Exercise 1

Egyptian art is typically stiff and formal.  Recall the royal sculpture, Mycerinus and Wife, that represents the pharaoh and his queen in a highly idealized manner.  The features and proportions of their bodies are stylized nearly to the point of abstraction—all to emphasize not their worldly individuality but their divine grandeur.  With these characteristics in mind, take a few moments to examine a few objects.  First look at the Face of Senwosret III, a pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom.  Then examine the following sculptures: Seated Scribe, Seated Scribe II, Haremhab as a Scribe, and statue of a potter. 

How are these pieces different from royal sculpture exemplified by Mycerinus and Wife? What do they suggest about the Egyptian capacity for representing the human body and mind? Note that three of these sculptures depict scribes.  What role do you think scribes played in Egyptian society? What position do you think they occupied in the social scale between pharaohs like Mycerinus and craftsmen like the potter?

Exercise 2

Laws can reveal a lot about a society.  As you know, in the ancient Near East women were legally subordinate to men.  Consider the examples of the Assyrian Empire and the Hittite civilization that grew in what is now Turkey.  Read the following excerpts from the Assyrian Code that address the status of women.  Then take a look at some Hittite laws from the Code of the Nesilim pertaining to gender, giving particular attention to 1-4, 6, 8, 17, 18, 24, 31-34, 190-92, 194, and 197.  How are these laws similar? How are they different? Would you rather be an Assyrian or Hittite woman?  What do these laws suggest about the range of cultural tradition and practices in the ancient Near East?