Aegean Art

Minoan and Mycenaean

Learning Target: Students will be able to describe how each society’s structure and values are reflected in their art and architecture.

ENTRY TASK: Cut out the artworks for the Aegean Art Unit!

Background Article Vocab

Background Articles

Choose one of the articles (or you are defaulted because the others are taken). Critically read the article and add any pertinent information into your T chart. Be prepared to share out.

Aegean Art

• Minoans and the Mycenaeans.
• This mini unit provides a nice segue between ancient Near Eastern (Mesopotamian and Egyptian) art and Greek art.
• Both the Minoans and the Mycenaeans were influenced by these earlier civilizations (their writing systems, for instance, are thought to be adaptations of Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems), and the
• Mycenaeans were the immediate forerunners of the ancient Greeks.

Where are talking about?

Where are talking about?

Where are talking about?

Where on the timeline?

Minoan = 2000 BC - 1500 BC

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Mycenaean = 1600 BC - 1100 BC

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How are a society’s structure and values reflected in their art and architecture?

How do we know what we know about these societies, and what conclusions can we (or can’t we) draw from the available evidence?

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Aegean Art

Minoan and Mycenaean

Learning Target: Students will be able to describe how Minoan society’s structure and values are reflected in their art and architecture.

ENTRY TASK: get out your tape-ins for this unit (already cut them out on Monday) and prepare for notes on the Minoans! (! = excitement)

Artistic Representation / Cultural Values

Minoans = relationship to the environment

Mycenaeans = displays of political power

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What cultural values do you think are represented in our art (US/North America) today?

Cycladic Cultures

• Settlements span Neolithic and Bronze Ages
• Most objects come from burial sites and are small, such as figurines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFKzGmjvvdI

Minoan Culture

• Highly developed society
• Relied on agriculture and trade
• Four major urban centers on the island of Crete
• First excavated by Arthur Evans (1851-1941) in the early 20th century

• Palace was a large urban complex with a variety of specific spaces
• Storage, workshops, meeting rooms, ceremonial spaces, royal living quarters

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• Had a highly functioning water system with flushing toilets!

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• Had an open colonnade for the hot climate

Knossos = Ka Nah soss

Megaron = “main room”

quick free write:

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• What do you think it symbolizes or represents?
• What evidence they would need in order to prove their theories
• Evidence is unlikely to be available, since we have no decipherable written documents from the Minoan culture and thus know little about their specific beliefs and traditions.

Epistemology:

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• The theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope.
• Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

Aegean Art

Minoan and Mycenaean

Learning Target: Students will be able to describe how Mycenaean society’s structure and values are reflected in their art and architecture.

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ENTRY TASK: Get out your notebook

Mycenaean Overview

• Militaristic warfairing society
• Possibly conquered the Minoans
• Highly fortified citadels
• Massive Cyclopean masonry
• Like “Cyclops?”
• Home (fabled) of Agamemnon

Cyclopean Masonry

• Stark contrast to the types of construction favored by earlier Greek civilizations.
• Minoans, for instance - used post-and-lintel construction
• Need for security led to the use of Cyclopean masonry when constructing the extensive citadel walls enclosing the territory around Mycenaean palaces.

Mycenaean Examples

• Citadels at Mycenae and Tiryns
• Mycenae provides a perfect illustration of the typical use of Cyclopean masonry.
• Three-stage construction of its walls
• The first stage enclosed the central area of the citadel.
• Walls were expanded to create the Lion Gate
• Finally, a small expansion to provide access to a secret spring, a source of water - should they ever be besieged.

• Schliemann was trying to find evidence of the legendary city of Troy

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• He claimed that Mycenae was the fabled home of Agamemnon (no hard proof of this)

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• Since the Mycenaeans were so focused on displays of wealth, it is believed that the lion’s heads were made of gold or a precious stone and later looted.

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Tomb of Agamemnon

• Excavated into the side of a hill
• Tallest and widest dome in the world for over a thousand years until construction of the Temple of Mercury in Baiae and the Pantheon in Rome
• The room was constructed by digging vertically into the hillside, like a well, and then walling and roofing the space with stone from the floor level of the chamber

Tomb of Agamemnon

• Tiers of ashlar masonry were laid in rings so that each successive tier projected slightly farther inward, until only a small opening is left at the top
• Known as a “Corbeled Vault”
• Above the entryway there is an open space in the shape of a triangle
• known as a relieving triangle