作者：（美）维吉尔·M·希利尔
出版社：天津人民出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
美国学生艺术史试读：
作者简介
维吉尔·M·希利尔（Virgil Mores Hillyer, 1875-1931）1875年出生于美国马萨诸塞州韦茅斯，他在华盛顿特区的“国会山”度过其童年，毕业于美国哈佛大学。他是美国著名教育家、卡尔佛特学校首任校长、美国家庭学校（HOMESCHOOL）课程体系创建者。
作为一位教育革新者，希利尔在美国国内和国际上获得了广泛声誉和影响力。他从事教育工作的同时，亲自为孩子们编写教材，在课堂上试讲并修订，受到学校和学生们的赞誉，不少教材至今仍被学校使用。如《美国学生世界地理》、《美国学生世界历史》、《美国学生艺术史》等。他一直探索家庭学校教育理念并设计其课程体系，写作了一本家庭学校教育手册——《在家教出好孩子》，成为父母教育孩子的指南。PART IPAINTING 绘 画01 THE OLDEST PICTURES IN THE WORLD 世界上最古老的画
I WAS listening to the teacher, but I had my pencil in my hand. There were two little dots about an inch apart on my desk lid. Absent-mindedly I twisted my pencil point into one dot and then into the other. The two dots became two little eyes. I drew a circle around each eye, then I joined the two circles with a half-circle that made a pair of spectacles.
The next day I made a nose and a mouth to go with the eye and spectacles.
The next day I finished the face and added ears and some hair.
The next day I added a hat.
The next day I added a body, with arms, legs, and feet.
The next day I went over the drawing again, bearing heavily on my pencil. Over and over again I followed the lines till they became deep grooves in my desk lid.
The next day my teacher caught me and I caught it!
The next day my father got a bill for a new desk and I got— Well, never mind what I got.
“Perhaps he’s going to be an artist,” said my mother.
“Heaven forbid!” said my father. “That would cost me much more than a new desk.” And heaven did forbid.
I know of a school that has a large wooden tablet in the hall for its pupils to draw upon. At the top of the tablet is printed:IF YOU JUST MUST DRAW, DON’T DRAW ON YOUR DESK,DRAW ON THIS TABLET.
If you put a pencil in any one’s hand, he just must draw something. Whether he is listening to a lesson or telephoning, he draws circles and faces or triangles and squares over the pad—if there is a pad. Otherwise he draws on the desk top or the wall, for he just must draw something. Have you ever seen any telephone pad that was not scribbled upon? We say that’s human nature. It shows you are a human being.
Now, animals can learn to do a good many things that human beings can do, but one thing an animal can’t learn is to draw. Dogs can learn to walk on two legs and fetch the newspaper. Bears can learn to dance. Horses can learn to count. Monkeys can learn to drink out of a cup. Parrots can learn to speak. But human beings are the only animals that can learn to draw.
Every boy and girl who has ever lived has drawn something at some time. Haven’t you? You have drawn, perhaps, a horse or a house, a ship or an automobile, a dog or a cat. The dog may have looked just like a cat or a cat-erpillar, but even this is more than any animal can do.
Even wild men who lived so long ago that there were no houses, only caves, to live in—men who were almost like wild animals, with long hair all over their bodies—could draw. There were no paper or pencils then. Men drew pictures on the walls of their caves. The pictures were not framed and hung on the walls. They were drawn right on the walls of the cave and on the ceiling too.
Sometimes the pictures were just scratched or cut into the wall and sometimes they were painted in afterward. The paints those men used were made of a colored clay mixed with grease, usually simply red or yellow. Or perhaps the paint was just blood, which was red at first and then turned almost black. Some of the pictures look as if they had been made with the end of a burned stick as you might make a black mark with the end of a burned match. Other pictures were cut into bone—on the horns of deer or on ivory tusks.
Now, what do you suppose these cave men drew pictures of? Suppose I asked you to draw a picture of anything—just anything. Try it. What you have drawn is probably one of five things. A cat is my first guess，a sail-boat or an automobile is my second, a house is my third guess, a tree or a flower is my fourth, and a person is my fifth. Are there any other kinds?No.1-1 CHARGING MAMMOTH（猛犸）Courtesy of The University Prints
Well, the cave men drew pictures of only one kind of thing. Not men or women or trees or flowers or scenery. They drew chiefly pictures of animals. And what kind of animals, do you suppose? Dogs? No, not dogs. Horses? No, not horses. Lions? No, not lions. They were usually big animals and strange animals. But they were pretty well drawn, so that we know what the animals looked like. Here is a picture a cave man drew thousands of years ago.
