Art in Focus

Chapter 6: Art of Earliest Times

Lesson Summaries-English

          The earliest humans created images on the walls of cave dwellings. Then people began to develop civilizations, and higher levels of art evolved.

Lesson 1
Prehistoric Art in Western Europe

          The earliest peoples created pictures on the walls of caves and rock shelters. Archaeologists have been able to date this early art to the Paleolithic period. This period lasted from 30,000 B.C. until about 10,000 B.C. The images depict mostly animals. Early hunters may have believed that by drawing their prey they could make it easier to capture them. Since the pictures were made in special ritual places at the backs of caves, they have been discovered only in the past few centuries. The artworks look as though they were made by skilled artists even though they were created by prehistoric peoples. Their creators clearly had a sensitive artistic instinct and a knowledge of the animals they hunted. Prehistoric peoples eventually began to build shelters and organize into villages. They made abstract as well as realistic carvings on rocks and rock walls. They also erected megaliths, large monuments created from huge stone slabs. The megaliths at Stonehenge, England, are thought to have served as a kind of astronomical observatory. Cave paintings and places such as Stonehenge testify to the creativity of our prehistoric ancestors.

Lesson 2
Art of the Fertile Crescent

          The first civilizations developed in the Fertile Crescent, a river valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers north of the Persian Gulf. The eastern part of the crescent, Mesopotamia, has a rich history involving a variety of peoples. Before 4500 B.C. people known as Sumerians settled there. They built shrines to local gods on ziggurats, stepped mountains made of brick-covered earth. Fine decorative artworks have been unearthed at the site of the Sumerian city of Ur. The Sumerians also created the earliest known form of writing. By 2340 B.C. the Akkadian Empire overtook Sumer. Arts and literature flourished during the short period of Akkadian control. Around 2150 B.C. there was a revival of Sumerian culture. Around 1800 B.C. the Babylonians gained control of Mesopotamia. Their king, Hammurabi, created a code of legal practices that was inscribed on a stone pillar under his portrait. After Hammurabi’s death, Mesopotamia was drawn into turmoil until 900 B.C., when the Assyrians rose to power.

          In the early seventh century B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar rekindled Babylonian supremacy. After Nebuchadnezzar, a people known as the Persians advanced into Mesopotamia. They built great palaces such as Persepolis in what is now modern Iran. This palace had hundreds of columns and was decorated with scenes of people bringing offerings to the king. Alexander the Great conquered Persepolis in 331 B.C., marking the end of Mesopotamia’s last great ancient civilization.