2.3 Purpose and Audience in Ancient Mediterranean Art

The Code of Hammurabi (CED: Babylon, modern Iran; Susian; c. 1792–1750 BCE; basalt). This tall basalt stele (an upright carved stone) was made under the Babylonian king Hammurabi. It was found at Susa, in modern Iran, where it had been carried as war loot centuries later, which explains the CED's labels. At the top, Hammurabi stands before the seated sun god Shamash, god of justice, who holds out a rod and ring, symbols of authority. Shamash is larger and wears a horned crown. Below, about 280 laws are carved in cuneiform. The message to the public: the king's laws come from the gods, so obey them. Punishments depended on social class.

Audience Hall (apadana) of Darius and Xerxes (Persepolis, Iran; Persian; c. 520–465 BCE; limestone). An apadana is a large columned audience hall where the Persian king received visitors. Its columns were about 20 meters tall, topped with capitals of paired bulls. Reliefs on the stairways show delegations from across the empire bringing gifts in orderly lines, each group identified by its clothing. The message: a huge, diverse empire united peacefully under the king.

Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (near Luxor; New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty; c. 1473–1458 BCE; sandstone, partially carved into a rock cliff, and red granite). Hatshepsut ruled as pharaoh, and her statues show her with the male royal costume and false beard, the standard image of a king. A mortuary temple was where priests kept up the cult of a dead ruler. Hers rises in three colonnaded terraces linked by ramps against a cliff. Reliefs tell of her divine birth and a trading expedition to the land of Punt. After her death, many of her images were destroyed.

Tutankhamun's tomb, innermost coffin (New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty; c. 1323 BCE; gold with inlay of enamel and semiprecious stones). The innermost of three nested coffins is solid gold. The young king holds the crook and flail, symbols of rule, with his arms crossed like Osiris, god of the dead. A vulture and a cobra on his brow stand for Upper and Lower Egypt. Its audience was the gods and eternity, not living viewers. The tomb was found nearly intact in 1922.

Acropolis (Athens; Iktinos and Kallikrates; c. 447–410 BCE; marble). After the Persians burned the Acropolis in 480 BCE, Pericles rebuilt it, partly with funds from the Delian League, an alliance Athens led. The Parthenon, a Doric temple to Athena, uses refinements: the floor curves up and the columns swell and lean slightly inward, so the building looks perfectly straight and alive. Its sculpture shows Athena's birth, battles of order over chaos, and a continuous Ionic frieze of the Panathenaic procession, a festival honoring Athena. The site also includes the Erechtheion, with its caryatids (columns carved as women), and the Temple of Athena Nike. The audience was Athenians and visitors: a display of piety, victory and civic pride.

House of the Vettii (Pompeii; Imperial Roman; c. second century BCE, rebuilt c. 62–79 CE; cut stone and fresco). Two men named Vettius, probably brothers, owned it. They had been enslaved, then freed, and grew rich in trade. Visitors entered an atrium (a hall with a roof opening and pool) and moved toward a peristyle garden (a garden surrounded by columns). Rooms are covered in Fourth Style frescoes: painted architecture and mythological scenes that framed the owners as cultured and successful.

Head of a Roman patrician (Republican Roman; c. 75–50 BCE; marble). Verism is extreme realism: wrinkles, sagging cheeks, a bony skull. In the Roman Republic, age and experience signaled wisdom, seriousness and service. The audience was other Romans, and the portrait connects to the patrician habit of keeping ancestors' images.

Forum of Trajan (Rome; Apollodorus of Damascus; forum and markets 106–112 CE; column completed 113 CE; brick and concrete; marble column). Trajan paid for it with spoils from conquering Dacia (in modern Romania). It held a large basilica (a hall for law and business), libraries and multilevel brick markets. The column's spiral relief of about 200 meters tells the Dacian campaigns, with Trajan shown dozens of times.

Pantheon (Imperial Roman; 118–125 CE; concrete with stone facing). Built under Hadrian as a temple to all the gods. A traditional columned porch leads into a huge round room under a concrete dome 43 meters across, the same as its height, with an oculus (round opening) 8 meters wide at the top. Coffers (sunken panels) and lighter concrete higher up reduce the weight. Turning into a church in the 600s helped it survive.