Word: sumerian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Jacobsen is regarded as a preeminent authority on the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, especially that of the Sumerian, the earliest civilization. Beginning in 1939, he has conducted a number of important archeological excavations in Mesopotamia...
Then, in rich chapters, he describes the virtually inexhaustible variety of answers that man has proposed to the question of what follows death. Islam preached an afterlife of sensual pleasure for the true believer; some Hellenic religions gloomily warned of a dark, shadowy Hades. The Sumerian faith of ancient Babylon and the primitive Yahwist faith of Israel also preached an afterlife of agony rather than ecstasy-which was still apparently preferable to believing that death was merely obliteration...
...inadequate to print it in black and white when its values so often depended on its colors. The result of this longstanding color program has been a week-by-week history of art, past and present, that is unmatched anywhere, in any magazine. The earliest crude beauty of Sumerian sculpture, the high glories of Renaissance painting, the colored infernos of present-day abstractionists have all been seen in TIME. This week, for example, while most U.S. newspapers are content to print the list of the top prizewinners at the Carnegie International of Pittsburgh, and a few to show the prizes...
Steppingstone Towers. The Sumerians introduced writing, and under their rule the arts flourished. Their temples-dedicated to such gods as to Innin, the goddess of fertility, or to Dumuzi, a kind of Sumerian Adonis-were huge edifices of mud brick made splendid by intricate mosaics of colored earth. The temples rose in staged towers much as did the Tower of Babel, and each formed a kind of artificial mountain-a steppingstone by which the gods could commute to earth. But above all, the Sumerians were a kingdom of sculptors who, in seesawing between realism and abstraction, seem almost modern...
...Minds. The statues uncovered at Nippur portray a cross section of Sumerian society. A priestess standing majestically with a ritual cup in one hand and a branch in the other hobnobs with an old woman with a matronly double chin. A bearded man and his wife sit holding hands in one of the very few Sumerian double statues ever found. A carefully carved woman is made of a translucent green stone not yet identified. Her face is of gold-a metal that was believed to possess purifying properties and was frequently used for the noblest parts of the sculptures...