THE PREHISTORIC AEGEAN APAH – GARDNER CHAPTER 4-2 PP. 88-96

Quiz 4-2 pp. 88-96 4. The Snake Goddess is an example of Mycenaean sculpture Cycladic sculpture Assyrian sculpture Minoan sculpture 5. A type of metal relief sculpture in which the back side of a plate is hammered to form a raised relief on the front is called repousse Corbelled Tholos Fresco This photo illustrates a corridor that must have been designed With engaged columns As a corbelled vault As a treasury for ancient art For a tomb 2. The type of stonework seen here is called Cyclopean Megaron Mycenaean Egyptian 3. Which of the following civilizations probably built this? Cycladic Minoan

MINOAN POTTERY Kamares-ware jar 1800-1700 BCE Creamy white and reddish-brown decoration against black background Leaping fish/fishnets?/curvilinear abstract patterns of waves and spirals

MINOAN POTTERY Marine style octopus jar 1500 BCE, 11” high Tentacles of octopus reach over the curving surface of the jar More muted in tone Dark silhouettes on a light ground Dark on light will be standard for a millenium

MINOAN SCULPTURE In Minoan Crete -> no temples no monumental statues Minoan sculpture is uniformly small in scale

THE SNAKE GODDESS From the Palace of Knossos 1600 BCE, 1-1 ½’ high Faience statuette = low-fired opaque glasslike silicate Fertility figure? Goddess? Holding snakes in her hands/feline on her head -> power over nature Frontality – near eastern and eyptian Open bodice and flounced skirt - minoan

PALAIKASTRO YOUTH Young god? 1500-1475 BCE, 1’7” Chryselephantine sculpture – gold and ivory

HARVESTERS VASE Best surviving example of Minoan relief sculpture The relief shows a riotous crowd singing and shouting as they go to or from the fields Forward movement and exuberance of youth One of first works of art to show the underlying musculature and skeletal structure of the human body

MYCENAEAN ART The importance of Minoan culture declines after 1400 BC -> the focus of Aegean culture shifts to Greek mainland Mycenaeans are the the forerunners of the Greeks on the mainland Culture traces to beginning of second millennium By 1500 BCE there was a distinctive Mycenaean culture in Greece

MYCENAEAN ARCHITECTURE Late Helladic civilization = Mycenaean Best and most impressive remains are the fortified palaces of Tiryns and Mycenae Both built around 1400 BCE and burned between 1250-1200 BCE

TIRYNS Homer called Tiryns the city “of the great walls” CYCLOPEAN MASONRY = huge, roughly cut stone blocks used for massive fortification walls in Mycenaean architecture CORBELED VAULT/ARCH = builders piled massive Cyclopean blocks in horizontal courses then cantilevered them inward until the two walls met in a pointed arch

LION GATE, MYCENAE Mycenae, Greece 1300-1250 BCE Outer gateway to the stronghold Largest sculpture in prehistoric Aegean Gate consists of two monoliths capped by huge lintel/corbelled arch/filling the relieving triangle is a limestone slab with high relief carving of two lions with Minoan typed column between them Monstrous guardian figures at entrance to palace, tomb and sacred places

TREAURY OF ATRUES Wealthy Mycenaeans laid to rest outside the citadel walls in beehive-shaped tombs covered by earthen mounds Tholos tombs -> best preserved example is the Treasury of Atreus Long outside passage approaches the tomb/tomb chamber entered by doorway with relieving triangle/tholos is constructed of corbelled courses forming a dome Largest vaulted space w/out relieving columns until Rome

METALWORK Funerary mask, 1600 BCE Gold, worked in repousse REPOUSSE = goldsmith worked a single sheet of metal and pushed the features out from behind Mask placed on deceased’s face Curlicue ears, eyes rendered as slits, hair detailed with long, thin incised marks Schliemann called this “the Mask of Agamemon”

PLASTER SCULPTURE Female head from Mycenae 1300-1250 BCE Painted plaster Woman, goddess?, sphinx? Monumental statue of a goddess?

WARRIORS VASE KRATER = bowl for mixing wine and water Mycenae, Greece, 1200 BCE Frieze of soldiers marching off to war No setting, lacking in landscape elements, soldiers repeat same pattern