Problem
Instructions
You will choose a combination of three artworks* from across the Required Objects lists from the last four modules (Ancient Mesopotamia and Persia, Ancient Egypt, The Prehistoric Aegean, and Ancient Greece). *Your artworks must be selected from among those published in the required textbook.
Imagine that you are a museum curator putting together an exhibition called "Art of the Ancient World." Instead of organizing your galleries in the traditional way, which usually groups objects by culture or time period, you have decided to juxtapose objects from different cultures and period in order to emphasize a particular interpretation of them for your visitors. Your chosen objects can be in any medium, but all three must come from different cultures or time periods. For example, while you cannot choose two Egyptian objects and one from Archaic Greece, for the purposes of this assignment, note that the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods of Ancient Greece can be considered different enough in their stylistic and social aspects to count as "different" cultures.
Use the Study Guide questions and your notes from each module to help guide your selections. Make choices that will allow you to identify similarities or differences between cultures that can be explored through an analysis of these artworks. Think about the following questions when formulating your response:
A. What are these objects, what culture(s) do they come from, and what was their original display context?
B. When were they made and how do their materials or style relate to their function or significance?
C. How are each of your chosen artworks representative of the culture that produced them?
D. Why have you chosen to group these particular objects together? What can the visitor learn from this specific combination?
E. Is there one theme or "big idea" that links these objects? (This will help you formulate a specific thesis argument!)