Obelisk in St. Peter's Square, Rome, Photo by Danbu14, Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Obelisk (noun) A four-sided monument with a pyramid-shaped, pointed top that originated in ancient Egypt. The shape is thought to be inspired by the rays of the sun. The obelisk that today stands in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Krater (noun) An ancient Greek vessel in which wine and water were mixed. Kraters come in different shapes. A calyx krater has a bell shape with handles near the base and a volute krater has handles shaped like scrolls.
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Ambulatory (noun) A place for walking, usually an aisle in a church around the apse. In Santa Costanza in Rome, the mausoleum for the Roman Emperor Constantine’s daughter Constantina, the ambulatory is circular and goes around a space where the … Continue reading
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad, 2254-2218 B.C.E., pink limestone, Musee du Louvre, Paris, Photo by Profzucker via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.
Stele (noun) An upright stone slab decorated with sculpture or writing. The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad shows the Mesopotamian King Naram-Sim’s victory over the Lullubi people in the Zagros Mountains in the 12th century B.C.E. In the stele, Naram-Sim is … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Codex-Style Vessel (noun) A codex-style vessel is a vessel that was made in the ancient Mayan culture in Mesoamerica that has illustrations on it that resembles those in a book, or codex. This vessel, which was created during the late … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Nothing brings an empire together like a good mock naval battle – at least, that’s what the Roman emperor Vespasian always said. Following the welcome demise of the reign of the Julio-Claudian emperors with the death of Nero and a … Continue reading
Attributed to the Brygos Painter, Red-figured cup from Athens, c. 490-480 BCE, ceramic, 5" high, British Museum, London, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Red-figure (adjective) A type of pottery painting from ancient Greece that shows red figures against a black background. The Brygos Painter is one of the best known red-figure vase painters of his era. This scene of a symposium, or a … Continue reading
Pyramid of Cheops, El Giza, Egypt, 2560 BCE, limestone, 455' high (originally 481' high), photo by Hedwig Storch via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
“Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids.” Arab Proverb
Doryphoros, Roman copy after an original by Polykleitos from c. 450-440 BCE, 6'6" high, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
You won’t get out of Art History 101 alive without knowing who this guy is. This is the Doryphoros, which means “spear bearer,” a Roman copy of a sculpture from the High Classical period of Ancient Greece. At one time, this … Continue reading
Fayum Portrait, c. 200 CE, encaustic paint on limewood, 13¾” x 6¾”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
This is a portrait painted on a piece of wood that was affixed to the head of a mummified body. This fayum portrait, a type of portrait named for the Fayum region of Lower Egypt, and others like it are … Continue reading
The Arch of Constantine, Rome, 312-315 CE, Photo by Xerones via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution license.
Actually, only some of the sculptures are bad… and only compared to others on the same monument. Art historians refer to this as a problem. At the very least, it’s curious. The Emperor Constantine built this triumphal arch to commemorate his … Continue reading
Colossal Head #1 from San Lorenzo, c. 900 BCE, basalt, 9’3” x 6’9”, Museo de Antropología de Xalapa, Veracruz, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The civilization that created these colossal sculptures of heads and others like it, the Olmec Civilization, predates the Maya and Aztec civilizations in Mesoamerica. On the average, these huge heads carved from large boulders are nearly eight feet tall. Very … Continue reading