I put the students in groups of three, with each student getting an 8×10 color image of one of the following pieces:
- #13. Palette of King Narmer. Predynastic Egypt. c. 3000–2920 BCE. Greywacke.
- #19. The Code of Hammurabi. Babylon (modern Iran). Susian. c. 1792–1750 BCE. Basalt.
- #16. Standard of Ur from the Royal Tombs at Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq). Sumerian. c. 2600–2400 BCE. Wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone.
Each student also gets two articles that cover different parts of FFCC (see the resources list on the blog posts above). They spend the first half of class reading, highlighting, and annotating the articles while I have guiding questions on my PowerPoint to help them identify the most important information.
- What is the historical/political context of the piece? How does that affect the content?
- Be able to identify all the important symbols and storyline that demonstrate the political context.
- Do we know the political leader depicted? Who are they in the art piece?
- How are the human figures depicted to demonstrate relative importance?
When I call time (usually 20 minutes in) I give the students the last 30 minutes of class to teach their group mates on their pieces; I provide suggested time limits of 10 minutes per piece.