You know it’s a picture of some animal, and it’s not a cat or a caterpillar. It is some animal of the kind they had in those days. It looks like an elephant and it much bigger even than our elephants.
There are no mammoths alive now, but men have found their bones and they have put these bones together to form huge skeletons. We still call any very big thing “mammoth.” You’ve probably heard of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It was called Mammoth, not because mammoths lived in it, because they didn’t, but just because it is such a huge cave.
The cave men drew other animals besides the mammoth. One was the bison, a kind of buffalo. You can see a picture of a buffalo on our five-cent piece. It looks something like a bull. A little girl had gone to a cave in Spain with her father, who was searching for arrow-heads. While he was looking on the ground, she was looking at the ceiling of the cave and she saw what she thought was a herd of bulls painted there. She called out, “See the bulls!” and her father, thinking she had seen real bulls, cried: “Where? Where?”No.1-2 STANDING BISON（野牛）Courtesy of The University Prints
Other animals they drew were like those we have now—reindeer, deer with big antlers, and bears and wolves.
It was quite dark in the caves where the cave men drew these pictures, for of course there were no windows, and the only light was a smoky flame from a kind of lamp. Why, then, did they make pictures at all? Such pictures couldn’t have been just for wall decorations, like those you have on your walls, because it was so dark in the cave. We think the pictures were made just for good luck, as some people put a horseshoe over the door for good luck. Or perhaps they were to tell a story or make a record of some animal the cave man had killed. But perhaps the cave man just had to draw something, as boys and girls nowadays draw pictures on the walls of a shed or even sometimes on the walls of their own houses or, worse yet, on their desk tops.
The pictures made by these wild men—bearded and hairy cave men —are the oldest pictures in the world, and the artists who made them have been dead thousands of years. Can you think of anything you might ever make that would last as long as that?【中文阅读】
我正在听老师讲课，可手里在玩铅笔。
我课桌的桌面上有两个相距约一英寸的小点。
我心不在焉地转动手中的铅笔，用笔尖在一个点上戳了一下，又在另一个点上戳了一下。两个小点变成了一双小眼睛。我在每只眼睛旁边画了个圈，又画了个半圈，把两个圆圈连起来，这就画出了一副眼镜。
第二天，我画了鼻子和嘴巴，配合那双眼睛和眼镜。
第三天，我画完了脸，还补充了耳朵和头发。
第四天，我又加了一顶帽子。
第五天，我添上了身体部分：胳膊、腿和脚。
第六天，我还是拿铅笔用力地画着。我一遍又一遍地描着线直到把它们深深地印在我的课桌上。
第七天，我被老师逮个正着，但我也画完了。
第八天，我爸收到了一张新课桌的账单，而我却得到了——算了，甭提我得到了什么吧。“他可能会成为画家。”母亲说。“但愿不会！”父亲答道，“那要花掉我比一张新课桌多得多的钱。”好在上帝拦阻了。
