Ziggurat

In ancient Mesopotamia, a tall stepped tower of earthen material, often supporting a shrine or temple.

functioned symbolically as lofty bridges between earth and the heavens - meeting place for humans and their gods.

Mastaba

A flat-topped, one story structure with slanted walls built over an ancient Egyptian underground tomb or burial chamber.

First constructed of mud brick, but toward the end of the third dynasty, many incorporated cut stone, al least asan exterior facing.

Sarcophagus

A stone coffin.  Often decorated with relief sculpture.

Serdab

In ancient Egpytian tombs, the small room in which the ka statue of the deceased is placed.

Necropolis

A large cemetery or burial ground.  Literally, a city of dead.

Step pyramid

Resembles the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, it differs in both meaning (signifying a stairway to the sun god Ra) and purpose (protecting a tomb).

Crenellation

Alternating high and low sections of wall, giving a notched appearance and creating permanent defensive shields on top of a fortified building.

Votive figures

An image created as a devotional offering to a deity.

Lamassu

Supernatural guardian-protector of ancient Near Eastern palaces and throne rooms, often represented sculpurally as a combination of the bearded head of a man, powerful body of a lion or bull, wings of an eagle, and the horned headdress of a god, usually possessing five legs.

Rock cut tombs

During the 11th and 12th dynasties, members of the nobility and high level officials commissioned tombs hollowed out of the face pf a cliff.

Cuneiform

An early form of writing with wedge shaped marks impressed into wet clay with a stylus, primarily used by ancient Mesopotamians.

Clerestory

A row of tall, narrow windows in the upper walls.

Megaron

Architectural unit that was axial in plan, consisting of a large room, entered through a porch with columns and sometimes a vestibul.

mycenaean culture

Rhyton

Ritual significance, vessels used for pouring liquids.

Buon fresco

A painting technique in which water based pigments are applied to a plaster surface.  If the plaster is painted when wet, the color is absorbed by the plaster, becoming a permanent part of the wall.

Painting on dry plaster, and the color eventually flake off is fresco secco.

Hypostyle hall

A vast hall filled with columns and an inner offering hall and sanctuary.

Colonnade

A row of columns supporting a lintel or a series of arches.

Axial plan

Arranged along a dominate center line, creating a processional path.

Ka

Essential part of every human personality, its life force, or soul.

Stele

A stone slab placed vertically and decorated with inscriptions or reliefs.  Used as a grave marker or commemorative monument.

Hieroglyphs

Picture writing; words and ideas rendered in the form of pictorial symbols.

Sunken relief

When an image is carved below the original surface of the background, which is not cut away.

Labrys

double axe