Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Art egyptian art egyptian art The time span of Ancient Egypt Stretches over thousands of years. It lasted many periods and included many dynasty's. From the Neolithic Period, ca 5450-3850 B.C. to it's downfall at the Roman Period, ca 30 B.C. - A.D. 395. That is a long time. For archeologists to understand every day life of the ancient Egyptians, they must rely on many sources. The some of these valuable things being tomb paintings, relics, and objects that were used in every day life, that had been placed in there tombs. The most important findings however were the hundreds of documents written by the Egyptians. These helped shed much needed light on their lives. Giving valued information on their culture, and the way that they used language and communicated with one another. During the ancient Egyptians more than 3,00 yearlong history, they used three kinds of writings to write religious and secular texts. The basis of the two other writings is hieroglyphic. This writing was mainly used for sacred (Greek hieros) inscriptions on temple walls or public monuments (Greek glypho). Thus the word hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics use clearly distinguishable pictures to express both sounds and ideas. The pictures could either be inscribed or drawn and often would be painted in many colors. The quality of the writing would vary from highly detailed signs to just mere outlines of them. A special form of hieroglyphics was used for the Book of the Dead, it was written in cursive. The second form of writing, hieratic is as old as hieroglyphic. It is more cursive and is the result of a quick hand, usually drawing signs on a sheet of papryus with a brush made of reed. With hieratic writing the scribe would often leave out several details that made one sign different from another. Several smaller signs, written in one quick flow, would simply get squished together, but somehow is still able to be transcribed into hieroglyphics. Hieratic was mainly used for religious and secular writings on papyrus, or on linen. Occasionally it could be found on a temple wall during the Greek-Roman era. The name hieratic came by way of the Greeks. When they arrived in Egypt, this writing was almost exclusively used by Egyptian priest (Greek hieratikos, 'Priestly'). The last form of writing Demotic started being used during the 25th/26th Dynasty. This form is a further evolution from hieratic. Like hieratic, Demotic was a handwriting, but the strokes wereeven whacker and more illegible. The link between handwriting and hieroglyphic text slowly faded with Demotic. Demotic was used mostly in administrative and private texts, but also in stories and inscriptions. Egyptian art gives an image of them selves and there culture. When talking about Egyptian art we generally refer to paintings and sculptures that were used to decorate tombs. There is a strong belief in the afterlife for Egyptians. This belief was the reason for the embalming of bodies, the statues, carvings, and the paintings. The paintings in these tombs told stories of who and how the deceased was in life, so that he could proceed to the afterlife with the same attributes he had while living. Important people were given large and out of scale. Overlapping of outlines was avoided at all costs. The bodies were represented as flat as possible. They had there reasons for doing this. By doing this all of the body parts needed in the afterlife would be properly expressed and therefore readily available to the deceased. The style of art in Egypt didn't change much for three thousand years. Quit simply because the artists obeyed the rules set out for them. The Mesopotamian civilizations lived in what is know modern day Iraq, and Jordan between he Euphrates and Tigris rivers. It lasted from the Urak period, ca 4500-3100 B.C. to the Assyrian Empire, ca. 1100-612 B.C. . Much of the stuff we know about them is due to the fact that during early raids when Mesopotamian societies were sacked and set to fire. The clay tablets were baked left behind because they were of no value. In Mesopotamian civilizations they used symbols to represent writing. This is the mother of the Egyptian language. These people spoke a language that was. It had no known relationship to any other language in either grammar or in vocabulary at the time. The Akkadain script was a highly developed form of picture writing called cuneiform. Their language consisted of 600 words and syllable signs. They ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations both have their unique parts.But the basis of language and religions is all stemmed from the Mesopotamian. Culture. Down the line things have changed slightly, and their systems have changed to accommodate their current situation. Bibliography: Word Count: 782
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