West and central Asia

Heads up! This course may be archived and/or unavailable.

This course is a part of AP®︎ Art History, a 13-course Topic series from Khan Academy.

The arts of West and Central Asia play a key role in the history of world art, giving form to the vast cultural interchanges that have occurred in these lands that link the European and Asian peoples.

This course contains 16 segments:

Petra: The rose red city of the Nabataeans

Petra: Rock-cut façades

Petra: urban metropolis

Petra: UNESCO Siq Project

The Siq is one of Petra’s most endangered areas, in which natural environmental risks pose a major threat to the cultural heritage and the visitors. Thus, systematic identification and monitoring of its potentially unstable areas is needed. The Jordanian government made a request in 2011 for assistance in this regard, and subsequently a rapid assessment of the Siq was carried out by UNESCO to identify the unstable blocks and map risk zones in the Siq. Read more here.

Bamiyan Buddhas

Essay by Dr. Melody Rod-ari

Bamiyan: Ten years on

The Kaaba

Jowo Rinpoche, Jokhang Temple, Tibet

by Dr. Melody Rod-Ari

The Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra)

The Great Mosque (or Masjid-e Jameh) of Isfahan

Folio from a Qur'an

Basin (Baptistère de Saint Louis)

Mohammed ibn al-Zain, Basin (Baptistère de Saint Louis), c. 1320-40, brass inlaid with silver and gold, 22.2 x 50.2 cm, Egypt or Syria (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

The Court of Gayumars

by Dr. Nancy Demerdash

Bahram Gur Fights the Karg (Horned Wolf)

by Jayne Yantz

Introduction to the court carpets of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires

The Ardabil Carpet