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The Americas- Part 4

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  Mesa Verde   Mural 30, Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park (photo: National Park Service) Mural 30, Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park (photo: National Park Service) Mugs found at Mesa Verde (photo: by the author, Mesa Verde Museum) https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/bfca2e88d269c1e9405ed7ff7ae307f80b2985b0.jpg        Mesa Verde was a region occupied by Ancestral Puebloans from 450 to 1300 C.E. The Ancestral Puebloans were remarkable because they built their homes into the sides of cliffs. To this day, scholars are still unsure as to why they built their houses within cliffs. However, many believe that these cliffs provided shade and protection from snow for the farmers of this society. In fact, the Ancestral Puebloans cultivated corn, squash, and beans. It is also a mystery as to why these cliffs were abandoned, but scholars think that a drought or some type of violence/war could have occurred. Within the four corners of the United States ...
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The Americas- Part 3

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The Great Serpent Mound View of tail, Fort Ancient Culture(?), Great Serpent Mound, c. 1070, Adams County, Ohio (photo:  The Last Cookie , CC BY 2.0) https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/a270cba2ad9a26cf8f206cf94d42e10512284fcc.jpg Fort Ancient Culture(?), Great Serpent Mound, c. 1070, Adams County, Ohio (photo:  Eric Ewing , CC BY-SA 3.0) https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/8337cccc5373fc69fdf7945f2d69e8d42f449a60.jpg     The Great Serpent mound in rural, southwestern Ohio, is the largest serpent effigy in the world, measuring at 1300 feet long. This mound was built by settled people who cultivated maize, beans, and squash. The agriculture mentioned here was inherited from the Olmecs, who were discussed in my last blog post.      There are no written records of the people who built the mound, and there is lot of skepticism as to what the mound was used for. In the pictures depicted above, you can see that the serpent is crescent...
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The Americas- Part 2

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  Olmec Art https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/313327/682955/main-image      The Olmec refers to the civilization that settled in Mesoamerica between 400 and 1200 B.C. "Olmec" is an Aztec word for the region, Olman, which means a place of rubber. People in the river valleys of Olmen all shared the same goals; they wished to invest in major buildings, engineering structures, and large gathering spaces that provided needs for daily life. Olmec art consisted of structures made of volcanic stone and pieces made of jade. Olmec artists developed the foundation of art in Mesoamerica.      The picture above depicts a seated, life-sized baby, which is a popular piece created by the Olmecs. The baby is placed in a common infant pose: chubby hands in his mouth. Aside from a baby, this piece can also be interpreted as a portrait of an adult, or an infant form of a deity. I think that this piece is an infant form of a deity because I do...
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The Americas- Part 1

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Textile Arts Weaving with traditionally dyed alpaca wool, Chinchero, Peru (photo:  Rosalee Yagihara , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/8108959409_3cdf1ac52a_k-edited.jpg     Textile arts were a popular form of art among the ancient people in the Andes. The Andes is a mountain range that runs along the west coast of South America. The ancient people of the Andes developed textile technology, and then ceramics and metallurgy shortly after.       The techniques used to create textile fragments evolved from simple twining to complex woven fabrics to double-faced cloths and lace-like open waves by the beginning of the first millennium. Double-faced textiles were so precise that you could not tell the difference between the front and back of a fabric. Therefore, this technique was used for pieces such as blankets. The first textile fabrics were made by fibers from reeds, which quickly turned into yarn that w...
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Africa: Great Zimbabwe

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  Aerial view of Great Zimbabwe’s Great Enclosure and adjacent ruins, looking southeast (photo:  Janice Bell , CC BY-SA 4.0) https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/great-zim-aerial-looking-west.jpg     Great Zimbabwe is unlike any typical artwork, like a painting. Instead, Great Zimbabwe is a great landscape that consists of a large stone complex and is located south of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. Great Zimbabwe was occupied by the Shona people, which is the largest ethnic group in Zimbabwe. About 20,000 people lived in the 250 royal houses that were within the structure. It is evident that the Shona's economy was dependent on livestock. In this city, iron, copper, and jewelry have been discovered all around. The word Zimbabwe stands for "judicial center" or "ruler's court of house". However, I do not think Zimbabwe, Africa relates to the judicial centers that we are familiar with today. Over the years, a few individual houses have survived ...
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Saharan Art

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  Seated Figure , terracotta, 13th century, Mali, Inland Niger Delta region, Djenné peoples, 25/4 x 29.9 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art ) https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dt1213.jpg     Art discoveries from Sahara, a region in southern Africa, give insight on human and artistic evolution in African civilizations. Rock paintings that depicted domesticated animals prove that agriculture developed in southern Africa as early as 7000 B.C.E. However, these agriculture communities moved away when the Sahara began drying up around 3000 B.C.E. This led to the emergence of Egypt and Africa in the North. From then on, the Nile river (the world's longest river), hosted trade from central Africa to Egypt for as long as a thousand years.     Depicted above is a corpus of a sophisticated terracotta sculpture. These sculptures, found in present day Nigeria, provide the earliest evidence of a settled community with such artistic technology. The crea...
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Ethiopian Cross

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  https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/317877/654779/main-image     In Ethiopia, Christianity was adopted in the fourth century by the Askumite emperor of Ezana. It is believed that Ezana wished to adopt Christianity because he was influenced by his desired relationship with the Roman Empire. The earliest examples of Christianity in Ethiopia come from coins that had crosses on them. Other examples of Christianity in Ethiopia are church architectures in Aksum, Matara, and Adulis. These buildings were very large and they consisted of a monumental set of stairs. The earliest churches of Askumite were assembled in a circular shape, but later churches follow those described in the Old Testament-- squared sanctuaries with two aisles running along the side. Churches in Ethiopia served the religious needs of administrative and military officials. This makes me wonder... Were Ethiopian churches not open to the public?     Depicted above is...
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