2. Egyptian Artifacts

3. Egyptian Pyramids

12. Egyptian hieroglyphics

13. The boat and more than twenty other models of boats, gardens, and workshops were found in a small chamber in the tomb of Meketre, a Theban official. Boat Model

14. Book of the Dead This scene from the Book of the Dead shows the journey to the afterlife. Nany, a woman stands the Hall of Judgment to the left of a scale. Her heart is being weighed against Maat, the goddess of justice and truth, wearing a single large feather. On the right is Osiris, god of the underworld and rebirth. He wears the white crown of Upper Egypt and the curving beard of a god. On the table before him is an offering of a joint of beef. Jackal-headed Anubis, overseer of mummification, adjusts the scales, while a baboon—symbolizing Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing—sits on the balance beam and prepares to write down the result. Behind Nany stands the goddess Isis, both wife and sister of Osiris.

15. Mesopotamian Artifacts AFRICA Euphrates R. Tigris R. Mediterranean Sea Red Sea Nile R. Also Called Mesopotamia Roar Hi Peoples who lived here: Assyrians, Babylonians, Sumerians, Akkadians and many others ASIA

16. Babylonian Cuneiform

17. Mesopotamian Ziggurat or Stepped Temple

18. This sphinx was carved as furniture decoration (possibly the foot of a couch). It is from a karum, or "merchant colony” around the northern Mesopotamian (Assyrian) city of Ashur from around 1900 B.C. These decorations were carved to represent the creatures important in the mythology of the ancient Near East. This small female sphinx is an idea borrowed from the Egyptians. Her large almond-shaped eyes and spiral locks are similar to the Egyptian goddess Hathor. What is that an example of? HINT! What term means the spread and blending of culture? Sphinx Furniture Decoration

19. Carved Cylinder Stamp Carved stones had been used to stamp impressions on clay from as early as the seventh millennium B.C. In the fourth millennium B.C. carved cylinders were invented. They could be rolled over clay and had complex designs. Seals were either pressed on clay masses that were used to close jars, doors, and baskets, or they were rolled onto inscribed clay tablets that recorded information about commercial or legal transactions. (Late Akkadian)

20. Iron Age Cup On the body of the cup from the Iron Age, four gazelles, framed horizontally by guilloche bands, walk in procession to the left. Their bodies are detailed with finely chased lines to indicate hair and muscles. The projecting heads were made separately and were fastened invisibly in place by soldering, a process much practiced in Iran involving glue and copper salt.

21. These earrings come from the so-called Great Death Pit, which was probably part of a royal tomb with an almost totally destroyed stone chamber. Laid out in the pit were the bodies of six armed men and sixty-eight people thought to be women or young girls, all adorned with the most splendid jewelry made of gold, lapis lazuli (a blue gem stone), and carnelian. Earrings

22. Assyrian King Assurbanipal said, "I built thereon [a palace with] halls of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, teak, terebinth, and tamarisk as my royal dwelling and for the enduring leisure life of my lordship. Beasts of the mountains and the seas, which I had fashioned out of white limestone and alabaster, I had set up in its gates. I made the palace fittingly imposing.“ In other words, he had a pair of these limestone beasts, called lamassu, protect and support important doorways in Assyrian palaces. They are the human-headed, winged bull and lion creatures. The horned cap shows to their divinity, and the belt signifies their power. The sculptor gave these guardian figures five legs so that they appear to be standing firmly when viewed from the front but striding forward when seen from the side. Assyrian Lamassu

23. This 8 th century Neo-Assyrian ivory carving would have been one of a group of similar panels used in the back of a chair. It depicts (shows) a bearded man, perhaps a warrior, holding the stem of a lotus plant. Above him, a winged disc provides protection. Assyrian Ivory Carving

24. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

25. Man carrying a box, possibly for offerings , Early Dynastic I–II; 2900–2600 B.C. Mesopotamia

26. Ax head This ax head was found along the Oxus and Murghab rivers in modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. While these areas were barely inhabited during much of the third millennium B.C., by about 2200 B.C. permanent settlements with distinctive forms of architecture, burial practices, and material culture had been established, supported in part by active trade with parts of Iran, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley. This silver-gilt ax is a masterpiece of three-dimensional sculpture. Expertly cast and gilded with foil, it represents a bird-headed hero grappling (fighting) with a wild boar and a winged dragon. The idea of the heroic bird-headed creature probably came from western Iran, where it is first documented on a cylinder seal impression. The hero's muscular body is human except for the bird talons that replace the hands and feet. He is represented twice, once on each side of the axe, so he appears to have two heads. On one side, he grasps the boar by the belly and on the other, by the tusks. On the other side, the bird-headed hero grasps the winged dragon by the neck.

27. This figure strides with one arm raised and the other held out, each having held a weapon such as a spear and mace or thunderbolt. His pierced ears had earrings, perhaps of gold, and he is clad in an Egyptian-style kilt. The crown is the distinctive Egyptian crown of Osiris, god of the dead. Here the figure represented is not the Egyptian king but rather an ancient Near Eastern depiction of a local deity (god) of the Levant area. In the Late Bronze Age, a time of intense international economic, political, and cultural connections, artistic elements of a variety of cultures were incorporated (brought into) into local styles. Egyptian art especially influenced the art of the Levant at this time, resulting in an "Egyptianizing" style. Excavations in Syria unearthed numerous examples of small statues of local gods. While the designs used may be similar to Egyptian ones, the meaning was probably different and adapted to a local gods likeness. Much is known about the local religions through the text sources. Levant God AGAIN! What is that an example of? HINT! What term means the spread and blending of culture?