据我所知，某所学校在大厅里放置了一块大木牌，专供学生涂鸦。木牌上方刻着这样一句话：
如果你想画画，就在这块牌子上画吧，
只是不要在课桌上画。
如果把铅笔放在某人手中，他就一定会画点什么。他不管是在听课还是在接电话，只要手头有本便签簿，他就会在上面画些圈圈啦，脸蛋啊，或者是三角形和正方形什么的。要不他就会在课桌或墙壁上涂画，因为他总得要画点什么。你看见过没有被乱涂乱画的电话簿吗？这就是人的本性。这表明你是一个真正的人。
如今，动物可以学做许多人类能做的事情，但有一件事动物学不会，那就是画画。狗能用两条腿学走路，甚至帮人取报纸；熊能学会跳舞；马能学会数数；猴子可以学用杯子喝水；鹦鹉可以学舌；但是只有人类才能学会画画。
每一个男孩或女孩都在童年时代的某个时候画过些什么。难道不是吗？你或许画过马或房子，船或汽车，狗或猫。这狗被你画得就像猫，或像一条毛毛虫，但即便如此，你还是比任何动物都强。
甚至生活在很久以前的原始人也能画画。那时还没有房屋，他们全身长着长长的毛发，只住在洞穴里过着几乎和野兽一样的生活。那时候没有纸和笔。他们在穴壁上画画。这些图画没有装裱悬挂在墙上，而是直接画在洞壁和洞顶上。
这些图画有的只是涂鸦或刻在洞壁上，有的是后来才画上去的。当时人们所用的颜料是由一种掺杂着动物油脂的有色粘土混合制成的，通常只有红黄色，或者就用鲜血做颜料，开始是红色，后来几乎就变成了黑色。有些图画看起来就像是用一根烧焦的木棒头画的，就像我们用一根烧过的火柴头画一个黑色标志。还有些图画是刻在骨头上的，比如鹿角或象牙。
现在来猜想一下这些穴居人画的是什么？如果让你随意画幅画——也就是画什么都行。试试看吧。你画的可能是以下五种事物中的一种。我首先猜的是猫，第二次猜了帆船或汽车，第三次猜的是房子，第四次猜的是树或花，最后才猜了人。还会猜出其他什么呢？
其实，穴居人只画了一种东西。不是男人，不是女人，不是树、不是花，也不是风景。他们主要画的是动物。你认为他们画的是哪种动物呢？狗？不，不是狗。马？不，不是马。狮子？不，也不是狮子。他们通常画的是一些大型和奇特的动物。但这些动物都画得栩栩如生，这使我们知道这些动物的长相。下图是一个几千年前的穴居人画的画。
我们看得出这画的是某种动物，但不是猫，也不是毛毛虫。那是他们那个时代特有的某种动物。它看起来像一头象，而它的确就是象的一种——巨象。它的耳朵没有我们现在的象那么大，还长着长长的毛发。现在的象有兽皮或毛皮，但几乎没有毛发。我们把图上的动物称为猛犸（又名毛象)。毛象的毛发很长，因为那时候天气寒冷，而长毛可以保暖。但它比我们现在的象大很多很多。
如今猛犸早已绝种，但人类已经找到了它们的骨头，并把它们放在一起拼成了一个大型骨架。我们现在仍将庞然大物称作“猛犸”。你可能听说过肯塔基州的猛犸洞穴。它被称作猛犸洞并不是因为猛犸在这洞里住过，实际并没住过，而仅仅因为这是一个非常大的洞穴。
除了猛犸，穴居人还画过其他动物。其中有种野牛，就是水牛。水牛的图片可以在美国的5分硬币上看到。它看起来像一头公牛。在西班牙，有个小女孩曾和她的父亲一起走进一个洞穴，他们按着箭头，爸爸在地上寻找，小女孩却盯着洞顶打量。她看见洞顶上画了一群她以为是公牛的动物。她大喊一声，“看，公牛！”她爸爸还以为她看见了真的公牛，喊道：“在哪？在哪？”
他们画的其他动物和我们今天有的这些动物差不多——驯鹿、长角鹿，还有熊和狼。
穴居人画画的穴洞十分昏暗，因为那儿根本就没开窗。唯一的光亮就是某种壁灯发出的昏暗的光。那他们干吗要画画呢？这些图画不可能仅仅只是为了装饰洞壁，就像我们在墙上挂画一样，因为洞穴里实在是太暗了。我们认为穴居人画画是为了祈求好运，就像人们把马蹄铁放在门头上企盼吉祥是一样的。或者他们是要讲述一个故事或就是记下捕杀的某种动物。或许他们不得不画画，就像现在的孩子们在小木屋，甚至有时候在自家的墙上画画一样，或干脆就在课桌上画。
这些原始人——多须长毛的穴居人——画的是世界上最古老的画。但这些艺术家早在几千年前就去世了。你认为你所制作的任何东西能像那些画一样持久吗？02 WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE 这画有毛病吗
THE cave men made pictures on the walls and ceilings of their caves. The old Egyptians didn’t live in caves. They lived in houses, where they didn’t draw pictures on the walls or ceilings. Their houses were usually mud huts, not much better than the caves that the cave men lived in, but the Egyptians were not interested in the houses they lived in. They were interested only in the houses they were dead in (tombs, we call them) or in the houses they made for their gods (temples, we call them).
Most dead people are buried in the ground nowadays, but the Egyptians thought the ground was no place for the dead. Besides, much of the ground of Egypt was under water for almost half of each year, for the River Nile flooded the country regularly every summer, and that would have been bad for graves.
