number of gods. Even the Nile was worshipped as a god. Amenhotep IV abolished the pantheon of Egyptian gods and established a monotheistic religion in which the sun disk Aten was wor- shipped exclusively. Other gods were still acknowledged, but they were considered to be inferior to Aten to be worth worshipping. This type of monotheism is known as heno- theism. Amenhotep’s new religion may have influenced the Hebrews, whose stay in Egypt was contemporaneous with Amenhotep’s rule.

Fig. 1.23 King Menkaura (Mycerinus) and Queen, Egyptian, Old Kingdom, Dynasty 4, reign of Menkaura, 2490–2472 BC, Egypt, Giza, Menkaura Valley Temple, Greywacke. Overall: 142.2 3 57.1 3 55.2 cm, 676.8 kg (56 3 22½ 3 21¾ in., 1492.1 lb.), Block (Wooden skirts and two top): 53.3 3 180 3 179.7 cm (21 3 707/8 3 70¾ in.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard University—Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, 11.1738. Photograph © 2011 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Note that the woman’s close- fitting attire is nearly transparent, indicating a very fine weave of linen.

Amenhotep IV believed the sun was the creator of all life, and he was so dedicated to Aten that he changed his own name to Akhenaten [ah-ken-AH-ten] (“The Shining Spirit of Aten”) and moved the capital of Egypt from Thebes to a site many miles north that he also named Akhetaten (mod- ern Tell el-Amarna). This move transformed Egypt’s politi- cal and cultural as well as religious life. At this new capital he presided over the worship of Aten as a divine priest and his queen as a divine priestess. Temples to Aten were open courtyards, where the altar received the sun’s direct rays.

Why would Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten have substituted monotheism for Egypt’s traditional polytheistic religion? Many Egyptologists argue that the switch had to do with

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CLOSER LOOK

The Egyptians created a style of writing very different from that of their northern neighbors in Mesopotamia. It consists of hieroglyphs, “writing of the gods,” from the Greek hieros, meaning “holy,” and gluphein, “to engrave.” Although the number of signs increased over the centuries from about 700 to nearly 5,000, the system of symbolic com- munication underwent almost no major changes from its ad- vent in the fourth millennium bce until 395 ce, when Egypt was conquered by the Byzantine Empire. It consists of three kinds of signs: pictograms, or stylized drawings that represent objects or beings, which can be combined to express ideas; phonograms, which are pictograms used to represent sounds; and determinatives, signs used to indicate which category of objects or beings is in question. The Palette of Narmer is

an early example of the then-developing hieroglyphic style. It consists largely of pictograms, though in the top center of each side, Narmer’s name is represented as a phonogram.

The round circle formed by the two elongated lions’ heads intertwined on the recto, or front, of the palette is a bowl for mixing pigments. The palette celebrates the defeat by Narmer (r. ca. 3000 bce) of his enemies and his unification of both Upper and Lower Egypt, which before this time had been at odds. So on the recto side, Narmer wears the red cobra crown of Lower Egypt, and on the verso, or back, he wears the white crown of Upper Egypt—representing his ability (and duty) to harmonize antagonistic elements.

Narmer’s Palette was not meant for actual use. Rather, it is a votive, or ritual object, a gift to a god or goddess that was

Flanking the top of each side of the palette is a goddess wearing cow’s horns; such head dresses represent the divine attributes of the figure. Later, Hathor, the sky mother, a goddessembodying all female qualities, would possess these attributes, but this early image probably represents the cow-goddess, Bat.

The mace was the chief weapon used by the king to strike down enemies, and the scene here is emblematic of his power.

As on the other side of the palette, the king is here accompanied by his sandal- bearer, who stands on his own ground- line. He carries the king’s sandals to indicate that the king, who is barefoot, stands on sacred ground, and that his acts are themselves sacred.

Narmer, wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, strikes down his enemy, probably the embodiment of Lower Egypt itself, especially since he is, in size, comparable to Narmer himself, suggesting he is likewise a leader.

