Vocabulary 3&4

 

• Archaeology: The study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains.

•  Cuneiform: Denoting or relating to the wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit, surviving mainly impressed on clay tablets.

• Cylinder Seal: A small, barrel-shaped stone object with a hole down the center and an incised design or cuneiform inscription. It was originally rolled on clay when soft to indicate ownership or to authenticate a document and was used chiefly in Mesopotamia from the late 4th to the 1st millennium BC.

• Facade: The face of a building, especially the principal front that looks onto a street or open space.

• Ground Plan: The general outline or basis of a plan.

• Lamassu: Is an Assyrian protective deity, often depicted with a bull or lion's body, eagle's wings, and human's head.

• Negative Space: The space that surrounds an object in a image. Just as important as that object itself, negative space helps to define the boundaries of positive space and brings balance to a composition.

• Apadana: A large hypostyle hall, the best known examples being the great audience hall and portico atPersepolis and the palace of Susa.

• Propylaeum: The structure forming the entrance to a temple.

• Stucco: Fine plaster used for coating wall surfaces or molding into architectural decorations.

• Atrium: An open-roofed entrance hall or central court in an ancient Roman house.

• Cupola: A small dome, especially a small dome on a drum on top of a larger dome, adorning a roof or ceiling.

 

• Keystone: A central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together.

• Spandrel: The almost triangular space between one side of the outer curve of an arch, a wall, and the ceiling or framework.

• Capitol: The building in which a legislative assembly meets. 

• Cromlech: A megalithic tomb consisting of a large flat stone laid on upright ones.

• Henge: A prehistoric monument consisting of a circle of stone or wooden uprights.

• Megalith: A large stone that forms a prehistoric monument or part of one.

• Menhir: A tall upright stone of a kind erected in prehistoric times in western Europe.

• Mortise-and-tenon: A groove cut into stone or wood, called a mortise, that is shaped to receive a tenon, or projection, of the same dimensions.

• Post-and-lintel: A method of construction in which two posts support a horizontal beam, called a lintel.

• Capital: The top element of a column.

• Peristyle: An atrium surrounded by columns in a Roman house.

• Terracotta: Hard ceramic clay used for building or for making pottery.

• Basilica: Large axially planned building with a nave, side aisles, and apses.

• Encaustic: Painting - colored waxes burned into a wooden surface.

• Oculus: A round or eyelike opening or design, in particular.

• Vault: A roof constructed with arches - extended makes it a barrel vault, and when two barrel vaults intersect at right angles, they are called a groin vault.

• Relief Sculpture: A scultpure that projects from a flat background. A very shallow relief sculpture is called a bas-relief.

• Stele/Stelai: A stone like slab used to mark a grave or a site.

• Ziggurat: A pyramid-like building made of several stories that indent as the building gets taller; thus, ziggurats have terraces at teach level.

• Corbel Arch: A vault formed by layers of stone that gradually grow closer together as they rise until they eventually meet.

• Cyclopean Masonry: A type of construction that uses rough, massive blocks of stone piled one atop the other without mortar. Named for the mythical Cyclops.

• Fresco: A painting technique that involves applying water-based paint onto a freshly plastered wall; the paint forms a bond with the plaster that is durable and long lasting.

• Megaron: A rectangular audience hall in Aegean art that has a two-column porch and four columns around a central air well; Minoan.

• Repousse: Is used by the French to push back a type of metal relief sculpture in which the back side of a plate is hammered to form a raised relief on the front.

• Shaft: The body of a column.

• Tumulus: An artificial mound of earth and stones placed over a grave.

• Bust: A sculpture depicting a head, neck, and upper chest of a figure.

• Foreshortening: An object that is shortened and turned deeper into the picture plane to give the effect of receding in space.

• Coffered Vault: A lacunar ceiling. The strength of the structure is in the framework of the coffers.

• Barrel Vault: A vault forming a half cylinder.

• Tholos Tomb: An ancient Mycenaean circular tomb in a beehive shape.

• Acropolis: A Greek temple complex built on a hill over a city.

• Amphora: A two handled Greek storage jar.

• Architrave: A main beam resting across the tops of columns, specifically the lower third entablature.

• Canon: A body of rules or laws; in Greek art, the ideal mathematical proportion of a figure.

• Caryatid/Altantid: (male=atlantid); A building column that is shaped like a female figure.

• Cella: The main room of a Greek temple where the god is housed.

• Contrapposto: A graceful arrangement of the body based on tilted shoulders and hips and bent knees.

• Triglyph: The projecting grooved element alternating with a metope on a Greek temple.

• Aqueduct: An overground water system.

• Coffer: A sunken panel in ceiling to relieve pressure.

• Forum: A public square in Roman city.

• Perspective: The depth and recession in a painting or a relief sculpture. Objects shown in linear perspective achieve a three-dimensional in the two-dimensional world of the picture plane.

• Groined Vault: Is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults.

• Cornice: A projecting ledge over a wall.

• Entablature: The upper story of a Greek temple.

• Frieze: A horizontal band of sculpture.

• Kiln: An oven used for making pottery.

• Kylix: A Greek drinking cup.

• Metope: A small relief sculpture on the facade of a Greek temple.

• Mosaic: A decoration using pieces of stone, marble, or colored glass, called tesserae, that are cemented to a wall or a floor.

• Pediment: The triangular top of a temple that contains sculpture.

• Necropolis: A large burial area.

• Ashlar Masonry: Carefully cut and grooved stones that support a building without the use of concrete or other kinds of masonry.

• Cubilicum: A Roman bedroom flanking an atrium; or a mortuary chapel in a catacomb.

• Impluvium: The sunken part of the atrium in a Greek or Roman house (domus).

• Pier: A vertical support that holds up an arch or a vault.

• Veristic: Sculptures from the Roman Republic era characterized by extreme realism of facial features.