summary the article

Culture: Sumerian Title: Warka Vase: Goddess Innana behind her symbols (two sheaves of reed); detail from a

limestone cult vase from Uruk, Mesopotamia Work Type: sculpture Date: 3200-3000 BCE Material: stone

Title: The Palette of Narmer (front) Date: 1st dynasty, circa 3000 BCE Material: slate

Measurements: height: 63.5 cm Description: From Hierakonpolis, Kom el-Ahmar

Midterm Short Answer You will write a two-sentence thesis and 3-5 comparative points. Each point should explain: 1. HOW the images look (similarity or difference) 2. WHY the formal similarity or difference exists.

Sample Response Thesis: The Warka Vase, a Sumerian Vase made around 3,000 BCE, and The Palette of Narmer an Egyptian palette from roughly the same period, represent divine figures in shallow relief. While the Warka vase represents a space that is similar to the temple where the vase was found, the Narmer palette commemorates a specific, historical event and its immediate aftermath.

· Both objects represent a procession of figures. [note the comparative points don’t have to be in complete sentences. But they should be comparative points that support the topic sentence, which support the thesis.]

· In the Narmer Palette, these figures are walking to next to the ruler to survey two rows of decapitated bodies, indicating his military might.

· In the Warka Vase, the naked figures are moving in continually in a circle below the god Inanna as they carry goods to her as offering.

· The authority of the divine figure is indicated by the fact that they are the largest figures represented.

· In the Warka Vase, Inanna is the largest figure and placed at the top of the vase, suggesting that the lower registers are moving to her.

· In the Narmer palette, Narmer is large and in the center of the image, suggesting that he is connected to all of the figures represented.

· The figures in both objects are separated in different registers.

· In the Warka vase, the compartmentalization of space happens in four separate planes that do not intersect.

· in the Narmer palette, the figures seem distinct, but they are more commingled. Narmer’s enemies are never perpendicular to the horizontal ground lines.

· The figures and objects in the Warka vase are represented moving around the vase, which is like the movement of the viewers to her temple. The Narmer Palette represents a series of scenes that are all tied together, but in no clear or linear order. The viewer has to put the pieces of the story together.

(ADDING MORE HISTORICAL DETAILS TO THIS OUTLINE WOULD BE VERY GOOD, for example, unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, etc.) But this is the basic structure you will want to follow: comparison of visual facts and some formal/historical interpretation.