Dolmen Tomb, 3,000-2,500 B.C.

• Tomb Architecture exemplifies the first and oldest architectural format in western culture.
• Post-and-lentil architecture.
• Corbeling--The prototype of the arch.

Passage Grave, 3,000 - 2,500 B.C.

• Tomb Architecture exemplifies the first and oldest architectural format in western culture. Post-and-lentil architecture.
• Corbeling--The prototype of the arch.

Stonehenge, 2,750 - 1,500 B.C.

• Thought to be built by the Beaker People.
• Post and lintel architecture.
• Perfect circle, 330 ft. in diameter.
• Outer circle, sandstone, quarried 25 miles from the site. The inner stones are bluish dolerite, quarried 150 miles away in wales.
• Horse and Sun Chariot.
• The result of 3, possibly 4 building campaigns.

Votive Figures from Square Temple,

Tell Asmar, Iraq. 2900-2600 B.C.

• Earliest example of proxy worship.
• Leave the statues in the temple for extended worship.
• Big blue eyes, wide awake, watching for the gods.

Head of Akkadian Ruler, (Naram-Sin?) 2300 - 2200 B.C.

• Change in the political structure
• First absolute monarchy
• Concept of a God-King.
• Ritual Mutilation
• Images believed to have the same power and authority as the individual.

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin 2254 - 2218 B.C.

• Horn helmet declares that he is a God.
• The bull horn is a symbol of devine power and authority
• Naram-Sin
• Earliest Landscape.

Stele of Hammurabi, Iran, 1792 - 1750 B.C.

• Major Sun God--Shamash
• Ziggurat Throne.
• His crown is made of multiple horns, god-king.
• Hammurabi is making a covenant and being given a rope ring and wooden stick--symbols of temperal power.
• Symbolic of the sovereign's marriage to the people.
• Measuring stick
• You measure a man by his word, and the word of the king is law.
• First written code/law.

Winged Human-Headed Bull, Khorsabad 750 B.C.

• Crown with horns, powerful, swift, God-King.

• Meant to torture, not to kill.
• Nobility, still trying to fight.
• Assyrians, vicious warriors.

Ishtar Gate from Babylon, 570 B.C.

• Modern reconstruction.
• Neo-Babylon.
• Half the size of the original gate.
• Two of the wonders of the ancient world are in babylon-- this gate and the Hanging Gardens.

• Earliest record of a historical figure named.
• The founder of the first dynasty.
• A cosmetic case for eyeliner, used to keep out the glaring sun, also a symbol of status and power
• Believed to provide a protective barrier against infection and such.
• Much larger than the usual case--ritual religious practice, burial?

Funerary Complex pf Djoser, 2681 - 2662 B.C.

• Step-pyramid--First pyramid ever built and first stone block building of it's kind.
• 200 feet tall.
• A giant stairway to heaven.
• It began as a mastaba, but was enlarged twice.

Pyramid of Khufu 2601 - 2578 B.C.

• Polished limestone shined as far away as the mountains of Israel
• The original facing stones were pulled down in the medieval period and used to build the city of Cairo--lost all the heiroglyphs; theory.
• The door weighs over 20 tons, and so perfectly balanced that you cold open it with just a light touch.
• 480 feet with the facing stones--Twice the height of the church office building.
• When the cardinal points come together at the top, it is off by less than one degree. Essentially perfect. Perfectly level too--It never varies more than an eighth of an inch.
• 2.5 million blocks of stone
• Average weight 2.3 tons per block.
• 2.5 million blocks, Completed in 20 years, A new block had to be placed every 2.5 min.
• Plundered by the priests, The tomb is void of any hieroglyphs
• Not built with slaves, but paid workers.

Hippopotamus Hunt, Tomb of Ti, 5th Dynasty, Saqqara 2510--2460 B.C.

• Wild life in the Nile delta and the landscape floating in the air.
• Old Kingdom Egypt.

Paintings from the Tomb of Nebamun, Thebes 1400 B.C.

• Fowling scene.
• New Kingdom Egypt.

Akhenaton 1348 B.C. Amarna Period

• Hourglass figure, elongated face and figure, thin arms, dreamy expression, long thin bridge of the nose, and thick lips.
• Outlaws the religion, dismiss the priesthood, closes the temples, and initiates the religion of the One True God--Aten; Single priest, and priestess, King and Queen.
• Genderless God, gender ambiguity.
• New capitol--Akhenaten.
• After he died, his religion and way of life died with him, everything went back to the way it was. Akhenaten was declared a heretic and his name was erased.

• Series of islands around the island of Delos, the birthplace of Apollo.
• Cyladic.

Palace Complex, Knossos, Crete 1550 - 1450 B.C.

• This site has been occupied since Neolithic times.
• This is where Minos and the Minotaur lived.
• No main entrance, like a maze.
• Red Minoan columns, the base is at the top instead of the bottom.
• Lights wells and air shafts.
• Oldest throne, priest-king.

Bull Leapers Fresco, 1550 - 1450 B.C.

• Minoan
• Contour style, powerful animal, graceful still.

Octopus Vase 1500 B.C.

• Using the curves of the pottery to make it look like it  moves.
• Human eyes.
• Minoan.

Vaphio Cups 1650 - 1450 B.C.

• The bull again, beautiful, Greek artist working in the Minoan style, or a Minoan artist.
• Pure gold.

Lion Gate, 1300 - 1200 B.C.

• Mycenaen
• Mycenae was thought to be mythological.
• Central in the Iliad.
• Cyclopean masonry--Couldn't fit a knife between the stones in the wall around Mycenae.