Woman From Willendorf
Austria. C. 24,000 BCE. Limestone, Height 4⅜ ” (11cm). Naturhisorishes Museum , Vienna.
This piece is from the Prehistoric Period. It was found by Austro-Hungarian archaeologist, Josef Szombathy in 1908 outside the small village of Willendorf. With its well-nourished body, it is expected that the artist behind this piece was expressing healthy and fertility, which could ensure the ability to produce strong children. I wanted to put this piece in my collection because of its fascinating power of naming. The piece was once called Venus of Willendorf representing ideal womanhood. “The name was repeated so often that even experts began to assume that the statues had to be fertility figures and Mother Goddesses, although there is no proof that this was so.” (Stokstad and Cothren 2018, 7).
The Ziggurat
Uruk (present-day Warka, Iraq). C. 3400-3200 BCE.
The Great Ziggurat was built as a place of worship, dedicated to the moon god Nanna in the Sumerian city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia. The reason why I have decided to place this object in my collection is its beautiful nickname House of the Mountains.” The reference hints at its function as a place of worship that people used to connect to their gods. “Ziggurat also functioned symbolically as bridges between the earth and the heavens – a meeting place for humans and their gods.” (Stokstad and Cothren 2018, 29).
Funerary Mask of King Tutankhamun
1327 BCE. Gold inlaid with glass and semiprecious stone. Height 21” (53 cm). Valley of the Kings, Egypt, the innermost coffin.
“His mummified body, crowned with a spectacular mask preserving his likeness, lay inside three nested coffins that identified him with Osiris, the god of the dead. The innermost coffin, in the shape of a mummy, is the richest of the three.” (Stokstad and Cothren 2018, 75) The decoration of the tomb/ coffin and the preparation of the deceased body resembles their belief in the afterlife and their religious beliefs as a whole. What grabbed my attention about this object is the burial traditions of the Ancient Egyptian people and the similarities to the burial culture we have today. While they treated burial as a preparation for the afterlife most religions do not have a concept regarding that, yet people today still do decorate the deceased before burial.
Palette Of King Narmer
3200 – 2950 BCE. Green Schist. 2,1” (64 cm). The Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Belonging to the Pre-Dynastic Period, this object depicts the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt into the “Kingdom of the Two Lands” under the divine king. It is a symbol for of the power and strength of the king Narmer and a symbol of one of the oldest and first historical documents in the world. This object is also a ceremonial palette used in the ritual of mixing and applying the King’s eye makeup which deeply surprised me and made me want to place it into my collection.
The Great Pyramid of Khufu
Height: 481 feet (146 m.) Base Length: more than 750 feet (230 m.) per side.
The three pyramids of Giza are royal tombs. The pyramid of Khufu is the final resting place of the pharaoh Khufu, who ruled in the 25th century BCE. It is the oldest and tallest of the three pyramids. For 3800 years, it was the tallest human-built structure. The pyramid contains over 2.300.000 stone blocks made of white limestone and granite. The part that made me most interested in this piece was the technique behind its construction as it was a state-run affair.
“William” The Hippopotamus
1967 – 1878 BCE. Middle Kingdom, Dynasty XII. Faience (Ground Quartz). 20 cm X 7.5 cm X 11.2 cm. The Met
This statuette of a hippopotamus (popularly called “William”) was molded in faience, a ceramic material made of ground quartz. The most fascinating feature of this object is its materiality. Originally used in Mesopotamia to glaze mud bricks, the Egyptians perfected this ancient technique in a way that fascinates us even today with its beautiful turquoise-like color. For the Egyptians, the shining faience was magical and reflected the light of immortality.
Seated Statue of Hatshepsut
1479 – 1458 BCE. New Kingdom. Dynasty 18. Indurated limestone, paint. 210 cm X 50 cm X 119 cm. The Met.
The most impressive feature of the statue is the person it depicts which made me interested in putting it in my collection. Hatshepsut, the most successful of several female rulers of ancient Egypt, declared herself king sometime between years 2 and 7 in the reign of her stepson and nephew, Thutmose III. Hatshepsut is shown wearing the nemes-headcloth and the shendyt-kilt. These are part of the ceremonial attire of the Egyptian king, which was traditionally a man’s role. In spite of the masculine dress, the statue has a distinctly feminine air, unlike most representations of Hatshepsut as a ruler.
Akhenaten and His Family
1352-1336 BCE. Dynasty XVIII, Amarna period (New Kingdom). Painted limestone (sunken relief). 12 ¼ x 15 ¼”. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
The Stela of Akhenaten and his family is the name for an altar image in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo which depicts the Pharaoh Akhenaten, his queen Nefertiti, and their three children. Such stelae were found mainly in the graves at Amarna, which was the capital of Egypt under Akhenaten. These stelae were altars, which were placed in private chapels or houses. They were used for the worship of the royal family and the sun-god Aten.
Shiva Nataraja “Lord of Dance”
South India. Chola dynasty. 11th Century CE. Bronze. 47 ⅞ X 40”. Cleveland Museum of Art.
Shiva Nataraja is a brilliant invention that combines in a single image Shiva’s roles as creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe and conveys the Indian conception of the never-ending cycle of time. I have decided to add it to my collection as I am impressed by its expressed details and symbolism behind them. “The dance of Shiva came to represent a dance of cosmic proportions, signifying the universe’s cycle of death and rebirth; it is also a dance for each individual, signifying the liberation of the believer through Shiva’s compression.” (Stokstad and Cothren 2018, 326).
Exekias, Ajax, and Achilles Playing a Board Game
540 – 530 BCE. Terracotta. Height 24” (61 cm). Musei Vaticani Rome.
The vase represents Achilles and Ajax playing a board game on one side. On the other side is a young man, Castor, with his horse, Kyllaros; other figures are his mother, Leda, his father, Tyndareus, and his twin brother, Pollux (Polydeuces) I am fascinated with the black-figure technique used to illustrate the forms on the sides of the object. In the black-figure vase painting, figural and ornamental motifs were applied with a slip that turned black during firing, while the background was left the color of the clay. Vase painters articulated individual forms by incising the slip or by adding white and purple enhancements (mixtures of pigment and clay).
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