The Egyptians believed their bodies would come to life again after thousands of years, and so kings and rich people, who could afford it, built tombs to be buried in. And they built them to last—never out of wood or anything like that, but of solid stone or brick. They wanted to put their bodies in a safe place, something like a safe-deposit vault. When they died, their bodies were preserved in a way we call embalming, so as not to decay.
These embalmed bodies were called mummies and the mummies were put in coffins that were shaped something like the bodies. On the coffins, or mummy cases, and on the plaster walls of their tombs and temples, the Egyptians drew and painted pictures—thousands of them, to cover every bit of space. And these pictures were made while the people were still alive.
These pictures that the Egyptians made on the mummy cases and on the walls of tombs and temples were not pictures of wild animals such as the cave men made. Some were of animals, though not the kind of animals the cave men drew. Most of the pictures were of people— men and women, kings and queens, gods and goddesses.
There is a way of finding out how old boys and girls are, without asking their age. We show them drawings of three faces from each of which something has been left out. The first face has no eyes, the second face has no mouth, the third face has no nose. Then we ask who can tell what is left out. Now, you might think any one could tell what was wrong with these pictures, but until boys and girls are about that anything at all is left out, so if they can’t see what is wrong, we know they are not six years old.No.2-1 EGYPTIANS BRINGING PRESENTS TO THE KING（埃及人向国王献礼）Courtesy of The University Prints
Here is an Egyptian picture that has something wrong with it. It’s the picture of a seated man making a lance—a lance maker. I wonder if you are old enough to see what’s wrong with this picture.
See if you can find out what’s wrong, before I tell you. If you can’t see what’s wrong, you may be even sixty years old, for some quite old people can’t see what it is. It’s a sort of puzzle. See if you’ve guessed right.
It’s this : the eye is the shape an eye has when we see it from the front, but the face is a side face. So it is a front eye in a side face.
Another peculiar thing about this picture is that the body is twisted. The shoulders are full front, but the hips, legs, and foot are sideways.No.2-2 LANCE MAKER（长矛匠）
In old Egyptian times all the artists drew certain things in a certain way. The artists were taught to draw that way, and they had to draw that way such things as I have mentioned—the front eye in the side face, the front shoulders with a side view of legs and feet.
Have you ever noticed the pictures on magazine covers? Some are just pictures of pretty women or pretty flowers. But some of the pictures tell a story or part of a story. Some of these story-telling pictures have words underneath to tell what the picture means, but some don’t need any words underneath. The picture tells the story without any words. We call such pictures that tell a story illustrations.
Egyptian pictures are chiefly illustrations. They tell a story either with or without words—a story of the life of some dead king or queen, their battles, their hunting parties, their parades. And above, below, or at the side, there are often words, in Egyptian writing, that describe the pictures. These words look very much like pictures, themselves, for the Egyptian writing is a kind of picture writing. It is called hieroglyphics.
When Egyptian artists drew a king with common people around him, they made the king very large and the other people very small. The king was made to be a giant—two or three times as large as the common people—just to show he was really a great man.
When the Egyptian artists drew pictures of crowds, they didn’t know how to show men farther back in the picture, as we should do, by drawing them smaller and raising them a little bit. They made those farther back the same size as those in front, and to show that they were farther back they put those in the back above those in front.No.2-3 AN EGYPTIAN PICTURE WITH HIEROGLYPHICS（埃及森严的阶层制度）Courtesy of The University Prints
We have hundreds of colors and shades nowadays, but the Egyptians had only four bright colors—red, yellow, green, blue. Besides these they had black, white, and brown. And their colors lasted. You know how hard it is to find any color nowadays that doesn’t fade. Window curtains, couch covers, even the colors of dresses, fade unless they are sunfast. But these pictures the Egyptians made are almost as fresh and bright as when first done, thousands of years ago. That’s because the colors used were “fast,” and also because the pictures were hidden away in the dark where the sun could not fade them. They were drawn and painted on the plaster walls and the colors were very bright—not like nature. It didn’t matter whether something really had any color, or what the particular color should be. They painted it the way they thought looked well. They might paint a man’s face bright red or even green!
