Below are the three questions. Each answer shouldbe around 400 words. Write your name and student number on each page. Youshould submit one copy to the Moodle, “1st exam submission” link,and two hard copies to the Student Office by 25 January, Tuesday 3 pm. Question 1: AncientEgypt civilization and ancient Maya civilization all respect light.
Theydesigned two monumental buildings in cooperation with light. What are the namesof these buildings and when were they built? Where are they located? What aretheir functions? How do they incorporate with light and why? There is anotherbuilding designed to work with light has been mentioned in the lectures, whereis it? In Ancient Egyptian Architecture they hadbuildings for the living, the dead and the Gods. Abu-Simbel was two massive temples. It wasdedicated to the Gods and built approximately in 1264BC on the Western bank ofLake Nasser in Nubia, Southern Egypt. When the Aswan Dam was built the templeswere relocated higher up on a hill, so it would not be submerged and destroyed(R. G. Morkot, 2003). The Egyptians worshipped and performed rituals in templesderived from nature and the rising and setting of the sun, moon and stars suchas giving offerings to the Gods (A.
Payne, 1900). In the Great Temple there arefour statues of Ra, Amun, Ptah and Ramesses. Due to the axis of the temple sunrays pierce the inner sanctum illuminating three of the statues twice a year onthe 22nd February and 22nd October. The fourth statuePtah stays within the darkness as he is the God of the underworld.
Ra was theGod of the sun representing light, warmth and growth making the Egyptiansbelieve he was the creator of the world (Ra The Sun God of Egypt, 2018). Amunwas the King of the Gods and Ramesses II was considered as the most powerfulPharaoh in the Egyptian Empire. The sun rays highlight the power of the threeGods on the specific days which are believed to be linked to major events inRamesses life.The Mayans were the only known civilization in Mesoamerica to have fullydeveloped written language, art and architecture. El Castillo was a templebuilt in the pre-Columbian city Chichen Itza between the 8th and 12thcenturies and was used for sacrificial rituals to offer nourishment to theGods. It also functioned as a Mayan calendar,91 steps on each side plus the oneon top adds up to 365 steps representing the days in a year. On the sun set ofthe spring and fall equinoxes the alignment of the temple creates shadowsforming a descending serpent crawling down the steps, on the sides of thenorthern balustrade, to unite with a large snake head sculpture at the bottom.
This shows the temples dedication to the God Kukulkan the feathered serpent,which is symbolic of the power of life and death in Mayan culture (E. Doerr,2014).The Pantheon is a former Roman templein Rome, Italy. Its dome has an oculus allowing direct sunlight to move aroundthe space and act like a sundial (Hannah and Magli, 2009). References:DOER, E, 2014. The World’s Biggest Man-Made Calendar: ElCastillo At Chichén Itzá. online Available at: http://quillandpad.
com/2014/05/06/the-worlds-biggest-man-made-calendar-el-castillo-at-chichen-itza/accessed 20 Jan 2018HANNAH, R. and G, MAGLI, 2009. The roleof the sun in the Pantheon’s design and meaning, pp.
4-6.MORKOT, R. G, 2003. Abu Simbel, pp.1.PAYNE, A, 1900. Egyptian Temples, pp.
356-358.RA THE SUN GOD OF EYGPT, 2018 online Availableat: http://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/egyptian-god-ra.html accessed 20 Jan 2018 Question 2: AncientMesopotamia civilization and India Buddhism have built two types of monumentalbuildings as device to communicate with gods above. What are the general namesof these buildings? What are the difference of these two types of building interms of forms and materials? What is the common characteristic of these twotypes of buildings in terms of space use?In Ancient Mesopotamiathey built Ziggurats to serve as a platform for the temple of the city’s god(Ziggurats, 2000a).
The Indian subcontinent had an important form of Buddhistarchitecture called the Stupa that housed remains and religious possessions.A Ziggurat is a massive square orrectangular step tower that forms part of a temple. The solid structure was constructedwith sun dried mud bricks and on the external walls baked bricks would provideprotection from the weather.
Layers of reeds or thick woven ropes were used onthe inside as reinforcement, whilst ‘weeper holes’ kept the core ventilated whichreduced the humidity and therefore made it more stable (R. G. Killick, 2003). Ingeneral Ziggurats would have three staircases on one side of the building, twoalong the wall leading from the ground to the lower level and one perpendicularthat led to the top of the building.
This is where the high temple dedicated tothe local God would be and a lower temple would sit at the base for the othergods (Ziggurats, 2000b). The Stupa, which is Sanskrit for ‘heap'(K. Shelby, 2015a), was traditionally a mound of mud or wood however thesematerials are non-durable and eventually were fronted with stone (C. Violatti, 2014).Early on the Stupa even contained some of the Buddha’s ashes. The dome shape ofthe Stupa represents the Buddha sat in the meditation position when he reachedEnlightenment and knowledge of the four noble truths, the base portraying hiscrossed legs and the pole surrounded by a small fence symbolised his head. Foursets of steps lead to the top of the base and at the apex of the dome a squareenclosure sits with the axial pole and discs rising above it.
