Download Art History Week 2 The Art of Mesopotamia and Egypt Homework: 1

Art History
Week 2
The Art of Mesopotamia and Egypt
Homework: 1. Read p. 37-47.
2. Complete the Study Guide (the other handout) questions and definitions
for Ch. 2a. It is due next week (Week 3)
3.You have 2 weeks to complete this set of question since it covers
Mesopotamia and Egypt (Week 4)
Visual Analysis
1. Using the figure of Narmer on the Palette of Narmer (figure 2-14), describe the
Egyptian conventions for representing a standing human figure.
2. Briefly contrast the political history of the Mesopotamia and Egypt. Which was
more stable? Explain your answer.
3. Why do you think Akhenaten permitted artists to depict his unusual physical
characteristics so candidly?
4. Describe the relationship between material and form in the Votive State of Gudea
as seen in figure 2-10.
5. Describe how the shape of the Stele of Naramsin (figure 2-9) is used as a dynamic
part of the work's composition.
6. The Bull Lyre in (figure 2-6) refers to several different arts in which the people of
Ur were accomplished. Name them and explain how the object in (figure 2-8)
makes reference to the various arts.
7. Mesopotamian figures often seem to be derived from a cylinder form. Egyptian
figures more often appear to derive from a block form. Why do you think this is
so?
8. Egyptian architectural history seems preoccupied with tombs and burial. What are
the chief concerns of Mesopotamian architecture?
9. Which of the various Mesopotamian powers appear to have been most war-like?
Explain how you arrived at your answer.
Artists and Works
1. The sculptors of the Eshnunna votive statues simplified the faces, bodies, and
dress to emphasize the __________ shapes of the figures.
a. rectangular
b. cylindrical
c. sharp, angular
2. The shape of the Stela of Naramsin is used as a dynamic part of the __________
of the sculpture.
a. imbalance
b. composition
c. coloring
3. The White Temple was erected atop the __________.
a. Nanna Ziggurat
b. Anu Ziggurat
Art History – Week 2, p. 1
c. stepped pyramid of Djoser
4. The votive statue of Gudea illustrated in figure 2-10 was dedicated to __________.
a. the god Shamash
b. the goddess Geshtinanna, the divine poet and
interpreter of dreams
c. Assurbanipal
5. On the Palette of Narmer, many figures are shown in poses that would be
___________.
a. impossible toassume in real life
b. often seen in a relaxed environment
c. appropriate for a garden party
6. The Egyptian conventions dealing with which point of view best represented a part of a
figure were sometimes relaxed in representing __________.
a. kings
b. persons of lesser social rank
c. queens and other high court officials
7. The basic shape of Khafre is best described as __________.
a. rectilinear and block-like
b. cylindrical
c. organic and free flowing
8. The figures of Menkaure and Khamerernebty are visually joined ___________.
a. by a representation of the falcon-god Horus that merges with
the headdresses of the couple
b. by the queen’s symbolic gesture of embrace
c. by the double throne on which they sit
9. Egypt's most famous funerary structures are __________.
a. the structures around the hypostyle hall at Karnak
b. the Great Pyramids at Giza
c. the buildins of the complex at Saqqara
10. Next to each of the pyramids at Giza was a funerary temple connected by a
causeway to __________.
a. the highway back to Cairo
b. a valley temple on the bank of the Nile
c. the pyramid next to it
Artists and Patrons
1. The size of Naramsin, in relation to the other figures in the Stela of Naramsin, is a
good example of ___________.
a. naëve art
Art History – Week 2, p. 2
b. a mistake introduced by having more than one sculptor work on a
single piece
c. hieratic scale
2. The Ptolemaic period of Egyptian history ended with the famous queen
__________.
a. Assurbanipal
b. Cleopatra
c. Hammurabi
3. Sumerian temple staff and merchants not only invented cuneiform writing, they
developed flat stamps and more elaborate __________ seals for securing the
identifying documents and signaling property ownership.
a. cylinder-form
b. wax
c. triangular
4. In both Egypt and Mesopotamia, __________ became the chief basis of wealth.
a. agriculture
b. trade
c. art
5. The peoples of the ancient Near East were polytheistic, which means that they
worshipped__________.
a. many gods and goddesses
b. a priest class
c. one special protective deity
6. Probably the Sumerians' greatest contribution to civilization was their invention
of _________.
a. art
b. a writing system
c. the wheel
7. People who could afford to commissioned a votive figure and placed it in a god's
shrine--as, for example, the statues from the Square Temple, Eshnunna. It is
believed that these figures represented __________.
a. dead children
b. themselves, the people who commissioned the statues
c. the wheel
8. Cyrus II was ruler of the __________ Empire.
a. Persia
b. Egyptian
c. Assyrian
Art History – Week 2, p. 3
9. Assurbanipal and His Queen in the Garden is actually a ____________, a fact
underscored by a grisly trophy at the far left of the scene.
a. victory celebration
b. funeral portrait
c. scene of military defeat of Assurbanipal
10. For his tomb complex at Saqqara, King Djoser commissioned the earliest truly
___________ architecture in Egypt.
a. wooden
b. monumental
c. mud-brick
11. Central to ancient Egyptian religious belief was the notion that an essential part of
every human being was __________.
a. his or her clothing
b. its jewelry
c. its life force—the ka, or spirit
12. Narmer was __________.
a. a New Kingdom Egyptian ruler
b. an early ruler of Egypt
c. a Mesopotamian king
13. One of the most spectacular surviving architectural complexes in Egypt is the
funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri, built for the ___________ ruler, Hatshepsut.
