Style

The uniformity of design characteristic of Linear Pottery sites begins to break down around as various regional groups emerge, such as the Rössen, Lengyel, Tisza, and Stroke-ornamented Pottery (Stichbandkeramik) cultures.

The earliest known Korean pottery dates back to around 8000 BCE or before, and evidence of Mesolithic Pit-Comb Ware culture or Yungimun Pottery is found throughout the peninsula.

An example of a Yungimun-era site is in Jeju-do.

Jeulmun or Comb-pattern Pottery is found after 7000 BCE, and pottery with comb-patterns over the whole vessel is found concentrated at sites in west-central Korea when a number of settlements such as Amsa-dong exist.

Jeulmun pottery bears basic design and form similarities to that of the Russian Maritime Province, Mongolia, and the Amur and Sungari River basins of Manchuria and the Jomon culture in Japan.

Examples of Early Jeulmun settlements include Seopohang, Amsa-dong, and Osan-ri.

Deep-sea fishing, hunting, and small semi-permanent settlements with pit-houses characterize the Early Jeulmun period (from about 6000 BCE to about 3500 BCE).

Radiocarbon evidence from coastal shell midden sites such as Ulsan Sejuk-ri, Dongsam-dong, and Ga-do Island indicates that shellfish were exploited, but many archaeologists maintain that shellmiddens (or shellmound sites) did not appear until the latter Early Jeulmun.

Public buildings at Tell Brak include the Eye Temple and an administrative building with attached workshops.

The fourth millennium "Eye Temple,” which was excavated in 1937–38, is the most famous of the pre-Akkadian features.

The temple, built around 3500–3300 BCE, was named for the hundreds of small alabaster "eye idol" figurines, which were incorporated into the mortar with which the mudbrick temple was constructed.

The building's surfaces were richly decorated with clay cones, copper panels, and gold work, in a style comparable to contemporary temples of Sumer.

The earliest Korean art appears in the form of Neolithic pottery impressed with simple geometric decoration around 3000 BCE.

Distinctive painted pottery, some of which is eggshell thin, begins to be produced in Loristan—a region of mountain valleys at the western edge of the Iranian plateau—about 3000 at sites such as Tepe Sialk, Tepe Hissar, and Tepe Giyan, indicating connections among the inhabitants.

Burial urns on the Plain of Sharon, a Mediterranean coastal strip about ten miles (sixteen kilometers) wide and fifty-five miles (ninety kilometers) long between present Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa, Israel, date from the fourth millennium.

The deceased person is cremated and the ashes and bones are placed in these clay house-shaped ossuaries.

Each urn is individualistic in design and structure, which may indicate stylistic variations in the architecture of the dwellings of the period.

The significance of the "nose-like" projection is not known.

Little is known about the reign of Djer’s successor Djet, but he has become famous because of the survival, in well-preserved form, of one of his artistically refined tomb steles.

It is carved in relief with Djet's Horus name, and shows that the distinct Egyptian style already had become fully developed at that time.

His reign was listed in the lost or destroyed sections of the Palermo Stone.

Djet's queen was his sister Merneith.

There is a possibility that a lady called Ahaneith was also his wife.

Djet and Merneith's son was Den, and their grandson was Anedjib.

The earliest known depiction of a phalanx-like formation occurs in the so-called Stele of the Vultures, a fragmented limestone stele found in Telloh, (ancient Girsu) Iraq, in 1881.

Here the troops seem to have been equipped with spears, helmets, and large shields covering the whole body.

Ancient Egyptian infantry were known to have employed similar formations.

The Stele of the Vultures, now in the Louvre, is reconstructed as having been one point eight meters (five feet, eleven inches) high and one point three meters (four feet, three inches) wide and was set up between about 2500 and 2400 BCE.

It was erected as a monument of the victory of Eannatum of Lagash over Enakalle of Umma.

On it are represented various incidents in the war.

In one register, the king stands in his chariot with a curved weapon in his right hand, formed of three bars of metal bound together by rings, while his kilted followers, with helmets on their heads and lances in their hands, march behind him.

In another register, a figure, presumed to be that of the king, rides on his chariot in the thick of the battle.

On the other side of the stele is an image of Ninurta, a god of war, who holds the captive Ummaites in a large net.

This implies that Eannatum attributed his victory to Ninurta, and thus that he was in the god's protection (though some accounts say that he attributed his victory to Enlil, the patron deity of Lagash).

The Sumerians dig canals along the southern reaches of the Tigris River from at least 2400.

Intercity conflict among such Sumerian cities as Ur, Lagash, and Kish reaches a climax in the early twenty-fourth century BCE.

Eannatum of Lagash raids other cities.