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Valene, they definitely share similarities in their respect for the plant and animal life around them. I like that you describe the people shown on The Warrior Krater as almost cartoon-like; that’s a good way of describing it. One of the warriors on it even looks like he has a little smile on his face, so they definitely don’t look fierce or scary. Do you think you would have had a different opinion on it if they looked a little more realistic and/or fierce rather than light-hearted?
Lucas, I like that you mentioned the predator versus non-aggressive animals shown in their artwork. The Mycenaean people did have a vase with an octopus as well, but theirs definitely looks a lot different than the Minoans’. It’s not as peaceful looking and could maybe be seen as an aggressive version of the creature.
The pottery made by both the Minoan and the Mycenaean people show flowing lines and shapes, as well as their sea and plant life around them. But Minoan pottery also seems shows a more relaxed culture versus the Mycenaean culture, who depicts them as “militaristic’ (see Minoan Harvester Rhyton, Mycenaean Warrior Krater). Those seem to be the only two big examples showing the difference between their people through their artwork. However, in some of their pottery that shows their sea life, both have made vases with an octopus on them. The Minoan vase shows the octopus drawn in a more cartoony way in its face, with the big eyes, but otherwise still seems fairly realistic while feeling freer. The Mycenaean vase, on the other hand, makes the octopus symmetric with ridiculously long tentacles and loses both the realistic and the freer feeling. The stiffer feeling of the Mycenaean octopus could be corresponding to a more rigid lifestyle that revolves around more uniformity as we can see in the Krater. I don’t necessarily see it as the Mycenaeans engaged in a lot more conflict, but maybe don’t view life as peaceful as the Minoans had.
Tamara, the restoration of the Mask of Agamemnon was probably a huge blow to everyone that was interested in learning about the ancient Aegean artwork. Do you think he could have faced consequences of some sort for altering it when he “restored’ the mask? I’d imagine that if somebody claimed to restore a famous piece of artwork today, but ended up making it their own, they’d be faced with a lot of unhappy people.
Aubri, the reconstruction of the Palace of Knossos makes it a lot harder to understand what styles really were prominent in the Minoan architecture, especially if Evans had covered up a lot of the remaining original structures. Even if he had simply painted one section a different color it prevents us from actually learning about Minoan style.
In one of the sources on the Snake Goddess, they mention outright that Sir Arthur Evans went into Knossos saying that there was a mother goddess the Minoans worshipped and conveniently found a little figurine of a “goddess’. Heinrich Schliemann had likely altered the Mask of Agamemnon’s mustache and claimed it was Agamemnon’s funerary mask, although the burial site and time frames don’t match up. The two weren’t very gentle with their explorations and discoveries with the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures as they went in with specific ideas of things they wanted to find and somehow managed to come out with them. Their findings seem to emphasize the need for caution when it comes to accepting conclusions archaeologists may have with newer findings. Artwork needs to be fairly consistent throughout the time period to prove that it was made by the old civilizations rather than recreated to fit what a modern-day discoverer thought it might look like.
Valene, I like that you mentioned that the men and women in sculptures were generally shown as young and fit. Often times, different gods and goddesses are shown as being eternally young and fit as well, supporting the idea that the pharaohs could be seen as descendants from the gods. With their emphasis on the fertility (seen in all their artwork that has ties back to the Nile), I wonder why we don’t see as many sculptures of more rounded women as we did in the Mesopotamian artwork.
Bob, the pyramids, sphinx, and tombs being such large sizes to continuously re-enforce the religion is a really interesting perspective I hadn’t thought of. It does make sense — as you mentioned, the structures are inescapable because they’re so large. It’s kind of like how nowadays we have so many churches in each town that remind the people of the religions that they were built for. This was a great point that you brought up that I’m definitely going to think about for a little while to see if there are other structures in today’s world that are still used in similar ways.
Lucas, I like that you pointed out that the Egyptian pieces didn’t have as big of a focus on social hierarchy. A lot of the Egyptian artwork we looked at had ties to nature and family, or had animals in a better light as they represented specific gods they worshipped versus the Mesopotamians who showed animals in their artwork being killed by its people.
Laura, great catch on the placement of their feet showing the devotion to their gods! When I read about it in the stele of Amenemhat I remember thinking that looking more into that would be interesting, but completely forgot about it. I believe there was another piece that mentioned that the Egyptians wore sandals with their feet firmly on the ground if it wasn’t the holy ground, versus having no shoes to show that it was.
Egyptians were similar to Mesopotamians in some of their structures as they both made their rulers massive in comparison to the commoners (ex. Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, Stele of Naram-Sin). The larger pharaohs essentially placed them on a similar level of authority as their deities. On the page with the Temple of Ramses, it even mentions that Ramses is deified and placed up there with the gods Amun, Ra-Horakhty, and Ptah. A lot of pieces portray the pharaohs adorned in a headdress that has references toward different gods — the Head of Senusret III shows a cobra’s head on his headdress, and the Funerary Mask of King Tutankhamun has a cobra and a vulture, which are said to represent the goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, respectively. The relations between Egyptians and their deities is heavily shown through all their artwork even through death as they had scrolls instructing them through their final judgement in the afterlife.
Egyptians and Mesopotamians were similar as their rulers always had artwork depicting them as being chosen to rule by a deity, as seen in the Mesopotamian Stele of Hammurabi, in which the god Shamash is directly giving him power, and in Egypt’s Akhenaten and His Family, which shows the sun god, Aten’s, rays reaching directly toward Akhenaten and his wife’s nostrils, giving them the breath of life. They also show similarities by building massive structures such as pyramids and Ziggurats, although the pyramids were more aimed towards burials and the afterlife rather than showing the amount of power the ruler had. Egyptian artwork has a heavy emphasis on the afterlife and final judgment, as seen in the Books of the Dead while Mesopotamian artwork didn’t seem to have much regarding their afterlife. Toward the new kingdom, we also see a lot of preservation from the Egyptians as they buried their rulers in gold deep in their tombs with scrolls, as well as many other goods, to guide them through to the afterlife.
Ckocsis, I really like that you saw the vase as a depiction of a food chain. That’s a great way to think of the different levels on it; as you get higher with each bar you see that the gods and goddesses, as well as the rulers, are on top.
Maggie, you listed a lot of great examples! For the Lyre, one of the sources mentioned that they found Queen Pu-Abi’s lyre with the bodies of ten women with lots of jewelry that they assumed were sacrificial victims. So some of the more powerful and wealthier individuals definitely continued to show their social standings even after their deaths.
Bob, I really like that you mentioned the stones like lapis lazuli being equated with the leaders’ wealth. It definitely makes sense that they would have more power if they did have more money to bring in materials like the semi-precious stones in (at least what seems like) such large quantities to use in their buildings and accessories. Maybe some of the rulers used that to their advantage and tried to outdo later rulers by making their buildings more visually appealing than the last to show that they hold more power than the previous kings did.
