As far back as possibly 2900 BC, the Sumerians were creating votive figurines that served a variety of purposes, possibly including memorializing the dead. These figures were often buried at ziggurats once a family member died, possibly to ask the gods for remission of sins. This is the oldest form of sculpture memorialization popularly found, though there are some scholarly disputes as to how accurate they functioned as tokens for forgiveness.Nearly 2500 years later, the Greeks began to create statues of soldiers who died in battle for their grave marks. (I won't show a picture for this one in case anyone doesn't want awkward artistic nudity, but an image can be found here, on the Wikipedia page for one of the statues.) These statues, called Kouroi (s. kouros), were meant as memorials to the soldiers of the Greek poli. The artistic qualities associated with humanism served to further preserve memories of the soldiers.
The largest collection of funerary sculpture is the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, first Emperor of unified China and the one to order the construction of the Great Wall. These statues were believed to house the spirits of the soldiers who still protected the Emperor even after death. The Terracotta Army was one of the largest findings of artwork ever when it was discovered in 1974. (I don't have a list, but if I remember correctly, it is the largest discovery of artwork after anything architectural such as the pyramids, Forbidden City, etc.)Other civilizations used statues to memorialize those who were important to them after death. These include the Egyptians (for their pharaohs), the Etruscans (for families), and the Moai of Rapa Nui (for their tribal chieftains). These varied from religiously significant (the Egyptian pharaoh statues held the ka, or afterlife spirit, after death) to mainly secular and in praise of those commemorated.
Those who sacrificed in war especially are recognized in many civilizations. For example, take this Rodin of men who were willing to sacrifice themselves for their city in the Hundred Years' War. In more of a modern sense, the Vietnam Memorial works the same way even though it uses names instead of a physical likeness.
So this seems pretty irrelevant to us personally, but it really isn't. Sure, we're not making statues of people we know who have died, but look around campus and you will see statues of people, all of whom are dead. What is at the front of the building we have class in? A statue of Karl Maeser. What's right by the main entrance into the building? Busts of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. The mortals that we revere at BYU have their own statues on campus. We've associated this practice into our everyday lives without noticing it! Without even thinking about it, we revere those who came before us with statues. Who knows, maybe one of us will have a statue made of him or her some day!
Interesting, in Mexico I saw the endurance of rock. Maya's sculptures have been preserved for 1,000+ years. Because of this endurance, we can learn more about these cultures and what they valued enough to "memorialize" in rock.
ReplyDeleteNicely specific and well illustrated. This is a very important way that knowledge is transmitted from one age to another. How does stone preserve knowledge differently than, say, literature? And how do you suppose that the know-how for sculpting stone is passed on?
ReplyDeleteI'll answer that with a story from Dr. Petersen, actually. In English 251, we looked at a thousand(ish)-year-old Anglo-Saxon (English) poem. No one in the class could interpret it, but Dr. Petersen could *read* it aloud. Take a statue from Classical Greece, however, and we could probably tell you with relative accuracy what it is about. Because languages change but humans' physical features don't as much, sculpture would preserve this knowledge better than literature.
ReplyDeleteUnless, of course, you meant "preserve knowledge" to mean for the people who actually knew this person remembering him/her as opposed to preserving it through time. In this case, I would say that the common people would probably have no use for literature during the periods of history I discussed because most of them could neither read nor write. They could, however, recognize an image.
Sculpting, like similar trades of metalworking, shipbuilding, etc., was most often passed down from father to son as a "family business" or sorts. Later, apprenticeships became more common, and by the Renaissance, guilds were a common method of preserving and passing down this knowledge.