SUMERIAN ART, ca. 3500–2332 BCE
❚The Sumerians founded the world’s first city-states in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers and invented writing in the fourth millennium BCE.
❚They were also the first to build towering temple platforms, called ziggurats, and to place figures
in registers to tell coherent stories.
AKKADIAN ART, ca. 2332–2150 BCE
❚The Akkadians were the first Near Eastern rulers to call themselves kings of the world and to
assume divine attributes. The earliest recorded name of an author is the Akkadian priestess
Enheduanna.
❚Akkadian artists may have been the first to cast hollow life-size bronze sculptures and to place
figures at different levels in a landscape setting.
NEO-SUMERIAN AND BABYLONIAN ART, ca. 2150–1600 BCE
❚During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerians rose again to power and constructed one of the
largest ziggurats in Mesopotamia at Ur.
❚Gudea of Lagash (r. ca. 2100 BCE) built numerous temples and placed diorite portraits of himself
in all of them as votive offerings to the gods.
❚Babylon’s greatest king, Hammurabi (r. 1792–1750 BCE), established a comprehensive law code for
the empire he ruled. Babylonian artists were among the first to experiment with foreshortening.
ASSYRIAN ART, ca. 900–612 BCE
❚At the height of their power, the Assyrians ruled an empire that extended from the Persian Gulf
to the Nile and Asia Minor.
❚Assyrian palaces were fortified citadels with gates guarded by monstrous lamassu. Painted reliefs
depicting the king in battle and hunting lions decorated the walls of the ceremonial halls.
NEO-BABYLONIAN AND PERSIAN ART, ca. 612–330 BCE
❚In the sixth century BCE, the Babylonians constructed two of the Seven Wonders of the ancient
world. The Ishtar Gate, with its colorful glazed brick reliefs, gives an idea of how magnificent
Babylon was under Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 BCE).
❚The capital of the Achaemenid Persians was at Persepolis, where Darius I (r. 522–486 BCE) and
Xerxes (r. 486–465 BCE) built a huge palace complex with an audience hall that could accommodate
thousands. Painted reliefs of subject nations bringing tribute decorated the terraces.
❚Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in 330 BCE.
THE BIG PICTURE
THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
Standard of Ur,ca. 2600 BCEPortrait of an Akkadian king,
ca. 2250–2200 BCEStele of Hammurabi,
ca. 1780 BCELamassu, citadel of Sargon II,
Dur Sharrukin, ca. 720–705 BCEIshtar Gate, Babylon, ca. 575 BCE