Unit 3 Image Analysis

Looking at the image, what does it tell us about the scope and extent of the slave trade in the postclassical Islamic world? Your answer should include the following: • The image shows a slave market in southern Arabia during the thirteenth century C.E. • Merchants are engaged in buying and selling African slaves, probably from west Africa. • The presence of black African slaves illuminates the scope and extent of the Islamic slave trade network, which linked slave markets across the Islamic world with source regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, Russia, and Scandinavia.

Look at the image. What does it indicate about the level of sophistication of Arab and Islamic medical and pharmaceutical knowledge in the Islamic world? Explain how trade and knowledge contacts between the Islamic world and other cultures benefited Islamic medical and pharmaceutical learning Your answer should include the following: • As the image shows, Arab medical and pharmaceutical knowledge was well-developed by the postclassical period. • Drawing from both its own traditions and those of Persia, India, and Greece, it was among the most sophisticated in the world at this time. • Arab physicians and pharmacists were part of a well-developed intellectual and scientific culture within the postclassical Islamic world. Your answer should include the following: • Islamic medical and pharmaceutical knowledge benefited greatly from contact with and knowledge of other cultures. • Islamic physicians and pharmacists gained access to knowledge from Greek, Indian, and Persian medical traditions through   their contacts with merchants and missionaries, who also brought back ingredients and commodities that were added to existing medicines. • This process of knowledge and commodity exchange demonstrates the benefits of the hemispheric Islamic economy.

Using the image and the text, discuss the significance of the Chinese examination system within Chinese Imperial history. Your answer should include the following: • First developed by the Han dynasty, the examination system, which recruited young men into the imperial bureaucracy, was used heavily during the Tang and Song periods. • These young students, like those in the image, had progressed through the Confucian educational system. • Most officeholders won their posts because of their intellectual ability and worked to strengthen and preserve the state. • This system worked so well that it persisted until the twentieth century.

Your answer should include the following: • The image is a painting of the spring festival in Kaifeng, the Northern Song capital. • A large crowd of people moves across the bridge and fills both sides of the riverbank. • Within the crowd, many different groups of urban workers and professionals are visible. • These groups include porters, shopkeepers, peddlers, fortune-tellers, barge captains, and Confucian scholars.   Look at the image and identify different groups present at the spring festival in twelfth-century Kaifeng.

Looking at the image, describe the scene it depicts and discuss what it indicates about samurai military tactics Using the image and the text, describe the role of the samurai in postclassical Japan Your answer should include the following: • The image shows a group of Japanese samurai, heavily armed and on horseback. • They are departing a palace after murdering its guards and capturing a prisoner. • They have also set the castle on fire. • The image suggests that the samurai were ruthless warriors who employed tremendous violence against   their enemies. Your answer should include the following: • The samurai were professional warriors who served the provincial lords of Japan • They provided security within their lords' realms and also extended their authority beyond it into other territories, as the image of the attack on an enemy palace shows. • They were specialists in the use of force and were also superb riders and archers, as the image suggests. • Their prominence within postclassical Japanese society indicates that the society was highly militarized.  

Look at the image of Shiva and discuss its important features. Your answer should include the following: • The image shows a bronze sculpture of the Hindu god Shiva, produced by the southern Indian Chola kingdom. • The sculpture portrays Shiva as a four-armed dancer. • Under his right foot is a demon, symbolizing ignorance. • One hand holds a bell to awaken his devotees, another bears the fire used by Shiva as creator and destroyer of the world, and a third gestures Shiva's benevolence toward his followers.

Look at the image of Khwaja Khidr and identify its important features Using the image and the text, discuss the role of Sufi missionaries in spreading Islam throughout India. Your answer should include the following: • The image depicts the Sufi missionary Khwaja Khidr, whose teachings were venerated by Muslim communities across northern India. • His head is encompassed by a halo, possibly the sun, representing divine favor or influence. • He is wearing simple but elegant robes and is riding a large fish. • He carries a simple wooden staff and also a smaller fish. • His facial expression suggests wisdom and kindness. Your answer should include the following: • Sufi mystics were the most effective agents of Islamic conversion in India and elsewhere during the postclassical period. • Sufis encouraged a personal, emotional, and devotional approach to Islam, traits that resonated strongly within existing Indian religious traditions. • Their flexibility allowed the incorporation of local rituals and spirits. • Their personal piety and integrity, as represented in the depiction of Khwaja Khidr, also drew followers and devotees. • Like other popular salvation religions, Islam offered its adherents meaning, spiritual comfort, and the promise of salvation.

