Sumerian Art Illustrated by Objects From Ur and Alubaid
The region located between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates that ancient Greeks called Mesopotamia ("Country between rivers"), was the nucleus of a powerful civilization only comparable to that of Aboriginal Egypt. Merely while Egyptian art enjoyed ethnic homogeneity and geographical autonomy that immune it to experience an isolated development in a straight line, Mesopotamian art is the product of a cracking ethnic diversity (Sumerians, Semitics, Indo-Europeans) and major historical events that extraordinarily influenced its evolution and produced an amazing diverseness of art forms and styles.
There was no stone or wood in the great evidently bathed by the Tigris and Euphrates, only clay transported by rivers. With this clay Mesopotamians made sun-dried bricks and to a much lesser extent they also made bricks "cooked" in ovens: "… And they used bricks instead of stones…" nosotros read in theBook of Genesis. This explains why throughout millennia the ancient cities were transformed into unformed dirt mounds that the natives afterward calledtells and under which the legendary cities were plant.
The early history (or Protohistory) of Mesopotamia lasted from the last times of Prehistory until about 3000 BCE when the invention of writing made possible the appearance of the first written documents, an episode that marked the starting time of true Historic times. The Protohistoric period lasted most 2000 years from which there are just some cups and plates made of painted ceramic. The primeval findings which illustrate the Protohistoric period came from the site of Hassuna from around the fifth millennium BCE. Information technology was then when groups of nomads became sedentary, dedicated to agriculture and livestock, and congenital the kickoff houses. In Hassuna were found diverse tools used in daily life and busy with abstract ornamentations whose development led to the wonderful drawings of the pottery called of the "Susa way" which belongs to the quaternary millennium BCE. These cups have drawings in bistre and black tones fabricated with brushes on a xanthous background. These drawings sometimes resembled stylized natural forms (palm leaves, birds, and quadrupeds) but represented mostly geometric compositions. These cups or vessels from the "Susa style" were characterized by their frail contour that sometimes recalls a beaker, and for their abstract decoration inspired by abstract or highly stylized naturalistic themes.
All these testimonies of the origins of the Mesopotamian civilization came from the northern part of the country, only in 1946-1949 was found the ancient Sumerian urban center of Eridu located at the southward in the delta of the rivers and close to the Persian Gulf. In this city archaeologists discovered no less than 18 temples superimposed on each other all in the same place. The temples of the deepest levels were built past an unknown people m years earlier the Sumerians came to the state. The temple of the Xvi level (the numbering starts with the surface, that is, by the about mod levels) has allowed the reconstruction of a edifice'southward structure whose floor program was impressive. This religious edifice of Eridu, the oldest known, belongs to the fifth millennium BCEand had already the elements that throughout various civilizations and human being history take been used until this day: a gateway or door leading to a nave at the lesser of which there is a foursquare alcove* with the god'due south altar*. The only special characteristic of these earlier times is that in the nave there was a tabular array for offerings. Christian worship has removed this element considering in its liturgy the altar is both sacrifice table and residence of the divinity.
The oldest Mesopotamian sculpture gives us the epitome of the gods of the Protohistoric period in the form of small clay figurines. The first figurines were institute in the deeper layers of Ur, the not bad Sumerian capital letter. These clay figurines representing women with bird or snake heads were slender naked women, standing, and with their hands resting on their narrow waists. They had small and high breasts and the pubic triangle was strongly marked. These strange representations of the fourth millennium corresponded to primitive dreams and fears clearly illustrated in this early stage of this civilisation. The vessels were painted but with abstract forms. In sculpture, figurative forms were accepted, though with an essential condition: the subject represented did not belong to the real visible earth.
Another similar representation from ca. early 3rd millennium BCE is a monster in crystalline stone held at the Brooklyn Museum. Here a human body, without any indication of sex, exhibits a lioness head. This terminal piece, which belongs to the terminate of the Protohistoric period, was the piece of work of Sumerian people. Nobody knows where they came from or to which ethnic grouping they belonged to. What it is certain is that they were not Semites which were tribes that occupied the north of the country around the aforementioned time Sumerians populated the area of the delta. Their physical advent is familiar to us for the many carved images they made of themselves: they were robust, had a directly nose, and completely shaved their heads. This final characteristic totally differentiated them from the Semites to whom they chosen "black heads" because of their long hair and curly beards. The Semites were nevertheless nomadic herders that sometimes penetrated deep into Sumerian territory. Abraham was born in one of these Semitic nomadic groups that later arrived to Ur.
The cease of the Protohistoric period is represented by the oldest remains of Kish and those of the showtime dynasty of Uruk. It is the flow to which the monster of the Brooklyn Museum belongs. The identify the Bible calls Erek includes the remains of a series of temples that demonstrate how compages had a cracking development in the easily of the Sumerians. Some of these temples had columns covered with mosaics* forming geometric drawings (zigzags, triangles, and rhombuses) in black, white or cerise. One of them, called the "White Temple" stood on an bogus hill of over twelve feet high. This is the starting time try to build a ladder between earth and sky to ensure at all costs the descent of the gods. This monument is the oldest known prototype of the vertical architectures which characterized for three m years the Mesopotamian sacred buildings: the ziggurats*, giant multi-story towers, which are echoed in the Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible.
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Altar:Whatsoever construction upon which offerings such as sacrifices are fabricated for religious purposes, and by extension the 'Holy table' of post-reformation Anglican churches. Altars are usually constitute at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship.
Alcove: From Latinabsis: meaning "arch" or "vault" is a semicircular recess of a building covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome. In church architecture designates a semi-circular or polygonal ending of the principal building located at the liturgical east finish where the altar is.
Mosaic:A piece of art or epitome fabricated from the aggregation of small pieces of colored drinking glass, stone, or other materials. It is often used in decorative art or as interior ornamentation. Nearly mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square, pieces of stone or glass of dissimilar colors, known astesserae. Some, especially floor mosaics, are made of small rounded pieces of stone, and called "pebble mosaics". Mosaics accept a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE. Mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, both in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Early Christian basilicas from the 4th century onwards were decorated with wall and ceiling mosaics. Mosaic art flourished in the Byzantine Empire from the 6th to the 15th centuries. Mosaic fell out of manner in the Renaissance. Mosaic was likewise widely used on religious buildings and palaces in early Islamic fine art. Mosaic went out of style in the Islamic world afterwards the 8th century.
Ziggurat: Colossal religious buildings from the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, with the form of a terraced footstep pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.
Source: https://arsartisticadventureofmankind.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/sumerian-art-protohistory-of-mesopotamia/
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