Anjali Padmanaban

Vocabulary #3 & 4:

 

Archaeology: study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other      physical remains

 

Capitol: A town or city that is the official seat of government in a political entity, such as a state or nation

 

Relief Sculpture: to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane

 

Tholos Tomb: a burial structure characterized by its false dome created by the superposition of successively smaller rings        of mudbricks or, more often, stones

 

Cornice: an ornamental molding around the wall of a room just below the ceiling

 

Cuneiform: denoting or relating to the wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia,            Persia, and Ugarit, surviving mainly impressed on clay tablets

 

Cromlech: a circle of standing stones

 

Stele/Stelai: an upright stone slab or pillar bearing an inscription or design and serving as a monument, marker, or the            like

 

Acropolis: The fortified high point of ancient Athens

 

Entablature: a horizontal, continuous lintel on a classical building supported by columns or a wall, comprising the                    architrave, frieze, and cornice

 

Cylinder Seal: a small carved cylinder used especially by the ancient Mesopotamians to impress a design in wet clay

 

Henge: a Neolithic monument of the British Isles, consisting of a circular areaenclosed by a bank and ditch and often 

     conaining additional featuresincluding one or more circles of upright stone or wood pillars

 

Ziggurat: a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple

 

Amphora: a tall ancient Greek or Roman jar with two handles and a narrow neck

 

Frieze: a broad horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration, especially on a wall near the ceiling

 

Façade: one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front

 

Megalith: a large stone that forms a prehistoric monument or part of one

 

Corbel Arch: arch-like construction method that uses the architectural technique of corbeling to span a space or void in a        structure, such as an entranceway in a wall or as the span of a bridge

 

Architrave: a main beam resting across the tops of columns, specifically the lower third entablature

 

Kiln: a furnace or oven for burning, baking, or drying, especially one for calcining lime or firing pottery

 

Ground Plan: the plan of a building at ground level as imagined seen from above

 

Menhir: an upright monumental stone standing either alone or with others, as in an alignment

 

Cyclopean Masonry: a type of stonework found in Mycenaean architecture, built with massive limestone boulders, roughly      fitted together with minimal clearance between adjacent stones and no use of mortar

 

Canon: the body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding in a field of study or art

 

Kylix: a shallow bowl having two horizontal handles projecting from thesides, often set upon a stem terminating in a foot:      used as a drinkingcup

 

Lamassu: a large carved stone sculpture of a sacred, winged bull with a man's head

 

Mortise-and-Tenon Fresco: any various joins between two pieces of timber or the like in which a tenon is housed in or          secured to a mortise

 

Caryatid/Atlantid: a stone carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek or                Greek-style building

 

Metope: the space between two triglyphs of a Doric frieze often adorned with carved work

 

Negative Space: the space that surrounds an object in a image

 

Post-and-lintel: system with a lintel, header, or architrave as the horizontal member over a building void supported at its        ends by two vertical columns, pillars, or posts

 

Megaron: the great hall of the Grecian palace complexes

 

Cella: the inner area of an ancient temple, especially one housing the hidden cult image in a Greek or Roman temple

 

Mosaic: a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of hard material, such as stone, tile, or          glass

 

Apadana: the great audience hall in ancient Persian palaces

 

Capital: decorative element that divides a column or pier from the masonry which it supports

 

Repousse: an ancient metal crafting technique

 

Contrapposto: used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its        shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs

 

Pediment: a wide, low-pitched gable surmounting the façade of a building in the Grecian style

 

Propylaeum: a structure forming the entrance to a temple

 

Peristyle: a row of columns surrounding a space within a building such as a court or internal garden or edging a veranda        or porch

 

Shaft:  The principal portion of a column, between the capital and the base

 

Triglyph: a tablet in a Doric frieze with three vertical grooves

 

Necropolis: city of the dead

 

Stucco: a fine plaster used in decoration and ornamentation

 

Terracotta: a hard semifired waterproof ceramic clay used in pottery and building construction

 

Tumulus: an artificial mound, especially over a grave

 

Aqueduct: an artificial channel for conveying water, typically in the form of a bridge supported by tall columns across a            valley

 

Ashlar Masonry: a squared building stone cut more or less true on all faces adjacent to those of other stones so as to              permit very thin mortar joints

 

Atrium: an open-roofed entrance hall or central court in an ancient Roman house

 

Basilica: a large oblong hall or building with double colonnades and a semicircular apse, used in ancient Rome as a court of      law or for public assemblies

 

Bust: a sculpture of a person's head, shoulders, and chest

 

Coffer: a recessed panel in a ceiling

 

Cubiculum: A small room, especially a bedroom, typically those small rooms found on the upper floor of a Roman house

 

Cupola: a small dome on a drum on top of a larger dome, adorning a roof or ceiling

 

Encaustic: hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added

 

Foreshortening:  to reduce or distort in order to convey the illusion of three-dimensional space as perceived by the                human eye

 

Forum: a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged

 

Impluvium: the sunken part of the atrium in a Greek or Roman house, designed to carry away the rainwater coming through the compluvium of the roof

 

Keystone: a central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together

 

Oculus: a round or eyelike opening or design

 

Coffered Vault: a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit orvault

 

Perspective: the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their              height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point

 

Pier: an upright support, generally square, rectangular, or composite. In medieval architecture there are massive circular supports called drum piers

 

Spandrel Vault: The roughly triangular wall space between two adjacent arches

 

Barrel Vault: The simplest form of a vault, consisting of a continuous surface of semicircular or pointed sections. It                  resembles a barrel or tunnel which has been cut in half lengthwise

 

Groined Vault: a vault produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel (tunnel) vaults. Sometimes the arches of        groin vaults may be pointed instead of round

 

Veristic: the artistic preference of contemporary everyday subject matter instead of the heroic or legendary in art and            literature