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King Khafre seated
Fourth Dynasty, reign of Khafre
Graywacke
Egyptian Museum, Cairo
King Menkaure and a Queen
Fourth Dynasty, reign of Menkaure
Graywacke with faint remains of paint
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Triad of King Menkaure
Fourth Dynasty, reign of Menkaure
Graywacke
Egyptian Museum, Cairo
Wall-painting from Thebes
showing Nebamun hunting.
British Museum, London
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IMHOTER |
The name Imhotep is inscribed on the base of a statue of the pharaoh Djoser,
found at Saqqara in 1926. Physician, seer, architect, and royal official,
Imhotep is credited with directing the construction of Djoser's pyramid and the
impressive complex around it. Living in about 2700вс, he was the first architect
whose name is known and may have been the first to build in hewn stone. From
525вс, he was worshipped as the god of medicine in Egypt and in Greece.
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Pyramids of King Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, Giza |
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The Pyramids |
It was a pharaoh of the third dynasty. Djoser, and his royal official Imhotep
who created the complex of Saqqara. This was a vast area enclosed by a white
limestone wall, inside which stood the Step Pyramid and several smaller
structures. The project was impressive in its unprecendented use of calcareous
stone instead of perishable materials, such as the bricks and wood that
had been common in the preceding age. During the fourth dynasty, stepped
structures, such as the rhomboidal pyramid of King Sneferu at Meidum, gave way
to the uniformly smooth-walled pyramids of King Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure in
the necropolis of Giza, near Cairo. Erected between 2550 and 2470bc, they were
listed by the Greeks as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The grandiose
dimensions of these funerary monuments, built to preserve the bodies of the dead
kings for eternity, conveyed a sense of timeless-ness and immutability. In this,
they were like the circumpolar stars towards which the pyramid sites were
orientated and to which the pharaohs, departed from this earth, would return as
gods to take their place among the divinities. The pyramids form part of a large
complex, including mortuary temples, and mastabas, the burial places of priests,
nobles, and high ranking officials.
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The Great Sphinx
Giza
c.2500bc |
DAILY LIFE IN EGYPTIAN TOMB ART
Scenes of everyday life are depicted in bas-reliefs and paintings in tombs and
mastabas from all periods of Egyptian history. Carved or painted on sepulchre
walls, figurative scenes re-create scenes of activity from the earthly life,
with the aim of ensuring their continuation in the afterlife. Until the time of
the New Kingdom, these did not portray specific events but were naturalistic
renderings of generalized communal activities, such as ploughing, harvesting,
breeding birds and livestock, hunting animals and birds, and fishing.
However, subject matter became increasingly varied during
the New Kingdom (с.1550-1070вс). While daily life had
previously been portrayed in a continuous succession of
typical events, tomb paintings now included imagery evoking
personal aspects of past life and extolling the status of
the tomb's owner. The wall painting from the tomb of Nakht
in Thebes, for example, is a good example of this kind of
personal observation: here, we see detailed scenes of grape
harvesting, wine-making, and the storage of wine in
amphorae. Nakht, a noble and royal astronomer, was also the
keeper of the king's vineyards.
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Akhenaten Presenting a
Duck to Aten
Dynasty 18, c.1345-1335 B.C.
Painted limestone
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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Painting and Sculpture
The most important paintings and sculptures of the Old Kingdom come from the
mastabas. The frieze of geese in the tomb of Itet at Meidum was the lower part
of a huge painting depicting the hunting of birds with nets, and is perhaps the
oldest surviving wall painting on stucco. The function of bas-reliefs and
paintings was to furnish the tomb with enduring pictures that imitated,
transcended, and re-created nature. The need to guarantee the survival of the
dead and to assemble in one single figure or object the fundamental elements for
their magical re-animation lies at the root of the Egyptian iconographical
repertory. The desire to show all the essential
characteristics of the human figure in a single image led
the Egyptian artists to present it in an unnatural way. The
face was shown in profile with the eye to the front;
shoulders and chest were viewed from the front, showing the
juncture of the arms; and the legs were shown in profile to
indicate the direction of movement. Each part was exhibited
from its most characteristic angle in order to present the
whole figure cm the flat surface.
