This fascinating book examines the artistic exchange between the nomadic peoples of what is now Inner Mongolia and their settled Chinese neighbors during the first millennium B.C.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - It was late in the month of March, at the dying-out of the Eagle Moon, that Neewa the black bear cub got his first real look at the world. Noozak, his mother, was an old bear, and like an old person she was filled with rheumatics and the desire to sleep late. So instead of taking a short and ordinary nap of three months this particular winter of little Neewa's birth she slept four, which, made Neewa, who was born while ms mother was sound asleep, a little over two months old instead of six weeks when they came out of den. In choosing this den Noozak had gone to a cavern at the crest of a high, barren ridge, and from this point Neewa first looked down into the valley. For a time, coming out of darkness into sunlight, he was blinded. He could hear and smell and feel many things before he could see. And Noozak, as though puzzled at finding warmth and sunshine in place of cold and darkness, stood for many minutes sniffing the wind and looking down upon her domain.

Traces the development of Mesopotamian art from Sumerian times to the late Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. This text also covers the art and architecture of Asia Minor and the Hittites, of the Levant in the second millennium BC, of the Aramaeans and Phoenicians in Syria, and of Ancient Persia.

Nomadic lifestyles dependent on herd animals developed independently on the grasslands of Eurasia and North America about 5,000 years ago. The landscapes that these peoples occupied were generally similar, but the basis of their nomadism was quite different. Eurasian steppe nomads relied on domestic sheep, goats, cattle and horses for their subsistence and on horses, cattle and, to a limited extent, camels for their travel; North American prairie nomads relied on wild bison for subsistence and on themselves and dogs for travel. In comparing the two lifestyles, this study shows that certain features, such as the use of circular portable dwellings, seasonal rhythms of movement, and minimalist material cultures, were quite similar; but other features, such as the use of metals, access to urban civilizations, the nature and scale of warfare, and overall population sizes, were very different. Yet, both kinds of nomadism dominated their respective landscapes until being supplanted by European or EuroAmerican expansionism between about 300 to 150 years ago.