Your low stakes writing assignment is to answer some questions about an art historical video. In this video, Dr. Nigel Spivey presents the Audience Hall (known as the Apadana) of the large, multi-ethnic, ancient Persian empire as it may have been in 500 BCE. (Persia is in modern day Iran). This Audience Hall is in Persepolis, the capital of the Persian empire which was ruled in 500 BCE by King Darius I. My questions will guide you through the video and you’ll be able to write your own point of view at the end.
You can write on notebook paper or type. It doesn’t matter. Just answer the questions in a few sentences as and after you watch the videos.
Start watching this video at 6 minutes 35 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W53hlXq5bc&list=PLCD509722865B8E7B. It starts with “Kingdoms were growing in size.”
When that is done, watch this video and then stop after 6 minutes and 5 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NElw01Bo8Cg&index=3&list=PLCD509722865B8E7B
Questions
1. Why was it challenging for King Darius I to communicate messages to his entire empire?

2. Why did ambassadors throughout the empire go to King Darius’ Audience Hall once a year?

3. Why would it have mattered to the ambassadors that they would have seen relief sculptures of different conquered peoples in different national costumes? What might this international diversity have communicated to them?

4. Why does Spivey refer to art as “the international language of images”? What advantage did visual art have over language in the Persian empire?

5. What, according to Nigel Spivey, is the one message that the ambassadors would have taken with them as they returned home? (You can quote him here.)

6. What is on Darius’ billboard? What is the symbolism of the bowman or the archer?

7. According to Spivey, what kind of representation did Darius I invent? What are some other, more contemporary examples of this?

8. As you’ve seen, Spivey ultimately argues that King Darius’ empire was about “peace and cooperation” as opposed to domination. At one point in the video he says, “no scenes of war or retribution; they [meaning the king’s subjects] are happy to honor Darius.” Look at slides 13 through 15 in the “Ancient Near East” Powerpoint (click on “Content” and then “Lectures” to find it). Do you agree with Spivey’s interpretation of these reliefs? Was Darius necessarily as open-minded and tolerant as Spivey makes him out to be? There is no correct answer here. I am curious about your opinion. Relate your opinion to the visual characteristics of the reliefs on the slides and in the video.