In the earliest urban centers, several arts flourished as cities organized around religion, governance, trade, and social hierarchy. The major forms, how they were made, and what they often represented are summarized below.

Visual arts

• Sculpture
  • How made: Carved from stone, alabaster, soapstone, or clay; sometimes modeled in clay or terracotta; often shaped with metal tools and polished or painted.
  • What they represented: Deities, kings, founding myths, protective figures, and civic pride; votive or ritual functions in temples and public spaces.
• Pottery and ceramic works
  • How made: Wheel-thrown or hand-built forms; decorated with slips, paints, or glazes; fired in kilns to varying temperatures.
  • What they represented: Everyday life, religious symbolism, storage of grain and goods, and ceremonial vessels; often used in trade and burials to indicate status.
• Architecture and monumental sculpture
  • How made: Large-scale stone, brick, or adobe construction; decorative reliefs, friezes, and statues integrated into buildings.
  • What they represented: Political power, religious devotion, and urban identity; temples, palaces, and city gates served as visual narratives of authority and cosmology.

Decorative and applied arts

• Textiles and weaving
  • How made: Spun fibers into yarns and woven on looms; sometimes dyed with natural mordants or paints; complex patterns indicated status.
  • What they represented: Social identity, ritual meaning, and economic wealth; textiles could signal rank and affiliation.
• Metalwork and jewelry
  • How made: Cast, hammered, or filigreed metal; inlays with stones; often combined with enamel or cloisonné.
  • What they represented: Wealth, divine favor, protective amulets, and status; ceremonial and prestige objects circulated in elite circles.
• Wooden and ivory carvings
  • How made: Carved, inlaid, or painted; used for household items, ritual objects, and furniture.
  • What they represented: Domestic life, ceremonial function, and the blending of utility with symbolic imagery.

Performing and portable arts

• Music, dance, and theater
  • How made: Instruments crafted from gourds, bone, wood, and skin; songs and dances preserved through memory or simple notation; performances in courts, temples, and market spaces.
  • What they represented: Communal memory, religious rites, storytelling, celebrations of harvests, migrations, and political events; entertainment intertwined with ritual and civic life.
• Storytelling and ritual drama
  • How made: Recited or enacted with masks, costumes, and ritual gestures; sometimes accompanied by music or visual aids.
  • What they represented: Mythic histories, moral lessons, and communal identities; reinforced social norms and legitimacy of rulers.

Symbolic and documentary roles

• Iconography and wall paintings
  • How made: Painted on temple walls, tombs, or public façades with mineral pigments and binders; often aligned with architectural spaces.
  • What they represented: Cosmology, founding legends, and lineage; they narrated a city’s sacred geography and political order.
• Scriptoria and manuscript illumination (where literacy existed)
  • How made: Scribes and artists combined text with decorative borders, miniature scenes, and gold leaf; materials included parchment or papyrus and natural pigments.
  • What they represented: Religious, legal, and administrative knowledge; transmission of culture, law, and sacred narratives.

Representative cultures and timelines

• Mesopotamian city-states (e.g., Uruk, Ur, Nippur)
  • Arts emphasized monumental architecture, sculpture, cylinder seals, and reliefs depicting rulerly authority and religious practice.
• Early Egyptian and Levantine urban centers
  • Sculpture, tomb reliefs, and temple architecture conveyed divine kingship, afterlife beliefs, and state-sponsored piety.
• Indus Valley and early South Asian urbanization
  • Ceramics, beadwork, seals, and urban planning reflected organized trade, religion, and social structure.
• Early civilizations in the Aegean and Anatolia
  • Pottery, sculpture, and architectural innovations expressed local cults, maritime trade, and settlement identities.

If you’d like, I can tailor this to a specific early city or region (for example, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, or ancient Egypt) and provide a more detailed, region-specific overview of the main arts, their making techniques, and their symbolic meanings.