Mesopotamia and Egypt: comparative analysis of ancient civilizations

Mesopotamian and Egyptian Art and Architecture

Mesopotamia" is the Greek word for "between the rivers" and refers to that region between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, presently occupied by Iraq, Turkley and Syria (Delahunt 2006). The region was occupied in ancient times by many groups, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Amorites, Kassites, Persians, Greeks, and Chaldeans. They passed their powers on to the Arabs, who now occupy current-day Mesopotamia. There is little rainfall in this region and access to the two rivers has been difficult. People in the region have built dams and grew food in the rich soil. They built canals in order to distribute scanty water, an activity, which united them. They also invented the plough to raise their cattle and sheep. The Mesopotamians invented the cuneiform and arithmetic for their purchases of goods, built schools, temples, palaces, workshops and statutes, drawn from a theocratic culture. They were a religious people who greatly feared their gods whom they served. Examples of their statutes are found at the Abu Temple in Tell Asmar, built around 27000 BCE, and illustrate the Sumerian culture. These were typically cones and cylinders and made up of arms and legs like pipes, smooth and round skirts, faces with large eyes. The size of these figures reflected some kind of hieratic imaging system, wherein the most important persons were the tallest. A figure with a beard meant that it belonged to one in a position of power. Art and architectural structures also included two-dimensional depictions of heads, elgs and feet in profile with their shoulders and torso shown frontally. Their wealth and natural resources of copper ore, limestone, alabaster and marble made them the object of envy by other peoples, te Hammurabis of Babylon, specifically. Thus, Mesopotamian art and architecture express pillaging, cities being torn down and their submission to enemies. Mesopotamians also believed that if their conquests and fights passed the test of their omens and prophets, they would get the blessings of their gods (Delahunt).

Egypt is historically known as the land of the pyramids, which stand prominently from mountains of stones (Gombrich 2006). Egypt may be mystical and mysterious but their history, art and architecture say a lot about their organized culture. This culture reflects a line of rich and powerful kings who could compel thousands of workers and slaves to work for many years, to quarry stones and drag them to build sites, and erect the tombs. The pyramids point to the importance of kings and pharaohs in the eyes of their subjects.

These subjects could have viewed their kings and pharaohs as no less than divine beings who deserved their loyalty and labors even after these kings and pharaohs had died. These pyramids were the resting places of these kings and pharaohs' sacred bodies, which the Egyptians believed should be preserved if the soul should live beyond. This explains why they prevented the decay of the corpses through a mysteriously elaborate method of embalming as mummies. They lay these mummies in stone coffins and wrote incantations to assist them in their journey in the next world. The Egyptians meant that their leaders would live forever. Egyptian art and architecture reflect nature and the regularity of the whole, especially in the reliefs and paintings that adorned the walls of the tombs. The art appears to be intended to be for the dead man interred and to keep him or her alive. Egyptian painters looked at life in a very different way from others. They did not value beauty or wholeness as others do in their works. Egyptian painters wanted to preserve everything in their culture as permanently and as clearly as possible. In achieving perfect clarity, they also drew from memory in a most consistent way. They saw and expressed everything from its most characteristic angle, hence the distinctively contorted art and architectural expressions in their works. They also found it difficult to visualize the foot as seen from the outside. They perceived human beings this way and depicted them according to that angle and faithfully according to a law, whereby all their creations conform to a given style of pose and rigid harmony. According to this style, seated statutes had their hands on their knees, men had to have darker skin than women, and the appearance of specific gods had to be distinguished. Egyptian artists also had to learn to compose beautiful scripts by cutting the images and symbols of hieroglyphics clearly and accurately on stone (Gombrich).