an ordinary ethnography

• 2013-04-18 249 notes

  

  centuriespast:

  Dance headdress representing an eagle and its chicks

  Tsimshian

  British Columbia

  circa 1875

  National Museum of the American Indian

  (via ljspillowbook)

  Source: centuriespast

• 2012-12-06 20 notes

  

  Cavemen were much Better at Illustrating Animals than Artists Today

  The iconic caveman in popular culture is Fred Flintstone: slow-witted and unskilled. In general, we think of the cave art produced by prehistoric people as crude and imprecise too—a mere glimmer of the artistic mastery that would blossom millenia later, during the Renaissance and beyond.

  If this is your impression of prehistoric humans, a new study published today in PLOS ONE by researchers from Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary, might surprise you. In analyzing dozens of examples of cave art from places such as Lascaux, the group, led by Gabor Horvath, determined that prehistoric artists were actually better at accurately depicting the way four-legged animals walk than artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. Read More 

• 2012-10-06 53 notes

  

  centuriespast:

  Water Deity (Chalchiuhtlcue) 

   Date: 15th–early 16th century Geography: Mexico, Mesoamerica Culture: Aztec
  The Metropolitan Museum

  (via ljspillowbook)

  Source: centuriespast

• 2012-08-28 87 notes

  

  ancientart:

  Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt, Ancient Egyptian painting from Ti’s tomb, Saqqara necropolis.

  Source: cwidahohumanities.pbworks.com

• 2012-08-27 59 notes

  

  ancientart:

  Head of Cone Inscribed with the Name of Warad Sin, King of Larsa. Clay, dates to between 1834 and 1825 BC (early Old Babylonian), and is currently located at the Walters Art Museum, USA.

  Source: commons.wikimedia.org

• 90 notes

  

  ancientart:

  Male and female Shinto deities, Japanese, Kamakura period, currently located at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

  Source: asianartnewspaper.com

• 2012-06-16 35 notes

  

  toyamateacherphotos:

  Olafur Eliasson’s Colour Activity House at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

  Source: toyamateacherphotos

• 2012-03-30 31 notes

  

  triglifos-y-metopas:

  Earing, gold with inlays of turquoise, carnelian and lapis lazuli.

  Iran

  525-533 B.C.

  [Museum of Fine Arts - Boston]

  (via chailatteplease)

  Source: triglifos-y-metopas

• 2012-02-26 114 notes

  

  historiated:

  Gold and niello inlay belt buckle from the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo (in modern-day Suffolk, England), early 7th c. Image taken from ARTstor. Click through the photo for a larger image.

  (via rocks-n-bones-deactivated201203)

  Source: historiated

• 2012-02-13 108 notes

  loieloie:

  seated terracotta figure from 13th century mali

  (via anthrocuriosities)

  Source: metmuseum.org

• 2012-02-06 14 notes

  

  Source: fuckyeahrocks

• 2012-01-26 113 notes

  gardant:

  Flute (human ulna)
  16th-17th century
  Chumash
  Metropolitan Museum of Art 

  (via alphacaeli)

  Source: metmuseum.org

• 48 notes

  

  One of the great masterpieces of late Stone Age art, this terracotta sculpture, known as The Thinker (“Ganditorul”), was unearthed in 1956 during archeological excavations of Neolithic settlement and burial debris in the lower Danube region, near Cernavoda in Romania.

  Created during the Hamangia culture, it is believed to be the oldest known prehistoric sculpture that reflects human introspection, rather than the usual artistic concerns of hunting or fertility. As a result it has become an iconic sculptural figure of prehistoric art, and a striking example of Neolithic art for art’s sake.

  (via crystalbluepersuasion)

  Source: visual-arts-cork.com

• 2012-01-15 18 notes

  

  Thanks ToyamaTeacher!

  Source: guylaramee.com

• 2011-09-18 460 notes

  

  azizalbraik:

  Reservoir Dogs

  Source: impaledesign.com