Yet another picture hunt prompted by Photobucket rodeo. Had parts of it saved since earlier. Given the strong ancient Mesopotamian basis for Chaos Dwarfs, this should be of interest to most folks around here.
Bronze age Mitanni pictures were included since parts of their territory encompassed northern Mesopotamia. Urartu (ancient Armenia) has been included as a bonus, the reason of which should be evident in the pictures displaying strong Mesopotamian influences, besides constant wars between the highland Urartians and the lowland Assyrians. Most Urartu art are by talented artist Rubik Kocharian (born 1940), a treasure hoard of fine illustrations for an age and culture usually skimmed over.
Since most etchings and drawings from the 19th century are well known and well-circulated, they were not included in this collection. It’s recent art shared across the Internet that’s in peril, plus some peripheral older pieces not widely known yet made accessible online nevertheless.
A few historical fantasy pieces made it into this collection. Likewise, the Biblical depiction of the prophet Jonah in Nineveh (a comic tale of a failed prophet) and the Biblical depiction of Nebuchadnezzar II have been included where artists have been reasonably accurate with dress or architecture. For flow, the Biblical illustrations were kept together, bar that of Abraham smashing idols. All Nebuchadnezzar II depictions have been included in the Biblical illustration section.
For the best experience, I recommend that you listen to HBO Rome Intro Music (1 hour loop) while looking through these images, or something similar, for that atmosphere. Or perhaps this one, for the whiplash sounds?
And speaking of videos:
Thorsteinn Gislason’s Images of the Ancient Near East, parts 1, 2 & 3.
Yep, don�?Tt know if Mesopotamia was the same with their statues/sculpture, but Greco-Roman ones, which today we�?Tre used to seeing as bare marble were actually garishly painted when they were originally made; but unlike the underlying stone, the paints haven�?Tt stood the test of time and have been eroded away over the intervening years.
Thorsteinn Gislason got inspired during August by seeing the above image collection, and put together these evocative videos with images of the ancient Near East: parts 1, 2 & 3.
Whether garish or subtle, stone statues got their lick of the brush in far-spread locations, and one would assume that wooden and ivory carvings often were decorated with paint as well in many cultures, where paint was available and could be afforded. Many Egyptian statuettes still hold a lot of paint, and in well-shaded parts of some temples, paint still lingers in locations, faded and worn but yet visible to the naked eye. Likewise, paint was no stranger to Mesopotamian statuary:
I was going to say… You obviously are not spending enough time on your GH entry and then I got to the bottom of the page and saw it wasn’t a new thread.
Cheers Abecedar! Probably too busy commission sculpting to get time for the contest, but we’ll see about that.
[align=center]Babylon scenes from Intolerance (1916)[/align]
The movie director D.W. Griffith’s strange and highly expensive film Intolerance from 1916 is to date the only movie featuring independent Babylon that I know of. Fantastical sets. There are elephant sculptures in there for some reason, but overall it looks rather brilliant in black-and-white, or perhaps aged sepia.
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