Look at the image of Khwaja Khidr and identify its important features Your answer should include the following: • The image shows the huge temple complex at Angkor Wat in modern Cambodia. • Constructed by the Khmer kings as a dedication to the Hindu god Vishnu, it includes three large spires with the largest   at the center. • A large causeway stretches over the moat that surrounds the entire complex, which was designed as a microcosm of the   Hindu world order. • Statues representing Hindu gods and spirits line the causeway and surround the external walls. Look at the image of the Angkor Wat temple complex and describe its features using the image and the text

Your answer should include the following: • He is in the center Your answer should include the following: • He is in the center. • He is dressed in royal purple. • He is wearing footwear that is different from that of the others. • He is wearing a crown. • With his outstretched arms, he takes up more space than anyone else in the image. • The men at left are probably military officials, since they are holding swords and a shield. Their presence indicates the importance of the military as a tool of Justinian’s empire, and as the means of his successful reconquest of parts of the classical Roman empire. • The three men at right are probably priests. One has a cross on his robe, one seems to be holding a richly decorated Bible, and one seems to be swinging an incense burner, used in Christian religious ceremonies. The church officials represent the alliance between the empire  and Christianity, exemplified in the caesaropapism of the emperor himself, as ruler of both heaven and earth. The three men that surround  the emperor are probably court officials. The Byzantine bureaucracy formed a third foundation of Justinian’s empire. Look at the depiction of Justinian within this mosaic. What features identify the emperor? How do the other officials depicted indicate the powerful groups within Justinian’s empire?

Your answer should include the following: • Hagia Sophia means “holy wisdom.” • It was built by Justinian. • It is one of the world’s most important examples of Christian architecture. • The dome is greatly admired for looking like the heavens encircling the earth, rising 197 feet above the floor. • It is decorated by gold, silver, gems, and thousands of lamps. • It was later turned into a mosque by Ottoman conquerors What is the meaning of the translation of the Hagia Sophia’s name, and what is the building’s significance

Looking at the two images, what can be discerned about social and gender relationships during the early and high medieval periods? Your answer should include the following: • The first image of European peasantry shows peasants receiving seeds from another party – probably local elite groups or local monasteries.    They are then seen working communally in vineyards, suggesting that peasants enjoyed little opportunity for individual farming or personal  wealth accumulation. • The second image of European peasantry shows a man and a woman working communally to plow a field. This suggests that gender division  of labor was not pronounced during this era, with men and women both engaged in heavy physical labor to ensure survival. Your answer should include the following: • The first image of European peasantry, from the Byzantine empire, shows vineyards being communally tended. Vines grow in more   temperate climates and enjoy comparatively high yields, part of a larger, productive Byzantine agricultural economy. • The second image of European peasantry, presumably from western Europe, shows the use of a heavy plow, a technology needed in the harder soils of the region. The need for two oxen to propel the plow meant decreased surpluses and increased costs for agricultural labor.    The heavy plow was also more expensive and required more energy to use. As a result, western Europe’s agricultural economy was smaller and less productive than that of Byzantium. How do these two images of European peasantry demonstrate the differences between the western European and Byzantine agricultural economies during the medieval era?

Your answer should include the following: •  Both images are manuscript illustrations, produced in monasteries during this period. •  Monasteries were the principal centers of literacy and manuscript reproduction in western Europe during the early middle ages. •  The complex division of labor required to produce manuscripts can be seen in the second image. •  One monk is copying a manuscript, another makes geometric calculations, one cuts parchment, two work on the building, and one rings the  bell for service. •  Monastic discipline, procedure, and sense of purpose allowed these complex operations to occur simultaneously and efficiently. •  Hierarchical leadership, like that shown in the first image, with the abbot’s staff symbolizing his authority, further reinforced monastic order. Many monasteries maintained libraries and scriptoria, and almost all works of surviving Latin literature have come down to the present  through copies made by medieval monks.   Look at the two images of monasteries above. How do they demonstrate the links between monasteries and literacy during the medieval period

Looking at the image above, identify important features of nomadic life Your answer should include the following: • This image shows a fourteenth-century C.E. painting by central Asian artist Mehmed Siyah Qalem. • In the image of a nomadic camp, men are attending to various tasks. • Two men wash clothes, another blows on a fire, and one works on a saddle. • Horses and dogs are present, and the camp contains food and weapons, such as bows and arrows

