Dawn of Man

Man as Conscious Being

• Birth of Consciousness
  • Self-awareness
  • Digger Wasp - a tale of unconsciousness
  • Old Testament creation story - the creation of humanity as creatures of awareness
    • "I am…"
    • "Thou is…"
• The creativity of consciousness
  • Paleolithic cave painting - Humanity reflects on the world around them
  • Fertility sculptures
• Humanities = The study of what makes us human
  

Birth of Civilization

• Sculptures of the ancients - The Human Form
  • Egypt figures as cubes
  • Mesopotamia figures as cylinders
• Monuments of the ancients
  • Mesopotamia ziggurat - A man-made mountain as a place for the gods
  • Egypt pyramids - Tomb for the Pharaoh, which was a god
  • India Stupa - A burial mound transformed into meditation for Buddhists
  • Mountains a place for the gods
    • Mt Olympus for the Greek gods
    • Old Testament Psalms (Psalm 121)
    • Moses receives the Commandments from the top of the mountain
      

Dichotomy of freedom and security

• "Without God anything is possible" - Dostoevsky
  • Power only respects a greater power
  • Political leaders without god are tyrants
• Hammurabi Stele
  • Stele - Commemorative stone marker
  • Hammurabi - Mesopotamia god-king
  • First example of political power of man being limited and checked
  • God's law recorded in cuneiform script
    

Full-sized art works may be seen under Lecture Images

Humanities Resource of Mark Hunter