The hawk is a symbolic representation of the god Horus. The king was regarded as the earthly embodiment of Horus. Here, Horus has a human hand with which he holds a rope tied to a symbolic representation of a conquered land and people.

A human head grows from the same ground as six papyrus blossoms, symbol of Lower Egypt. Each blossom represents 1,000 prisoners held captive by the Horus/king.

Two more figures represent the defeated enemy. Behind the one on the left is a small aerial view of a fortified city; behind the one on the right, a gazelle trap. Perhaps together they represent Narmer’s victory over both city and countryside.

Palette of Narmer, verso side, from Hierakonpolis. Dynasty 1, ca. 3000 BCE. Schist, height 25¼“. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

This hieroglyph identifies the man that Narmer is about to kill, a name otherwise unknown.

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Reading the Palette of Narmer

Something to Think About . . . Do you see any connection between the Egyptian king Narmer and the depiction of kings in Mesopotamia?

placed in a temple to ensure that the king, or perhaps some temple official, would have access to a palette throughout eternity. It may or may not register actual historical events, although, in fact, Egypt marks its beginnings with the unifi- cation of its Upper and Lower territories. Subsequent kings, at any rate, presented themselves in almost identical terms, as triumphing over their enemies, mace in hand, even though they had no role in a similar military campaign. It is even possible that by the time of Narmer such conventions were already in place, although our system of numbering Egyptian

dynasties begins with him. Whetever the symbolism of the scene depicted, the pictorial formulas, or conventions of rep- resentation, that Egyptian culture used for the rest of its his- tory are fully developed in this piece.

This is the mixing bowl of the palette. The lions may represent competing forces brought under control by the king. Each is held in check by one of the king’s lion-tamers, figures that in some sense represent state authority.

The defeated dead lie in two rows, their decapitated heads between their feet. Narmer in sacred procession reviews them, while above them, a tiny Horus (the hawk) looks on.

The hieroglyph next to this figure identifies him as the king’s vizier, the highest official of royal administration.

These are two instances of the hieroglyphic sign for Narmer, consisting of a catfish above a chisel. Each individual hieroglyph is a pictogram but is utilized here for its phonetic sound. The word for “catfish” is nar, and the word for “chisel” is mer—hence “Narmer.” In the lower instance, the hieroglyph identifies the king. In the instance at the top, the king’s name is inside a depiction of his palace seen simultaneously from above, as a ground plan, and from the front, as a facade. This device, called a serekh, is traditionally used to hold the king’s name.

We are able to identify Narmer not only from his hieroglyphic name, next to him, but by his relative size. As befits the king, he is larger than anyone else.

Similarly positioned on the other side of the palette and identified by the accompanying hieroglyph, this is the king’s sandal-bearer.

The bull here strikes down his victim and is another representation of the king’s might and power. Note that in the depictions of Narmer striking down his victim and in procession, a bull’s tail hangs from his waistband.

This is a representation of a fortified city as seen both from above, as a floor plan, and from the front, as a facade. It is meant to represent the actual site of Narmer’s victory.

Palette of Narmer, recto side, from Hierakonpolis. Dynasty 1, ca. 3000 BCE. Schist, height 25¼“. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 33

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Akhenaten had Marfan’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder that leads to skeletal abnormalities.) This depiction contrasts sharply with the idealized depictions of the pharaohs in earlier periods. Akhenaten holds one of his children in his arms and seems to have just kissed her. His two other chil- dren sit with the queen across from him, one turning to speak with her mother, the other touching the queen’s cheek. The queen herself, Nefertiti [nef-er-TEE-tee], sits only slightly below her husband and appears to share his position and au- thority. In fact, one of the most striking features of the Ama- rna style is Nefertiti’s prominence in the decoration of the king’s temples. In one, for example, she is shown slaughtering prisoners, an image traditionally reserved for the king him- self. It is likely that her prominence was part of Akhenaten’s attempt to substitute the veneration of his own family (who, after all, represent Aten on earth) for the traditional Amun- Mut-Khonsu family group.