When you think of all these old pictures that were not meant to be seen by the eye of any man, you may wonder: Why did the Egyptians make them? What was the idea? And yet to-day when we build a great building such as a church, a house of God, a Christian temple, we put into a hollow stone in the foundation—a corner-stone, we call it—the daily paper, photographs of people alive at the time, and so on. Why? The building is expected to last for ages and the corner-stone will never be opened until the building comes down. Why? Our idea may be something like the old Egyptians’ idea, after all!【中文阅读】
穴居人在洞壁和洞顶上画画。古埃及人有住房，不住洞穴，但他们并不在房子的墙壁上或天花板上作画。他们的房子通常是土坯的，不比穴居人的洞穴好很多。但埃及人对活人的住房没兴趣，他们只对死后住房（我们称作坟墓）或是给神灵们盖的房子（我们称作神庙）感兴趣。
如今，人死后大多埋在地下，但埃及人认为土墓不适合死者。此外，埃及大部分土地几乎有半年的时间浸泡在水下，因为每到夏季尼罗河就泛滥，使土墓遭殃。
埃及人相信几千年后死者将复活，因此国王和有支付能力的富人们便为自己建造坟墓。他们希望自己的坟墓能保存长久，所以就不用木头或此类的东西建造坟墓，而用坚石或砖块。他们希望死后能将尸体放在一个安全的地方，类似于一个安全的地下墓室。人死后，他们会用一种我们称之为防腐的方式把尸体保存起来，不让它腐烂。
这些经过防腐处理的尸体叫木乃伊，被放在形如人体的棺材里。埃及人在他们的棺材上，或装木乃伊的箱子上，并在他们的坟墓和神庙的灰泥墙上画画，成千上万幅图画覆盖了寸寸空间。这些图画在人们仍然活着的时候就已经画好了。
埃及人在装木乃伊的箱子上以及坟墓和神庙的墙壁上画的并不是像穴居人画的野兽。虽然有些画的是动物，但并不是穴居人画的那种动物。画上大多是人——男人和女人、国王和王后、神灵和女神。
有一种不用询问就知道男孩女孩岁数的方法。我们来展示三幅图画，上面画有三张脸，每张脸上缺少了一些东西。第一张脸没有眼睛，第二张脸不见嘴巴，第三张脸少了鼻子。接下来我们问谁能说出每张脸上少了什么。现在，你可能会认为谁都能指出画上的毛病所在，但孩子们只有到6岁左右才能分辨出缺少的部分。所以假如孩子不能指出毛病所在，我们就知道他们还不满6岁。
图2.2为一幅埃及人的图画，图中存在着问题。画面上一个坐着的男人，正在制作长矛——一个长矛匠。我不知道你几岁了，是否能看出这幅画的毛病所在。
看看能否在我作介绍之前就看出毛病。如果看不出，要不你就60岁了，因为一些上了年纪的老人看不出毛病所在。这是一种智力游戏。能猜对吗？
问题：眼睛是我们从正面看到的形状，但脸却是侧面。所以这画是把正视的眼睛画在侧脸上。
另一个奇怪之处是画中人的身体呈扭曲状。双肩朝前，而臀部、双腿和脚却呈侧向。
在古埃及时代，所有的艺术家都用某种特定的方式作画，因为他们就是这样学习的，所以他们只能这样画，如我前面提到的画——把正视的眼睛画在侧脸上，把双肩画成正面，使双腿和双脚呈现侧向的样式。
可曾注意过杂志封面上的图画呢？有些画的只是美女鲜花。但有的却在讲述一则故事，或故事的某个段落。讲故事的图画有的附上底注，说明这画的含义，有的不附任何文字说明。我们把这些不借助任何文字说明却在讲述故事的图画叫做插图。
埃及人画的图画大都为插图。有的图画注有文字说明，有的没有。它们在讲述故事——某位已去世的国王或王后的生平，他们所参与的战役、狩猎活动和阅兵仪式。埃及人通常将注文附在画的上方、底端或边角，来描述图画。这些文字看上去就像图画本身，因为埃及人的文字就是一种图画文字。人称象形字。
埃及画家画国王和围观的平民百姓时，会把国王画得非常高大，把其他人画小。把国王画成巨人——比普通人高大一两倍，就是表示国王真是伟人。
但当他们画人群时，却不知道如何展示画面后排的人，他们不像我们，把人物缩小一些或抬高一点。他们把后面的人画得跟前面的人一样大小，然而为了表示他们是后面的人，就把后面的人画在前面人的上方。
如今，我们拥有几百种颜色和色度，但埃及人那时候只有四种亮色——红、黄、绿、蓝。此外，就只有黑色、白色、棕色了。他们的颜色持续时间蛮长。今天我们知道要找到一种不褪色的颜料有多难。窗帘、沙发套，甚至衣服都会褪色，除非它们是防晒的。但埃及人画的那些画几乎和它们几千年前刚画好时一样鲜艳。这是因为他们所用的颜料是“不褪色的”，而且也因为那些画是存放在太阳无法照射到的黑暗中。它们被画在灰泥墙上，色彩鲜亮——亮得很不自然。画的东西是否真的要涂色或应当涂上某种特别的颜色并不重要。他们按照自己认为好看的方式作画。他们可能把一个人的脸画成鲜红色甚至绿色。
每当想到所有这些古老的绘画原来并不打算供人观赏，我们可能会疑惑：那埃及人为什么要画画呢？他们的想法是什么呢？然而今天我们建造一座建筑物时，比如教堂、庙宇，或其他基督教圣殿，我们会在地基里放一块空心石——称作墙角石——再把当天的报纸、当时人们生活的照片等也放下去。为什么这么做呢？因为人们指望这座建筑物能维持几个世纪，而那块墙角石也不会被打开，除非这座建筑物倒塌了。这又是为什么呢？说到底，我们和古埃及人或许有类似的想法吧！03 PALACE PICTURE PUZZLES 王宫拼图
AN INCH away from Egypt on my map, but a thousand miles away on the ground, was another old country called—well, there were several countries there with hard names. Egypt was a One River Country. These other countries, a thousand miles off to the east, had Two Rivers, so let’s bunch them together and call them, for short, the Two River Country. If you want to know the real names of these countries, they were Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria.
This part of the world is where the Garden of Eden was supposed to be. The One River Country and the Two River Country are the two oldest countries in the world. We don’t know which is older.
