Art of the Ancient Near East 082:303 Fall 2016

Mon/Thurs 11:30-12:50pm

Professor Shafer

Office hours: Mondays/Thursdays before class

Course description: This course will survey the art and architecture of the oldest

cultures in the world, the “cradle of civilization,” and home to Gilgamesh,

Hammurabi, Ishtar, and other figures of myth and legend. The “ancient Near East”

comprises the ancient cultures of our modern-day Middle East, from the 5th

millennium to the 5th century BCE. Students will study the material culture of the

early Mesopotamians, the Akkadians and Assyrians, and their neighbors. They will

learn how to decipher intriguing visual imagery from palace walls to tiny cylinder

seals. Particular emphasis will be given to the political, social, and religious contexts

of these monuments, which will be illuminated further by ancient cuneiform texts in

translation. Finally, this course will also critique the intersection of contemporary

politics and the excavation, collection, and re-presentation of these monuments and

their cultures.

No textbook is required. Readings and lecture slides will be provided in pdf format.

Course requirements: Attendance & participation 10%

Project 20%

3 writing exercises (10% each) 30%

Midterm Exam (10/20) 20%

Final Exam (exam period) 20%

Schedule of Lectures

Dates Topics, Assignments Readings

09/08 Introduction, welcome to the course, overview

09/12, 09/15 The Discipline of Ancient Near Eastern studies: Matthews, 67-92

approaches to material culture

Geography, climate, early sedentary culture

09/19, 09/22 Antiquities & ethics, cultural heritage destruction Bahrani, 15-22

Uruk period: Writing and the First Cities

09/26, 09/29 Gilgamesh and the Early Dynastic Period Epic of Gilgamesh

10/03, 10/06 Sumer & Akkad: the late third millennium

Student Presentations of Project #1 (Friendship)

Writing Exercise #1 due

10/10, 10/13 Hammurabi of Babylon Code of Hammurabi

10/17, 10/20 Student Presentations of Project #2 (Ancient Law)

Writing Exercise #2 due

MIDTERM EXAM

10/24, 10/27 Early Territorial States

Mesopotamia’s “Peripheries”: Levant, Anatolia, Iran

10/31, 11/03 Late Bronze Age and its Collapse de Mieroop, 129-148

11/07, 11/10 Assyria Standard Inscription

11/14, 11/17 Babylon in History and Tradition Descent of Ishtar

11/21, 11/22 Student Presentations of Project #3 (Kingship)

Writing Exercise #3 due

11/28, 12/01 Introduction to Museum Culture & Display Larsen, 229-239

Visit to Metropolitan Museum of Art

12/05, 12/08 Persians & Greeks de Mieroop, 286-301

12/12 Catch-up and Wrap-up

Exam period: 12/16 – 12/23