The Return to Thebes and to Tradition Akhenaten’s revolu- tion was short-lived. Upon his death, Tutankhaten (r. 1336– 1327 bce ), probably Akhenaten’s son, assumed the throne and changed his name to Tutankhamun (indicating a return to the more traditional gods, in this case Amun). The new king abandoned el-Amarna, moved the royal family to Mem- phis in the north, and reaffirmed Thebes as the nation’s reli- gious center. He died shortly after and was buried on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes, near the tomb of Hatshepsut.

Tutankhamun’s is the only royal tomb in Egypt to have escaped the discovery of looters. When Howard Carter and

enhancing the power of the pharaoh. With the pharaoh representing the one god who mattered, all religious justifi- cation for the power held by a priesthood dedicated to the traditional gods was gone. As we have seen, the pharaoh was traditionally associated with the sun god Re. Now in the form of the sun disk Aten, Re was the supreme deity, embodying the characteristics of all the other gods, therefore rendering them superfluous. By analogy, Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten was now supreme priest, rendering all other priests superflu- ous as well. Simultaneously, the temples dedicated to the other gods lost prestige and influence. These changes also converted the priests into dissidents.

A New Art: The Amarna Style Such significant changes had a powerful effect on the visual arts as well. Previously, Egyptian art had been remarkably stable because its principles were con- sidered a gift of the gods—thus perfect and eternal. But now, the perfection of the gods was in question, and the principles of art were open to reexamination as well. A new art replaced the traditional canon of proportion—the familiar poses of king and queen—with realism, and a sense of immediacy, even in- timacy. So Akhenaten allowed himself to be portrayed with startling realism, in what has become known, from the modern name for the new capital, as the Amarna style.

For example, in a small relief from his new capital, Akhenaten has a skinny, weak upper body, and his belly protrudes over his skirt; his skull is elongated behind an ex- tremely long, narrow facial structure; and he sits in a slumped, almost casual position (Fig. 1.24). (One theory holds that

Fig. 1.24 Akhenaten and His Family, from Akhetaten (modern Tell el- Amarna). Dynasty 18, ca. 1345 BCE. Painted limestone relief, 12¾“ X 147/8“ Staatliche Museen su Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ägyptisches Museum. Between Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti, the sun disk Aten shines down beneficently. Its rays end in small hands, which hold the ankh symbol for life before both the king and queen.

View the Closer Look for Akhenaten and his Family on myartslab.com

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 35

Lord Carnarvon discovered it under the tomb of the Twenti- eth Dynasty king Ramses VI in the valley of the Kings near Dier el-Bahri, they found a coffin consisting of three sepa- rate coffins placed one inside the other (Fig. 1.25). These were in turn encased in a quartzite sarcophagus, a rectangular stone coffin that was encased in four gilded, boxlike wooden shrines, also placed one inside the other. In their rigid for- mality, the coffins within, each depicting the king, hark back to the traditional Egyptian art of the Middle Kingdom.

The elaborate burial process was not meant solely to guar- antee survival of the king’s ka and ba. It also prepared him for a “last judgment,” a belief system that would find expres- sion in the Hebrew faith as well. In this two-part ritual, dei- ties first questioned the deceased about their behavior in life. Then their hearts, the seat of the ka, were weighed against an ostrich feather, symbol of Maat [mah-aht], the goddess of truth, justice, and order. Egyptians believed the heart con- tained all the emotions, intellect, and character of the indi- vidual, and so represented both the good and bad aspects of a person’s life. If the heart did not balance with the feather, then the dead person was condemned to nonexistence, to be eaten by a creature called Ammit [AH-mit], the vile “Eater of the Dead,” part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopota- mus. Osiris, wrapped in his mummy robes, oversaw this mo- ment of judgment. Tut himself, depicted on his sarcophagus with his crossed arms holding crook and flail, was clearly identified with Osiris.

