Glossary

Glossary of art historical and archaeological terms in this book (listed in order of appearance in the book)

Spectrum of literacy: the idea that the ability to read and write, to absorb and to produce information and ideas using the written word, is a spectrum, with infinitely many points along the journey from “cannot read and write at all” to “can read and write very complex texts with speed, facility, and ease.”

Prehistoric: a premodern culture that did not have, or did not leave behind, a written language.

Archaeology: an academic discipline that studies historical human life through the recovery and analysis of material remains.

Red-figure vase: a style of ancient Greek vase painting in which the background of the vase is painted black, while the figures and images are created by leaving the original red or orange surface color of the clay unpainted.

Black-figure vase: a style of ancient Greek vase painting in which the figures and images are painted in black against the red or orange surface color of the clay.

Symposium: a gathering in ancient Greek culture in which the (male) revelers would gather, drink wine mixed with water, discuss topics of philosophy (as they grew increasingly drunk), and experience entertainments like music or dance performances. The most famous literary description of a symposium was that by Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher.

Provenance: the archaeological discovery spot of an object.

Hellenistic: the name for the period of ancient Mediterranean history that we give to the era after the conquests of Alexander the Great, when cultures from Greece to China became interconnected by travel, trade, and the sharing of ideas.

Restoration: the replacing of a broken part of an ancient object in modern times.

Ancient Greek temple and holy precinct: ancient Greek temples to deities held objects sacred to the deities, and were not open to the public. Community worship of the Greek deities took place in the area around the temple, known as the holy precinct.

Aphrodite: ancient Greek goddess of love, lust, beauty, and sexuality.

Eros: ancient Greek god of love and sexual desire.

Artemis: ancient Greek goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, animals, pregnant people, childbirth, and children.

Homer: ancient Greek poet, c. 8th century BCE, traditionally considered the author of the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Sappho: ancient Greek poet, c. 610-570 BCE, author of lyric poetry and lesbian icon.

Classical antiquity: a period of premodern history, usually used for the Mediterranean region, roughly between 800 BCE-300 CE.

Late Antiquity: a period of premodern history, roughly between 300-1000 CE, between classical antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Medieval period: a period of premodern history, roughly between 1000-1500 CE.

Byzantine empire: what remained of the Roman empire of classical antiquity during Late Antiquity; capital at Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul).

Sasanian empire: a Persian empire of Late Antiquity; capital at Ctesiphon (near modern-day Baghdad, in Iraq).

Fragmentary: an art historical term for an object that is broken, or that exists only in part.

Silk Road: a complex ancient trade route by both land and sea that stretched from Southern Europe to East Asia.

Carbon dating: a method of determining the age of an ancient object by measuring the presence of radiocarbon (a radioactive isotope of the element carbon that decreases over time) in the object.

Stratigraphy: a term from archaeology for the idea that there are layers in the ground, and that each layer represents a different era of history.

Canopic jar: the jar in which the internal organs were kept for an ancient Egyptian mummy.

King Tut(ankhamun), Akhenaten: a (possible) father (Akhenaten) and son (King Tut) pair of pharaohs from ancient Egypt, who lived in the 1300s BCE.

Valley of the Kings: burial ground for ancient Egyptian pharaohs and other members of the royal family.

Archaeology and colonialism: a historical phenomenon in which colonizers to a land would also practice archaeology there, excavating ancient objects and sending them back to museums in the colonizers’ homeland.

Sphinx: a hybrid mythological creature that includes both human and lion elements.

Hatshepsut: a female pharaoh of ancient Egypt, c. 1505-1458 BCE.

Mudra: a symbolic hand gesture in Buddhist or yogic traditions.

Luxury object: an art historical term for objects that are expensive, rare, or used materials that are not easy to obtain. Sometimes objects are considered luxury objects because owning them is a marker of wealth, socioeconomic status, profession, education, or some other form of identity.

Manuscript: a premodern text written by hand.

Folio: a term for a single page of a manuscript.

Seljuq empire: a Turkic and Persian empire of the early Middle Ages, with capitals in modern-day Iran and Central Asia.

Calligraphy: the art of beautiful and stylized handwriting.

Anthropomorphic: an artistic or literary style that gives animals, plants, or other beings human-like qualities.

Astrology: a belief system and way of life that assumes that the stars, planets, sun, moon, and other celestial objects exert an influence on life on earth, helping to determine human fate, destiny, relationships, and other life circumstances.

Numismatics: the study of coins and currency.

AH dating system: a dating system from Islamic tradition and history, based on events in the life of the prophet Muhammad.

Han Dynasty: an ancient imperial dynasty of China, roughly 202 BCE-220 CE.

Subject (of an art piece): the person, place, animal, or thing that is featured, shown, or symbolized in an art piece.

Samurai: warriors for hire in the feudal system of premodern Japan. They were hired to patrol and protect the lands of wealthy landowners, and they lived by a strict code of ethics.

Feudal system: an economic system in which wealthy landowners allow vassals to rent and farm portions of their land in exchange for loyalty and military service.

Bushido: a philosophy that guided the actions and way of life of premodern samurai. This code required loyalty to one’s master, preferring death in battle above capture or surrender, lack of attachment to material wealth, and even a provision of ritual suicide if necessary.

Illuminated: a manuscript or other text that was illustrated.

Mandala: Sanskrit for “circle”; a geometric diagram, usually housed in a circle, that is used (in Buddhist, tantric, yogic, and other traditions) for meditation, focusing the mind, or inspiration towards understanding and enlightenment.

Tantric Buddhism: a branch of Buddhism that emphasizes esoteric practices like meditation, visualization, the chanting of mantras, the use of mudras, and focusing on mandalas. These practices are intended to encourage spiritual awakening.

Divination: a ritual practice that involves asking a question about our fate, destiny, decisions, relationships, or other aspects of human life of some external tool (such as cards, tea leaves, the flight of birds, the weather, the stars, or even, as in modern pop culture, a crystal ball), with the belief that the universe speaks to humans through the medium of these external tools.

Repatriation: the return of historical objects to their homelands.

Tipi: a traditional moveable dwelling of many North American Native cultures.

Sundial: an object that tells time via the movement of the sun through the sky during the day. A raised element casts a shadow in the sun on the surface of the sundial, where (in the best, most accurate examples of premodern sundials) there is a precise grid for marking the hours, which we call the grid or system of hour lines; wherever the sun’s shadow falls on that grid tells the user the time of day.

Thoth: the ancient Egyptian god of reckoning, mathematics, timekeeping, writing, and other kinds of intellectual knowledge and understanding.

Astrolabe: an astronomical object in use during the Late Antique, medieval, and early modern periods. It helped travelers and astronomers with a variety of “problems” of astronomy; for example, it aided in navigation via the stars, in timekeeping, in tracking lunar and solar eclipses, in determining latitude, and even in land surveying.

Alchemy: a practical craft, experimental process, and esoteric belief system by which alchemists tried to transform cheaper metals, like copper and lead, into silver and gold, much more valuable metals. The esoteric branch of alchemy also included magical practices and beliefs such as the fountain of youth, the elixir, the philosopher’s stone, and the purification of the human soul.

Islamic translation movement: a historical phenomenon in the Islamic Late Antique world in which government officials sponsored translations of ancient scientific and medical texts from languages such as ancient Greek, Latin, Persian, and Sanskrit into Arabic.

Astronomy: the branch of science that studies objects and processes outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Stela: an inscription used in a tomb or other burial structure, or in some other commemorative way.