a. female
b. Hebrew
c. Old Kingdom
14. Another name for the king and builder Akhenaten was __________.
a. Nefertiti
b. Amenhotep IV
c. Ramesses II
15. Queen Tiy was __________.
a. mother of Akhenaten
b. wife of Akhenaten
c. mother of Nefertiti
16. The patron's and the artist's desire for __________ permeates Egyptian art.
a. clarity
b. ambiguity
c. low-cost art production
17. A scene in the mastaba of a Dynasty 5 government official named Ti shows him
__________.
Art History – Week 2, p. 4
a. supervising a hippopotamus hunt
b. in an audience with the king
c. reclining in a garden with attendants and his wife nearby
18. The guardian figure from the entrance to the throne room of Sargon II shows a
human-headed __________.
a. lion
b. cow
c. bull
19. The tomb of Tutankhamen was discovered by an expedition led by __________.
a. Howard Carter
b. Auguste Mariette
c. Lord Carnavon
20. Tutankhamen’s body was buried inside __________ nested coffins.
a. two
b. five
c. three
Matching
I. Match the name of a ruler with the site of a great monument associated with the ruler.
1. Akhetaten
A. Tell el-Amarna
2. Hatshepsut
B. Giza
3.Ramesses II
C. deor el-Bahri
4. Djoser
D. Luzor
5. Khufu
E. Saqqara
Media and Techniques
1. The temple on the top of the Anu Ziggurat is called the White Temple because it is
built from _________.
a. marble
b. whitewashed bricks
c. diorite
2. Sumerian cylinder seals have a design __________ into their surface.
a. stamped
b. incised
c. stenciled
3. What is the name given to the Mesopotamian stepped pyramidal structures with a
temple or shrine on top?
a. ziggurat
b. pyramid
c. tell
4. The statue of the seated Khafra was __________.
a. carved in soft sandstone
Art History – Week 2, p. 5
b. cast in bronze
c. carved in the stone diorite
5. The pectoral of Senusret II is __________.
a. a bone dug from the tomb of Senusret II
b. a piece of jewelry made from gold and semi-precious stones
c. the name given to the type of crown associated with Upper Egypt
6. The innermost coffin of Tutankhamun was made of solid __________.
a. gold
b. glass
c. silver
7. The head of Queen Tiy did not include ___________ among its building materials.
a. abony
b. lapis lazuli
c. bronze
8. The primary material used to sculpt the famous head of Nefertiti was __________.
a. diorite
b. alabaster
c. limestone
9. A pylon is best described as __________.
a. a support for a statue
b. a chest ornament
c. a massive gateway
10. The technical term for an oval figure or tablet in jewelry is __________.
a. crook and flail
b. cartouche
c. pectoral
11. The Palette of Narmer is large and probably had a ceremonial function, but it imitates
a common object in Egypt; palettes, flat stones with a circular depression on one
side, were used ___________.
a. to carve designs in stone
b. to mix paint that was applied to the eyelids
c. as pillows
Period and Artist
1. ____________________vie(s) with ceramics as the earliest evidence of human
creative and technical skill.
Art History – Week 2, p. 6
2. The Sumerians' most imposing buildings were constructions called
__________________, stepped pyramidal structures with a temple or shrine on
top.
3. Read about the lost treasures of Iraq at
http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/dbfiles/Iraqdatabasehome.htm. Which
Mesopotamian object illustrated in your text was stolen, but has now been
returned to the Iraq Museum?____________________________
4. In the art of many peoples, greater size is an indication of greater relative
importance; art historians call this convention _____________scale.
5. The most complete surviving version of the Epic of ______________________ ,
the best-known literary work of ancient Sumer, was found in the library of the
powerful Assyrian king Assurbanipal.
6. The rich civilization of Egypt arose in the fertile valley and delta of the
________________________River.
7. Upper and Lower Egypt refer to the flow of the ___________________ , not their
position on modern maps.
8. In the Early Dynastic period of Egyptian history, the most common type of tomb
structure was the _____________________ , a flat-topped, one story building
with slanted walls erected above an underground burial chamber.
9. The term necropolis literally means city of the ______________________ .
10. The architectural form most closely identified with Egypt is the true
___________________.
11. In a tomb painting from Saqqara, Ti supervises a hippopotamus hunt. Hippos
were killed because they _____________________.
12. The word pharaoh literally means "great ____________________."
13. Howard Carter's archaeological team finally reached Tutankhamen’s astonishing
sarcophagus in the year _________________.
14. Ramesses II had eight wives. The best-known of these, made famous by the
survival of her tomb in the Valley of the Queens necropolis, was named
_____________________.
15. Sumerian ____________________seals were made of hard and sometimes
semiprecious stones with designs incised into the surface.
16. When the Akkadian empire fell to the Guti, most of the Mesopotamian plain was
controlled by the Guti. An exception was the city-state of Lagash whose ruler,
_____________________ , is remembered for the large number of votive statues
he had placed in temples.
17. The Stele of Hammurabi depicts the king and the god Shamash at the top; below
this is the legal code that recorded the _____________________of the realm.
18. The Assyrian guardian figure from Khorsabad shown in figure 2-12 combines a
human head with the body of a ________________________ .
19. The ancient period of Mesopotamian history plays out under the rule of an empire
that included the warrior king Cyrus the Great; this empire is called the
__________________Empire.
20. The individual probably responsible for the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
was know as and depicted on the Palette of _________________ .
Art History – Week 2, p. 7