1- The design/engineering of the Coliseum was an amazing thing. Oftentimes, we would not see the intricacies of how it worked based upon simple images. The archeological remains have been studied at length and reveal even more structural/functional elements developed to fill the needs of this amazing venue including underground rooms & plumbing and sunshades for events in a hot and very sunny climate – here are some good links to check out. What sort of productions were important enough to this culture that they would go to such lengths to perfect a structure like this? What were the cultural concerns that lead to this innovation? Can you see any of the innovations present in this ancient architecture used in arenas today?

http://www.roman-colosseum.info/roman-colosseum-sitemap.htm

http://www.roman-colosseum.info/colosseum/beneath-the-colosseum.htm

http://www.roman-colosseum.info/colosseum/awning-at-the-colosseum.htm

1. Navigate to The Ancient History Sourcebook online: http://legacy.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbook.asp (Links to an external site.)

2. Browse the collections in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome

3. Choose a single text or artifact linked or preserved in this sourcebook.

4. Write 500 words answering the following question: How and in what ways is the work you have chosen shaped by its cultural, spatial, and temporal contexts?

(For example, for an ancient Egyptian text about the creation of the universe, how is the form and/or content shaped by the fact that it is Egyptian — rather than, for example, Greek, Roman or Mesopotamian? What difference does it make that it is from, for example, the Old Kingdom rather than the new kingdom or some later point? What difference does it make that it was written on papyrus rather than on stone (or vice-versa)?

You can use broader articles at Oxford Bibliographies, the works of Oxford Reference Shelf, or the images at ArtStor to help inform your analysis. (e.g. if you look at an egyptian text, search on Oxford reference shelf also for the general article on egyptian literature or on the specific kind of literature– egyptian love poetry, for example; or, you may want to look at specific cultural matters that strike you in what you are looking at. So you can search for “egyptian agriculture” or “egyptian religion” or any of those broader entries in Oxford Bibliographies and Oxford Reference Shelf.)

If you are stuck with this question and thinking about what to write, consider the inverse question: what would this thing look like if it were the product of a different time/place/culture?)