Week 5 option 1

            I am going with option one being the Minoan culture and its Bull Leaping “BL” (pg. 88) piece. For the comparison I will be going with the Egyptian culture and its Picking Figs “PF” (pg. 63) piece. Looking over the Minoan piece it is basically centered on a bull with three people doing various things around it. One seems to be holding or restraining it, another being upside down a little above the middle/back of it, and the third is behind it with his hands in a position as if he were to catch the person above the bull or something else. The Egyptian piece is centered on a tree with figs and three baboons while two men on each side are picking the figs with the baboons. Researching the two pieces both are big paintings that were done on big walls to show his/her art. For the BL piece it was designed and created upon a plaster surface being of wet or dry though one had ups and downs compared to the other. The PF piece being common with Egyptian artwork is made of mud plaster surface with a possible thin limestone layer as well to be more accepting of paint to stay on without decaying in the dry and hot climate. Comparing the two it is interesting in how they both are very simple in their design but at the same time they are complex in how to interpret it, as it isn’t easy to do so. BL is actually of people leaping over bulls and PF is a race between the baboons and men to pick the most or all the figs before the other does. What is easily identifiable is the fact that BL is very flat in depth since it does not have any shadow among it and PF has some on the stomach and legs of the two men but. Though the tree or baboons don’t show depth with shadow the figs do show a bit from what can be seen. Though PF has depth it seems Egyptian culture from the pieces I’ve seen don’t do too much detail in color or not a lot of different colors being brighter but prefer to be a little greyer/dimmer. This could be that they already have a bright sun to worry about most of the year they don’t want brighter artwork to add to this brightness. BL on the other hand and their culture like to give a good concept in different colors, or at least colors that would relate to one another unlike PF with the people being so much darker and gaining more attention than the tree with its baboons/figs. All in all it seems to me that Egyptian art can be easily identifiable since their work of art is very organized in what is where to describe what they’re trying to imply. What could seem to be unique to me about Minoan artwork is that they like to be Greekish but more flatter and straight forward in their pieces.

Week 4

            It seems that they Pyramids of Giza and the Ziggurats of the near east have quite a few similarities that outnumber differences from what I can tell. It seems that both are based upon a big rectangular like base which get smaller and smaller as they go up with the pyramids ending in a point and the ziggurats ending with just a flat top. The infrastructures they use make them even more similar than people think they are since the pyramids originally were just one block being called a funiary, then the stepped pyramids basically being a big pyramid like stairway to the top but with the stepped pyramids they obtained a bit of design from the ziggurats as they were of a rectangle with the same design also. However the ziggurats didn’t make it too obvious that they’re stepping upward getting smaller as they go. Going inside of these structures it would be like the pyramid is just a covered version of a ziggurat. The ziggurats had their single room up at the top to be a holy room for showing their loyalties to a leader or god which offerings were given and placed within the structure. While pyramids had their room be at the top for which the tomb of a leader would be for worship, however the room was covered by the pyramid itself still and was usually located around the middle of the total height of it. Basically physically looking at it the pyramids was just a ziggurat because of the side and front stairs but without the side walls/side they had. Adding to this the stairs didn’t just stop three quarters of the way up but continued until they got together. For what the two were made of it was quite different and quite puzzling in how they did it in the first place. Ziggurats were made of just mud bricks as they are called but could be small in size. Pyramids on the other hand had much bigger stones which was limestone that weighed on average around 2.5 tons each and then more better limestone for the outer layer of the modern pyramid. As far as why these structures were it was quite similar most of the time as a place to worship and honor. However the pyramids were built to worship or honor a leader while the ziggurats was not only to worship and honor a person but instead was for the gods also such as the Nanna ziggurat was for a leader and their moon god known as Nanna or in another term, Sin. While Egyptians did this to make sure the leader would have a great and lovely time in the afterlife with worship and gifts to what they believed since they thought if the body were in good condition then the spirit would be also. Sumerians would