Using the image and the text, discuss Mongol military tactics when dealing with cities such as Baghdad

Looking at the image, explain why the defenders in Constantinople were able to hold out against superior numbers of Ottoman attackers for more than two months Look at the image of Constantinople during its siege by Muslim forces, and identify its important features. Your answer should include the following: • As the image shows, the Ottomans controlled all land routes to the city, but they could not block its access to the sea. • Sea access enabled the city's defenders to resupply themselves, and it also offered an escape route for  those seeking to flee the Ottoman onslaught. • Eventually, resistance crumbled as the Ottomans destroyed the city's walls and completed their  conquest of the Byzantine empire. Your answer should include the following: • The image shows Ottoman forces besieging the city of Constantinople. • Their camp is displayed, along with images of warriors in the foreground • Below the city walls, Ottoman soldiers employ gunpowder weapons, including muskets and cannons,against the city's defenders. • The image shows that the city is surrounded by Ottoman attackers on land. • Its only means of support is by sea, and many ships are depicted within the center of the frame.

Your answer should include the following: • The Mongols attacked and destroyed dozens of cities during their conquests. • They usually surrounded and besieged cities and towns, and they employed catapults and other siege  weapons against defenders, as seen in the image. • They also employed psychological warfare, offering to spare urban populations if they surrendered and  ruthlessly destroying those who resisted. • Baghdad's residents chose to resist, and after a short siege Mongol armies overran the city, looted it, executed the caliph, and massacred more than two hundred thousand of its inhabitants.   Looking at the image, what does it suggest about the roles of gold and trade in west Africa?

Looking at the image of Chinese porcelain found in a Swahili tomb in modern Tanzania, what does it tell us about the scale and volume of trade and wealth within the Indian Ocean basin trade network by the fifteenth century C.E.? Your answer should include the following: • This piece of porcelain discovered in a Swahili tomb indicates several things about the Indian Ocean   basin trade network of this period. • It shows that Islamic merchants from coastal east Africa were integral parts of this network, exchanging   local goods with their counterparts across the Indian Ocean as far away as China. • It also shows that this trade generated considerable wealth for all involved, as porcelain of this quality   was expensive.

Looking at the image, what features of this church in Ethiopia demonstrate the adaptation of Christianity to local conditions in east Africa? Why did the builders construct it the way they did Your answer should include the following: • The church of St. George shown in this image vividly shows the adaptation of Christianity to local conditions in east Africa. • Due to local climatic and geographical conditions, the church was constructed out of a rock below ground level, providing some protection and respite from the hot environment. • Carving the church out of rock also sent a symbolic message about the faith to locals, suggesting   strength and permanence.

Your answer should include the following: • Venice and other Italian coastal ports led a revival of European trade and urbanization in the late postclassical era. • Taking advantage of their locations, Venice and other cities such as Amalfi served as ports for merchants engaged in trade   with their Byzantine and Muslim counterparts in the eastern Mediterranean. • As trade widened, they established colonies across the Mediterranean and Black seas, activities that generated a vast influx   of wealth and luxury goods into Italy and Europe. Using this image and the text, discuss how cities such as Venice contributed to a revival of urban areas and trade across Europe during the late postclassical period

Your answer should include the following: • The image shows Capetian king Louis IX of France dispensing rulings and judgments to his subjects. • Monopolizing legal authority was a crucial part of the process that saw the creation of regional monarchies in early modern Europe. • The close presence of hanged criminals also indicates that this was often a ruthless, brutal process carried out through force and   coercion rather than consent. • The hanged criminals also served as a deterrent against dishonesty on the part of petitioners. Looking at the image of King Louis IX, what does it suggest about the nature of medieval justice and the consolidation of royal authority during this era

Looking at the images, why do you think that both sides practiced these kinds of atrocities? What was it about the crusades that generated this kind of action by both sides? Looking at these two images, what do they suggest about the nature of conflict between Christian and Muslim forces during the crusades? Your answer should include the following: • The two images vividly depict the brutal and violent nature of Christian-Muslim conflict during the crusades. • Both sides committed atrocities and massacres, as the images demonstrate. • The use of bloody violence such as decapitations and burning at the stake generated cycles of retaliation by both sides. Your answer should include the following: • Although the crusades were focused on attempts by Christian forces to recover territory and land from Muslims on the   eastern Mediterranean, they included an overarching religious and ideological dimension. • This dimension was the struggle between Islam and Christianity that had been taking place since the expansion of Islam   in the seventh and eighth centuries C.E. • This component led both sides to dehumanize the enemy, a message reinforced in official propaganda. • Not surprisingly, the idea of the crusades as a reflection of a cosmic battle between good and evil led to a complete   abandonment of moral and ethical restraint by both sides.

