FAS 201 Comparison Suggestion List
Ancient Near East
1. Theme: Legitimization of Authority
 Stele with Law Code of Hammurabi
 Code of Hammurabi (written text)
o http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/hammurabi.html
o http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp
o http://musee.louvre.fr/oal/code/indexEN.html
 For contemporary connection, try looking at U.S. and other judicial systems
2. Theme: Quest for Immortality
 Statuettes of worshippers, from the Square Temple at Eshnunna
 Epic of Gilgamesh
o http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/eog/
o http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/edys/hd_edys.htm
 For contemporary connection, try looking at modern medicine/religion
Ancient Egypt
1. Theme: Quest for Immortality/Creation of Legacy
 Great Pyramids at Giza
 The autobiography of Amenemhab
o http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/amenemhab.htm
o http://giza3d.3ds.com/#discover
 For contemporary connection, try looking at charity work, career choices, or raising children
2. Theme: Akhenaten’s Worship of/Devotion to Aten
 Statue of Akhenaten or Akhenaten with Nefertiti and Their Children
 The Great Hymn to the Aten
o http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/amarna/belief.html
o http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/akhenaten_01.shtml
 For contemporary connection, try looking at modern religion
Ancient Greece
1. Theme: Representation of the Trojan War
 Andokides Painter’s Archaic amphora, Ajax and Achilles Playing a Dice a Game (or other
Greek vase)
 Homer, Iliad
o http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/Trojan_War/trojan_war.html
o http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html
o http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vase/hd_vase.htm
o

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/two-handled-jar-amphora-with-achillesand-ajax-153408
o http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/representing-troy-in-ancient-greece-and-medievaleurope/
For contemporary connection, try looking at modern film/cinema
2. Theme: Math/Ratio/Proportion
 Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear Bearer), Roman marble copy of Greek bronze, ca. 450 BCE
 Homer, Iliad (sample of opening lines of Book I with optional link to full text, translated into
English hexameters by Edwin Simcox)
o http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.arts.20110101.01.html (especially Section 5)
o http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Arts/Doryphoros.htm
o https://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/ARTH209/Doyphoros.html
o https://ba278b9d8106536501a257da1f3fe93ccf3a9828e6ce67c3d52c.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/06_mccague.pdf
o http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/homer/simcoxiliad.htm
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAm525BJYh4
 For contemporary connection, try looking at modern engineering/architectural design
Ancient Rome
Theme: Establishing Divine Lineage With Regard to Identity
 Portrait of Augustus as General (Augustus as Primaporta)
 Virgil, Aeneid
o http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.html
o https://wuhstry.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/the-aeneid-as-a-commentary-onaugustus/
 For contemporary connection, try looking at genealogy, family portraiture, or modern
royalty
Byzantine
Theme: The Representation of Byzantine Empirical Power/Authority
 Mosaic of Justinian and his attendants, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, ca. 547
 Chronicle of John Malalas
o http://en.calameo.com/books/000675905f2f4bf509d49 (pages 245–248)
o https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/byzantine1/veniceravenna/a/justinian-mosaic-san-vitale
 For contemporary connection, try looking at presidential/world leader portraiture
Islamic
Theme: Beauty
 Mihrab (prayer niche), ca. 1350, Iran, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
 Any surah of the Qur'an
o http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/39.20
o http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/orna/hd_orna.htm
o http://patterninislamicart.com/background-notes/the-evolution-of-style
o http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vege/hd_vege.htm
o http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/calligraphy-in-islamic-art/
o http://www.wright-house.com/religions/islam/Quran.html
 For contemporary connection, try looking at formal invitations (wedding, gala, etc.)
Early Medieval
Theme: Text/Book Cover as Relic/Reliquary
 Book cover of the Lindau Gospels, from Saint Gall, Switzerland, ca. 870
 Any segment of one of the four gospels
o http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/luke-asv.html
o http://www.themorgan.org/collection/lindau-gospels/front-cover
o https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/latin-westerneurope/carolingian1/v/lindau-gospels-cover
 For contemporary connection, try looking at bibliophilia, rare book industry/collecting
Italian Renaissance
1. Theme: Humanism/Beauty
 Botticelli, Birth of Venus, ca. 1484–1486
 Poliziano’s poem “Stanze per la Giostra”
o https://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/arth213/botticelli_poliziano_birth
_venus.htm
o http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/the-birth-of-venus-by-sandro-botticelli/
 For contemporary connection, try looking at modern beauty standards (various
mediums/genres)
2. Theme: Sprezzatura
 Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, ca. 1515
 Baldassare Castiglione, Book of the Courtier (I.26), published 1528
o https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029052962#page/n33/mode/2up (pages 34–
37)
o http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/sprezzatura.htm
o http://courses.washington.edu/hsteu401/Courtier%20sprezzatura.htm
 For contemporary connection, try looking at professional performance art (dance, music,
etc.).
3. Theme: Anatomy
 Leonardo da Vinci, any of his anatomical sketches/studies of the human body
 Leonardo da Vinci, notes on anatomy (from his published notebooks)
o http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/disegno.htm
o http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/dv/dvs016.htm (introduction through Section
815)
o http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org/
o https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/exhibitions/leonardo-da-vinci-anatomist
 For contemporary connection, try looking at modern medicine, formal artistic training