Similar conventions
governed the plastic arts. Enclosed in its cubic structure,
the funerary effigy of Khafre is the prototype of pharaonic
statues, with its immobile, hieratic, imperturbable pose -
the very essence of royalty. Standing or seated, in wood or
in stone, such figures, in spite of their rigid attitudes,
are independent and vivid entities that immortalize the
individual. At Saqqara, the statue of Djoser was positioned
inside a stonebuilt chamber next the Step Pyramid, where it
could "watch" the performance of rituals for the dead
through tiny apertures in the walls.
While it cannot compare to the Great Prvamids in
monumentality, its sculpture and painting reveal great
clarity and compositional rigour. Typical of Middle Kingdom
royal statuary are the colossal red granite sculptures of
Sesostris III and the maned sphinxes of Amenemhet III. which
personify the pharaoh and his power. Freer of the
conventions of official art are the small sculptures in
painted wood in which the artists skilfully and
naturalistically capture aspects of everyday life. The
Second Intermediate Period (13th-17th dynasties,
c.1778—1570bc) witnessed much internal unrest and the
waning of centralized power. Virtually defenceless against
the incursions of the Hyksos from Western Asia. Egypt was
nonetheless to rise phoenix-like from the ashes to enter its
most splendid period of artistic achievement - the 18th
dynasty.
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Reserve head Fourth Dynasty
Limestone
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
Reserve head
Fourth Dynasty
Limestone
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
The Egyptians considered earthly life to be a fleeting moment, the prelude to
eternal happiness. Man. absolved of all his sins after death, would continue to
live among the blessed in the Fields of lalu, identified symbolically with the
god Osiris. At the end of the Old Kingdom, this privilege, once reserved for the
pharaohs, became the prerogative of all. Essential elements of the death ritual
were mummification, the "opening of the mouth", and the protection of the
corpse. To assist the dead person in his or her transition before the tribunal
of Osiris was the Book of the Dead, a roll of papyrus containing religious and
magical texts. It included the representation of the tribunal of Osiris and
answers to the questions posed by the 42 deities sitting in judgment. In order
to verify the "negative confession", the heart of the dead person was placed on
one pan of a scale, under the supervision of the god Anubis, while on the other
was placed an ostrich feather, symbol of Maat. the goddess of truth. The
sarcophagus preserved the mortal remains, which were
necessary for eternal life. In the Old Kingdom this was
decorated with brief texts and. occasionally, panelled
decoration. In the period of the Middle and New Kingdoms, it
was covered in magical religious inscriptions and images of
the protecting divinities.
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Book of the Dead
of the Scribe Hunefer, 19th dynasty.
British Museum, London |
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Stela of King Qahedjet
Third Dynasty
Fine-grained limestone
Musee du Louvre, Paris
Relief block with the
figure of Aa-akhti
Late Third Dynasty
Fine-grained limestone with traces of paint
Musee du Louvre, Paris
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Horus on the left and Anubis, the god of cemetaries and
embalming |
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THE THEBAN TOMBS
The pharaohs of the 18th dynasty, originating from Thebes,
chose the left bank of the Nile as their heavenly resting
place. Beyond the long line of funerary temples, which
extend to the edges of the cultivated land, is the winding
Valley of the Kings, with its tombs of the sovereigns of the
New Kingdom cut into the cliffs. While the plan of the early
tombs was asymmetrical, that of later tombs was symmetrical
- best exemplified by the tomb of Seti I. The room where the
sarcophagus was placed was originally painted in yellow,
with the mummy housed in a gold coffin - the unalterable
nature of the metal was believed to guarantee the
incorruptibility of the mummy. In the square, columnar hall,
were placed the royal chariot and funerary equipment. Walls
and pillars were decorated with texts and scenes symbolizing
the transformation of the dead king into the sun and the
transmission of power to his successor. To the south of the
Valley of the Kings lies the Valley of the Queens, resting
place of queens and other members or the royal family: a
large private necropolis accommodates the tombs of the
nobles.
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