Using the image and the text, explain the connections between human sacrifice and the Mexica religious world view Your answer should include the following: • Human sacrifice occupied a critical place in the Mexica world view, and played a crucial role in the   workings of the universe. • Like their predecessors, the Mexica believed that their gods had set the world in motion through acts of   individual sacrifice. • Their blood had given the earth the moisture it needed to bear maize and other crops. • To satisfy the gods and ensure the world's continuation, the Mexica honored their deities through   sacrificial and other forms of bloodletting, including acts of self-sacrifice

Looking at the image and the text, discuss the role of tribute in the Aztec economy Your answer should include the following: • The image suggests that tribute payments constituted a major part of the Aztec economy. • Exacting increased tribute had been one of the main rationales behind the Aztec alliance between the Mexica and the neighboring states of Texcoco and Tlacopan. • Aztec rulers distributed tribute items to official merchants, who took them to distant lands and exchanged them for exotic products. • As long as subject peoples provided their required tribute amounts, Aztec authorities, who developed no centralized bureaucracy, allowed them to govern their own local affairs

Your answer should include the following: • Island societies throughout the Pacific Ocean had long relied on abundant supplies of fish, which they   caught with spears, hooks, and nets. • In the fourteenth century, inhabitants of Hawai`i constructed ingenious fishponds along coastal areas,   with barriers that allowed smaller fish to pass through but prevented larger fish from escaping. • Developed as a means to resolve the depletions of fishing stocks due to population pressures, the   fishpond allowed Hawai`ians to harvest larger fish with ease while reducing pressure on fish populations. • These techniques compare favorably with farming techniques practiced by other peoples elsewhere, and  provided their architects with a reliable and sustainable source of fish. Looking at the image and the text, discuss how these man-made fishponds compared with farming and livestock techniques elsewhere in the world

Look at the image, and identify important features that indicate the impact of bubonic plague on European society Using the image and the text, discuss the social and economic effects of bubonic plague in Europe Your answer should include the following: • This image shows a 1503 C.E. painting that graphically illustrates the impact of bubonic plague on Europe. • The image centers on a large wheeled cart pulled by emaciated cattle, on top of which is a demonic   skeletal figure representing death and possibly Satan, due to the flames on top of the skull, standing on    the corpse of a young woman. • All around the cart lie the corpses of others, young and old, rich and poor, church officials and lay   people, which suggests the absolute scope of the plague's reach; none were spared. • In the background a large walled city sits, apparently abandoned, suggesting the flight from urban areas   that the plague precipitated. Your answer should include the following: • Through its massive toll in human lives, bubonic plague severely disrupted societies across Eurasia and north Africa. • The disease caused severe labor shortages, which generated social unrest. • Demands for higher wages by urban and rural workers led to landlords attempting to restrict freedom of   movement and re-impose serfdom. • These efforts led to a series of rebellions across both urban and rural Europe that resulted in further loss of life and social disruption.

Your answer should include the following: • As the image suggests, apart from the effort to draw inspiration from classical precedents, Renaissance   art and thought reflected increasing European participation in the affairs of the eastern Hemisphere. • As a flood of new and exotic goods, creatures, and commodities flooded the markets and towns of   western Europe, Renaissance painters included these items in their artistic output. • These images were paid for by wealthy Renaissance patrons, many of whom derived their fortunes from  this increasing trade. Looking at the image and the text, discuss how the image reflects increasing European involvement in the larger world

Your answer should include the following: • As the map indicates, Europeans had a fairly accurate knowledge of much of the world's habitable land surfaces by this period. • Münster's map more or less accurately depicts Eurasia, Africa, and South America, all regions that had   been visited by Europeans at this point. • Areas missing from the map, such as much of North America and Oceania, would be the next areas of   European exploration as the centuries continued. • Maps such as these greatly aided in this process. Looking at the map, what can be deduced about the contemporary knowledge of world geography in Europe in the early sixteenth century?