Himeji Castle “White Heron Castle” - Himeji, Japan
Warka Vase (offering to the goddess Inanna?), from Uruk (modern Warka), Iraq. 3,200-3,000 B.C.
The famous Warka Vase is the first great narrative relief sculpture in the history of art. Divided into three registers, or bands, it depicts a religious festival in honor of the goddess Inanna, who was believed to have brought fertility and bounty to the Sumerian people that year. In the top register, the artists employs hierachy of scale- that is, the most important figures are the largest to emphasize their greatness. The tall goddess Inanna (or possibly a priestess) wears a horned headdress and accepts a votive offering from a nude male figure. Off to the side is another figure, as large as the goddess/priestess, who is thought to be a “priest-king”, although it is unknown what his actual functions serves; he merely resembles other figures in Sumerian art thought to be religious leaders. Some have hypothesized that the Warka Vase depicts a symbolic marriage between the goddess Inanna (or her priestess) and the supposed “priest-king.”
Fun facts about the Sumerians- they are the creators of cuneiform, the earliest system of writing using pictographs. They also created The Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of a powerful king of Uruk who killed the monster Huwawa, 1,500 before Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Ancient Egyptian Winged Scarab. Carved green glazed limestone winged scarab, hieroglyphs of the sun God Ra holding an ankh on the bottom, pierced for attachment. Third Intermediate Period. 1070-712 BC (5 ¾” x 2”).
The temples of Ġgantija are one of the Megalithic Temples of Malta and were first excavated in 1827 by John Otto Bayer. They are built with coralline limestone blocks and each temple contains five apses connected by a central corridor leading to an innermost trefoil section. The first temple is larger and contains a variety of features such as altars, relief carvings and libation holes. The second temple was built later and is devoid of such features. Also of interest is the corbelling technique evident on the inwardly inclined walls, suggesting that the temple was roofed. Burial in the Ġgantija Phase continues in the shaft and chamber tomb style established by the Żebbuġ phase (4100-3800 BCE) culture.
Local folklore interpreting these gigantic structures, in particular those of Ġgantija, maintain they were built by giants; Ġgantija is a Maltese word meaning ‘Place of the Giants’.
(via collectivehistory)
Spiral design altar block from the Tarxien Temples of Malta, uncovered by Sir Themistocles Zammit
(via collectivehistory)
Standing female figure wearing a strap and a necklace
Period: Early–Middle Bronze Age
Date: 3rd–2nd millennium B.C.
Geography: Southwestern Arabia
(via rentless-mistress)
Queen Hatshepsut, fifteenth century BCE [x]
Because women in Egypt had more rights than women pretty much everywhere else. Relatively. Which is swell!
Also because Hatshepsut is swell!
