Mesopotamian Art Lesson
The following is a lesson on Mesopotamian (Near Eastern) Art. The lesson has follow-up questions and additional links are included for more study and illustrations.
Unlike their southern neighbors, the Mesopotamian area was in conflict between warring nations very frequently. This area also required much more maintenance of their agriculture systems. Because of these and other factors, this area had a more limited development of art as compared to Egypt.
Most of the cultures in the Mesopotamian area were polytheistic. In Sumerian cities they built ziggurats for their worship. A ziggurat is a step pyramid with a temple at the top. Normally each city would have one main ziggurat dedicated to the cities special god. Rich people in the city would build small temples for worship also.
Sculptures in this area often showed long beards on the peoples faces. The long beard represented power in their society. Most reliefs and paintings would tell stories of battles or proclaimed the power of the ruler. Mesopotamian sculptures also included mythical creatures at times. Some of the sculpted reliefs had cuneiform writing on the pictures.