Fig. 1.25 Funerary mask of Tutankhamun. Dynasty 18, ca. 1327 BCE. Gold inlaid with glass and semiprecious stones, height 21¼”. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. This death mask was placed over the upper body of the mummified king which rested inside three other coffins, the innermost of which was made of solid gold.

THINKING BACK

What features characterize the beginnings of human culture? The widespread use of stone tools and weapons by

Homo sapiens, the hominid species that evolved around 120,000–100,000 years ago, gives rise to the name of the earliest era of human development, the Paleolithic era. Carvers fashioned stone figures, both in the round and in relief. In cave paintings, such as those discovered at Chauvet Cave, the artists’ great skill in rendering ani- mals helps us to understand that the ability to represent the world with naturalistic fidelity is an inherent human skill, unrelated to cultural sophistication. Culture can be defined as a way of living—religious, social, and/or politi- cal— formed by a group of people and passed on from one generation to the next. What can the earliest art tell us about the first human cultures? What questions remain a mystery?

What is the role of myth in prehistoric cultures? Much of our understanding of the role of myth in pre-

historic cultures derives from the traditions of contempo- rary Native American tribes, which still survive in tribes such as the Hopi and Zuni, who are the direct descendants of the Anasazi. Their legends encapsulate the fundamen- tal religious principles of the culture. Such stories, and the ritual practices that accompany them, reflect the gen- eral beliefs of most Neolithic peoples. Can you describe

some of these beliefs? What role do sacred sites play, such as those at Ise in Japan?

What characteristics distinguish the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, and how do they differ from that of the Hebrews?

The royal tombs at the Sumerian city of Ur reveal a highly developed Bronze Age culture, based on the social order of the city-state, which was ruled by a priest-king acting as the intermediary between the gods and the peo- ple. The rulers also established laws and encouraged re- cord keeping, which in turn required the development of a system of writing known as cuneiform script. In Sumer and subsequent Mesopotamian cultures monumental structures such as ziggurats were dedicated to the gods, and in each city-state one of the gods rose to prominence as the city’s protector. How would you characterize the general relationship between Mesopotamian rulers and the gods? The Hebrews practiced a monotheistic religion. They considered themselves the “chosen people” of God, whom they called Yahweh. The written word is central to their culture, and it is embodied in a body of law, the Torah. What does the Torah have in common with the Law Code of Hammurabi? How does it differ? How do the stories in Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, compare to the Epic of Gilgamesh?

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over 3,000 years. Can you describe this belief in terms of cyclical harmony? How does the Egyptian religion reflect this belief system? Most surviving Egyptian art and archi- tecture was devoted to burial and the afterlife, the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. In what way do the statues of Egyptian kings and queens reflect this?

What accounts for the stability of Egyptian culture? The annual cycle of flood and sun, the inundation of

the Nile River valley that annually deposited deep layers of silt, followed by months of sun in which crops could grow in the fertile soil, helped to define Egyptian culture. This predictable cycle helped to create a cultural belief in the stability and balance of all things that lasted for

GLOSSARY

agency The idea that an object possesses qualities that help to effect change. animism The belief that the forces of nature are inhabited by living spirits. anthropomorphism The practice of investing plants, animals, and natural phenomena with human form or attributes. ba In ancient Egypt, an idea comparable to a person’s personality. civilization A culture that possesses the ability to organize it- self thoroughly and communicates through written language. composite Made up of distinct parts. cromlech A circle of megalilths, usually surrounding a mound. culture The set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that governs or determines a common way of living formed by a group of people and passed on from one generation to the next. cuneiform writing A writing system composed of wedge-shaped single characters. determinative A sign used in Egyptian hieroglyphics to indi- cate the category of an object or being. emergence tale A type of narrative that explains beliefs about a people’s origins. epic A long narrative poem in an elevated language that follows characters of a high position through a series of adven- tures, often including a visit to the world of the dead. epithet A word or phrase that characterizes a person. ground line A baseline. hieratic scale A pictorial convention in which the most im- portant figures are represented in a larger size than the others. hieroglyph A sign used in hieroglyphic writing, a writing system consisting mainly of pictorial characters. hunter-gatherer One whose primary method of subsistence depends on hunting animals and gathering edible plants and other foodstuffs from nature. ka In ancient Egypt, an idea comparable to “soul” or “life force.” kiva A Pueblo ceremonial enclosure that is usually partly underground and serves as the center of village life. megalith Literally, “big stone”; large, usually rough, stones used in a monument or structure. menhir A large, single, upright stone.

