Chapter 6, The Ancient Near East, 01 — Transcript

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1. 0:05Welcome to our discussion of the Ancient Near East!
2. 0:09This region saw a series of cultures coming to dominance and then being defeated and replaced
3. 0:15by the victors--only for those victors to fall to the next group.
4. 0:21We'll start with Sumer, before moving to Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria, and finally the
5. 0:28Achaemenid or Early Persian Empire.
6. 0:32As usual, there is a vocabulary box here with terms to watch out for.
7. 0:37In this unit, we'll look at the concept of civilization, how it developed, and what it
8. 0:43means for the creation of art.
9. 0:46We'll consider how this is intertwined with the Neolithic Revolution, which we began to
10. 0:52discuss in the last chapter.
11. 0:54Finally, we'll examine the artistic materials, techniques, subject matter, styles, and conventions
12. 1:03developed in the region called the ancient Near East.
13. 1:08As the textbook points out, the region we're focusing on in this chapter is called the
14. 1:13ancient near east, or middle east, because it's nearer to the so-called west-Europe.
15. 1:20It is considered part of Western Art history, as distinct from art from the far east-China,
16. 1:27Japan, India, etc.
17. 1:30As Dr. Senta German points out, this region got looped into Western art history because
18. 1:36of European interest in rediscovering the cities mentioned in the Bible, including Nineveh
19. 1:44and Babylon, which we'll return to later in this chapter.
20. 1:48First, we head back to the fertile crescent and to the Neolithic Revolution.
21. 1:54You'll remember that the fertile crescent is this C-shaped area, in green on the map,
22. 2:01formed along the rivers of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile.
23. 2:06Water from these rivers, and naturally occurring plants and grasses, made this the ideal location
24. 2:13for the development of agriculture.
25. 2:16Agriculture, believe it or not-growing food, instead of just gathering it wherever it can
26. 2:23be found-is one of the key ingredients for the birth of civilization.
27. 2:30In the fertile crescent, people began deliberately planting grains and domesticating animals,
28. 2:38leading to a much more stable food supply than had been the case with hunting and gathering.
29. 2:45With a stable, consistent food supply came other changes, including the specialization
30. 2:51of labor.
31. 2:52Now a portion of the society, rather than everybody, can tend to growing food, while
32. 2:59other people take on other tasks-making buildings, creating pottery, arranging trade, etc.
33. 3:08Another major development that comes about as a direct result of agriculture, and is
34. 3:13a key ingredient of civilization, is the development of writing.
35. 3:18According to the textbook, what does agriculture have to do with writing?