Caves to Cathedrals

Gardner’s has seven figures in its Neolithic section, not including the map. The Paleolithic section has thirteen. I would aim to create more balance between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. A global approach to the Neolithic would also necessitate additional images. I offer this plan with all humility, as I do not specialize in prehistoric art. I welcome comments. I also wrestle with the term prehistoric and its only partial application to Bronze and Iron age civilizations. Any and all insight is welcome.

Figure 1 Plan of Ain Ghazal showing findspot of statues

Figure 2 Statue from earlier cache at Ain Ghazal, with front and side view

Figure 3 Statue holding breasts from later cache at Ain Ghazal

Figure 4 Plan of Catal Hoyuk showing locations of selected wall paintings

Figure 5 Photo of Landscape Wall Painting in situ or in museum

Figure 6 Watercolor Copy of Landscape Painting

Figure 7 Second Wall Painting in situ

Global

Figure 7 Neolithic Jade from China

Figure 8 Olmec Jade Celt (understanding the Olmec as a prehistoric Mesoamerican Civilization)

Plus Bronze Age, Prehistoric

Figure 9 Cycladic Figure shown bare and then with paint, either reconstructed or under special lighting

Plus Iron Age, Prehistoric

Figure 10 An object from the La Tene period

Although Gardner’s includes Stonehenge, I did not cover it during class time. But at the least, I can note recent news items.

National Geographic has just published several items – a news article, a magazine essay, and a slideshow – as part of its coverage of new findings, most notably the dating of some burials so that they predate the stones.

The identification of art from the periods of prehistory – paleolithic and neolithic (and mesolithic, as well, if you use Honour and Fleming’s The Visual Arts: A History) – depend not on their place nor their date for their periodization, but on the stage of cultural development.  To underscore the point that every continent has a prehistory, in an ideal survey (global, of course), alongside the neolithic art of the Ancient Near East and Western Europe,  I would present neolithic art from China.

Gardner’s chapter on Chinese Art before 1279 includes a brief section on Yangshao pottery, but unfortunately, it offers little to work with.  A search for “Yangshao” on Via turns up several pieces, some of which are publicly accessible, such as this ca. 4000 BCE bottle from the Harvard University Art Museums.  In fact, one may turn many places on the internet for further material.  Mike Gunther has assembled ceramic and jade from neolithic China on his website, www.art-and-archaeology.com, all linked to the pages of the museums that hold them (but beware- some links are dead).  The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has a useful web resource for Chinese art, the Art of Asia, as does the National Gallery of Art, Teaching the Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology.   And, as for all periods, one may find useful information at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Timeline of Art History.

In my fifty minutes on Neolithic Art, we did not make it to Catal Hoyuk, which was a shame, for those who work on Catal Hoyuk make the material, including the results of the most recent excavations, highly accessible.  The official website provides the most obvious starting point.  Among other places, it leads to the photographs of the archaeologists on Flickr and an Image Collection Database at Stanford.  It also provides an extensive bibliography.

The Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI) team at Berkeley has made great efforts to make the archaeological material from Catal Hoyuk more compelling.  You may visit reconstructions in Second Life, although I cannot recommend it, for as I write, I am on Okapi Island in Second Life, stuck outside Catal Hoyuk, unable to climb up the ladder to get into the town.  The Berkeley Archaeologists at Catal Hoyuk Research Archive, and its web exhibition, Remixing Catal Hoyuk, overflow with riches, although this abundance overwhelms and it may prove difficult to find something immediately relevant to the class.

If time permitted, I would aim to contextualize the wall paintings from Catal Hoyuk more fully.  First, I would show the original painting of the landscape.  Gardner’s shows only a watercolor copy of it, but you may find on the web photographs of the actual wall painting.  Second, I would show a plan of Catal Hoyuk and locate the room with the landscape.  Then, I would introduce other material, such as the Mother Goddess figures included in Art Across Time and The Visual Arts: A History. 

But Catal Hoyuk is such a rich site, that it may provide a good opportunity for the students to conduct some guided web-research and to learn more about the site and archaeology more generally. 

The generous on-line publication of material from Ain Ghazal by multiple interested parties makes the monumental figures from Ain Ghazal particularly accessible.  Before teaching the class, I had come across a Jstor-available article by Denise Schmandt-Besserat in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (”Ain Ghazal Monumental Figures” in Number 310, 1998), to which I attribute all that follows.  But today, I find much more on the internet.  You may find Ain Ghazal Excavation Reports by the same author, which include a chapter on the Monumental Statuary, including a lengthy “Stylistic Analysis”, as well as a description and catalogue of a second cache of statues.  Chapter 5 on the “Decorated Skulls” offers great material for the contextualization of the form of the monumental figures, and the Introduction provides background on the town.  A conservation project also provides some information on the University College London website. 

In class, I introduced the human figures from Ain Ghazal by asking the students to place in order from the smallest to the largest the following carved objects: the Venus of Willendorf, the Lion Man, and the figure from Ain Ghazal, and the discussion begun with the paleolithic carved figures in the previous unit may here continue.  The students should appreciate that the figure from Ain Ghazal stands almost 3 1/2 feet high, taller than my almost-five-year-old daughter.

I then asked the class to identify what the Venus of Willendorf, the relief carving of a woman from Laussel, and the figure from Ain Ghazal all have in common.  This question trains their close reading of the survey text. 

Two-headed figures and the figure holding her breasts, both motifs of divine figures in later art of the Near East, suggest the identification of these statues as divinities.  A description of how the statues were made and where and how the archaeologists found them (as two caches, buried in good condition two hundred years apart) can then lead to a discussion of context and use.  Images of the statues from the side also give clues to their possible placement within a space. 

Again, the understanding of context, placement, and use make these figures meaningful.

A comparison of the images in Gardner’swith those in the other survey texts surprises.  For my own field, as we shall see much further down the road, the extent of the overlap disturbed me, but here we actually see differences!  As you can see, Stokstad, especially, but also Adams and Honour & Fleming hold some of the Neolithic material until the next chapter on the Ancient Near East.  The chart, however, does not show how Gardner’s privileges the wall paintings at Catal Hoyuk, while the others privilege the sculpted material.

Click on chart to enlarge.