Neolithic Cycladic culture in the Aegean islands created the first large-scale sculpture 6,000 years ago. By the time of the Pyramids, the Egyptians were carving their own distinctive impressive figures; marvel at their scale and beauty, purpose and power. Learn how and why the innovative archaic Greeks redesigned this in their own image, and how the Phoenicians combined the two. Contrast these with the might and message of Assyrian and Persian sculpture. We enter the extraordinary world of Classical sculpture; from the evolving Severe/Early Classical style, to a naturalistic representation ... the Classical Greeks writers even defined beauty.

Lecture 2 continues by taking us west, to the Italic lands of the Etruscans and the Roman Republic. Influenced but not defined by Greek art, the Etruscans developed a sculptural style all their own. The Roman Republic strove to etch its own separate identity in stone but, as the wealth of the expanding empire changed ambitions, the purpose and styles of sculpture changed too. Between them all, western sculpture had taken shape.