Here in this Two River Country, once, were the largest and most important cities of the ancient world—cities bigger, perhaps, than New York or London—and here ruled mighty but cruel kings. Yet there isn’t a building of these old cities left. The reason for this is that the buildings weren’t built of stone as the buildings of Egypt were, for there was very little stone in the Two River Country. They were built of bricks made of mud, of which there was plenty, but the bricks were only dried in the sun, not baked by fire as the Egyptian bricks were. You know how mud pies dried in the sun soon crumble to pieces. Well, these buildings made of sun-dried bricks have all crumbled away and where once were magnificent cities, there are now only mounds of brick dust which look like natural hills.
You may wonder why the people of these countries didn’t bake their bricks in fire, for fire-baked bricks last longer than almost anything else. The reason is that they didn’t have much wood or much other fuel to make fire with. On some bricks, however, they painted pictures and decorations and these they covered with a glass-like substance (glaze, we call it), then baked them in the fire so that they became colored tiles. These tiles have lasted and have been found by men digging down in the mounds which once were cities of brick buildings.
In Egypt, as I told you, the artists painted pictures chiefly for the dead to see. In the Two River Country artists didn’t care about the dead people. They painted pictures for live people to see.
The kings didn’t build tombs. They weren’t interested in what was to become of them after they were dead. Instead, they built great palaces for themselves and great temples for their gods. These palaces and temples were built of brick, but a mud palace or temple was not very beautiful, so the artists covered the walls with pictures made on slabs of alabaster and with tiles.
Alabaster is a stone, usually white, so soft that it can be cut easily. So the artists cut pictures on slabs of alabaster and painted them in much the same way as the Egyptians painted their pictures.
Each tile had on it a different part of a picture, and then a great many tiles were put together to form a large picture, as picture puzzles are put together from separate pieces. There is a kind of picture, which you may not have seen, that is made of many tiny pieces of different colored stones. A picture made of colored stones is called a mosaic, and these people who lived in the Two River Country were the first to use a kind of mosaic work.
The Egyptian pictures on the inside walls of the tombs or temples are still there, but those on the mummy cases have been put in museums. The alabaster and tile pictures of the Two River people were dug up from under the mounds that once were buildings and they too have been put in museums.
These alabaster and tile pictures made in the Two River Country told stories about the king and his courtiers doing something. The two chief things the king and his courtiers liked to do, and did, was to hunt wild animals and to fight battles, so there were many pictures of battles
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