A path enclosedthe dome surrounded by a perimeter railing with openings at each set of steps (K.Shelby, 2015b). The form of the Stupa developed gradually from the mound shapetowards a tower like structure with stepped terraces and a cylindrical dome (E.Errington, 2003)Both the Ziggurat and the Stupa have nointerior space. Due to the lack of interior passageways or chambers in theZiggurat the spaces used were the high temple on the top, that received Godfrom the sky, and the lower temple, that received deities from the earth (Ziggurats,2000c). The Stupa is solid with an internal structure similar to the spokes ona wheel.
When Buddhists visit the monument the practitioner walks around the monumentalong the path that surrounds it as a meditational practise (K. Shelby, 2015c). References:ERRINGTON, E,2003. Stupa. online Available at: http://www.oxfordartonline.
com.ezproxy.nottingham.ac.uk/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.
001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000082073accessed Jan 21 2018KILLICK, R.G, 2003. Ziggurat onlineAvailable at: http://www.oxfordartonline.
com.ezproxy.nottingham.ac.uk/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.
001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000093515accessed Jan 21 2018SHELBY. K, 2015.The stupa, in Smarthistory, online Availableat: http://smarthistory.org/the-stupa/. accessed Jan 212018VIOLATTI, C, 2014.
Stupa. online Available at: https://www.ancient.
eu/stupa/accessed Jan 21 2018ZIGGURATS, 2000. The AncientNear East: AnEncyclopedia for Students, edited by Ronald Wallenfels andJack M. Sasson, pp.
174-176. online Availableat: http://ic.galegroup.
com/ic/whic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Reference&zid=1cf224269b97e168521052213b4a5d54&p=WHIC%3AUHIC&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CCX2897300427&source=Bookmark&u=mlin_m_highrock&jsid=eba0398fbe1a7ce8318a96c09ebc7532Accessed 20 Jan 2018 Question 3:Compare and contrast Parthenon inAthens with Templeof Apollo in Didyma. The answer should include the main differences in style,form, and organization between a Classical temple in Greek mainland and atemple in Asia Minor.The Parthenon 447- 438 BC in Athens and the Templeof Apollo c.
525 BC in Didyma were both built using the column and beamprinciple however, the similarities do not continue much further than this. Whilstthe Parthenon displayed the Doric order found in mainland Greece, the Temple ofApollo exhibited the ionic order used in Asia minor. These differences can beeasily identified by looking at the columns. Doric capitals are simple with aconvex echinus and a square abacus, extended by the shaft which has twenty flutesforming short heavy columns with no base. The Ionic order can be identified by twoscrolls in the echinus. The slender columns have longer shafts containing more flutesand lead to a large base.A meticulous amount of effort went into theexterior form of the Parthenon because in mainland Greece people could onlyview temples from the outside. Greek temples had columns that were swelled atthe top of the shaft to make them appear straight to the human eye.
The Parthenonextended this theory by making sure every line, including the architrave andthe stylobate, was corrected in the same manor to look perfectly straight. Thismade the temple uniquely breath-taking (P. Nuttgens, 1997). In Asia Minor templeshad large flights of steps compared to the three steps in Doric temples, but unlike in mainland Greece, this is where peoplecould enter for religious rituals.
The Temple of Apollo has two dark, vaultedpassageways that lead down to the sunlit chamber, where a small tetrastyletemple housed a statue of Apollo. Whilst it was common in Asia Minor for templesto rest on the ground, rather than be raised on platforms like in the Greekmainland, the Temple of Apollo was also had no roof to preserve the sacredspring it was built around. (J. Grout, 2017).It was common for temples in Asia minor to have aforest of columns.
The Temple of Apollo was an example of this due to itsdipteral organisation and the high frequency of columns helped create theimpression of a fully roofed, traditional temple (The Temple Of Apollo, 2014). TheParthenon was held up with around seventy however its inner masonry structureprovided no reason to hide its interior. The placement of columns behind anoversized statue of Athena, the goddess the temple was dedicated to, created adramatic background for the people who could only view the statue through thedoorway.
(The Parthenon, 2018) References:GROUT, J, 2017. The Temple of Apollo at Didyma.online Available at: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/didyma.htmlAccessed 23 Jan 2018NUTTGINS, P, 1997. The Story of Architecture, pp 96-101.THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO, 2014 online Available at: https://www.ancient.eu/article/640/the-temple-of-apollo-at-didyma/Accessed 23 Jan 2018THE PARTHENON, 2018 online Available at: http://ancient-greece.org/architecture/parthenon.htmlAccessed 23 Jan 2018