metaphor A word or phrase used in place of another to suggest a likeness. modeling The use of shading in a two-dimensional representa- tion to give a sense of roundness and volume. myth A story that a culture assumes is true. A myth also em- bodies the culture’s views and beliefs about its world. narrative genre A class or category of story with a universal theme. naturalism In art, representations that imitate the reality in appearance of natural objects. oral culture A culture that develops without writing and passes down stories, beliefs, values, and systems by word of mouth. patriarch A scriptural father of the Hebrew people. perspectival drawing The use of techniques to show the rela- tion of objects as they appear to the eye and to convey a sense of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. phonogram A pictogram used to represent a sound. pictogram A drawing that represents an object or being, often combined in hieroglyphic writing to express ideas. prehistoric Existing in or relating to the times before writing and recorded history. prophet One who serves as a mouthpiece for and interpreter of Yahweh’s purposes, which are understood through visions. register A self-contained horizontal band. ritual A rite or ceremony habitually practiced by a group, of- ten in a religious or quasi-religious context. shaman A person thought to have special ability to communi- cate with the spirit world. simile A comparison of two unlike things using the word like or as. social perspective See hierarchy of scale stele An upright stone slab carved with a commemorative design or inscription. votive A ritual object associated with the attainment of a wish or desire. ziggurat A pyramidal temple structure consisting of successive platforms with outside staircases and a shrine at the top.

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CHAPTER 1 The Prehistoric Past and the Earliest Civilizations 37

& Egyptian and Greek Sculpture

F reestanding Greek sculpture of the Archaic period—that is, sculpture dating from about 600–480 bce—is notable for its stylistic connections to 2,000 years of Egyptian tradition. The Late Period statue of Mentuemhet [men-too-em-het] (Fig. 1.26), from Thebes, dating from around 2500 bce, differs hardly at all from Old Kingdom sculpture at Giza (see Fig. 1.23), and even though the Ana- vysos [ah-NAH-vee-sus] Kouros (Fig. 1.27), from a cemetery near Athens, represents a significant advance in relative nat- uralism over the Greek sculpture of just a few years before, it still resembles its Egyptian ancestors. Remarkably, since it follows upon the Anavysos Kouros by only 75 years, the Do- ryphoros [dor-IF-uh-ros] (Spear Bearer) (Fig. 1.28) is signifi- cantly more naturalistic. Although this is a Roman copy of

CONTINUITY CHANGE

a lost fifth-century bce bronze Greek statue, we can assume it reflects the original’s naturalism, since the original’s sculp- tor, Polyclitus [pol-ih-KLY-tus], was renowned for his ability to render the human body realistically. But this advance, characteristic of Golden Age Athens, represents more than just a cultural taste for naturalism. As we will see in the next chapter, it also represents a heightened cultural sensitivity to the worth of the individual, a belief that as much as we value what we have in common with one another—the bond that creates the city-state—our individual contributions are at least of equal value. By the fifth century bce, the Greeks clearly understood that individual genius and achievement could be a matter of civic pride. ■

Fig. 1.26 Montuemhet, from Karnak, Thebes, ca. 660 BCE. Granite, height 54”. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Fig. 1.27 Anavysos Kouros, from a cemetery at Anavysos [ah-NAH-vee- sus], near Athens. ca. 525 BCE. Marble with remnants of paint, height 6’ 4”. National Archaeological Museum, Athens;

Fig. 1.28 Doryphoros (Spear Bearer), Roman copy after the original bronze by Polyclitus of ca. 450–440 BCE. Marble, height 6’6”. Museo Archeològico Nazionale, Naples.

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