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Unit ONE: Ancient Near East
STUDY GUIDE
A The ancient Sumerians
B Gilgamesh
1. “The Sumerians created one of the most important of all
ancient civilizations. They invented the wheel, mathematical
numbers, multiplication tables, and instrumental music (along
with the lyre or harp). They are also credited with developing
the earliest known script (in the form of wedge-shaped lines)
known as cuneiform” (Durant, Oriental Heritage 131). “Each
city, as long as it could, maintained a jealous independence, and
indulged itself in a private king. It called him patesi, or priestking, indicating by the very word that government was bound up
with religion… The despot lived in a Renaissance atmosphere of
violence and fear; at any moment he might be dispatched by the
same methods that had secured him the throne” (126). “The
oldest inscriptions are on stone, and date apparently as far back
as 3600 BC. Towards 3200 BC the clay tablet appears, and from
that time on the Sumerians seem to have delighted in the great
discovery” (131).“Here, for the first known time on a large scale,
appear some of the sins of civilization: slavery, despotism,
ecclesiasticism, and imperialistic war” (134). “The priest-king led
the army, regulated the supply and distribution of food, and
provided political and religious leadership” (Fiero, First
Civilizations 41-42).
1. “The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving epic poem and is
preserved on cuneiform tablets from the second millennium BC. It
recounts Gilgamesh’s search for immortality as he undertakes
perilous journeys through forests and the underworld, encounters
gods, and struggles with moral conflict” (Adams, Art Across Time
56). “Gilgamesh finally attains immortality as the builder of Uruk’s
walls. He establishes urban civilization and lays the foundations of
historical progress” (56).
2. “Gilgamesh, the hero of Mesopotamian epic myth and the
forerunner of many dragon-slayers like St. George, overcomes the
monster Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven” (Hall 176). “The Epic of
Gilgamesh was recited orally for centuries before it was recorded at
Sumer in the late third millennium. As literature, it precedes the
Hebrew Bible and all the other major writings of antiquity. Its hero
is a semi-historical figure who probably ruled the ancient
Sumerian city of Uruk around 2800 BCE” (Fiero, First Civilizations
39). When Gilgamesh “spurns the affections of the Queen of
Heaven, Ishtar (a fertility goddess not unlike the Egyptian Isis), he
is punished with the loss of his dearest companion, Enkidu.
Despairing over Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh undertakes a long and
hazardous quest in search of everlasting life.
He meets
Utnapishtim, a mortal whom the gods have rewarded with eternal
life for having saved humankind from a devastating flood.
Utnapishtim helps Gilgamesh locate the plant that miraculously
restores youth. But ultimately a serpent snatches the plant, and
Gilgamesh is left with the haunting vision of death as ‘a house of
dust’ and a place of inescapable sadness” (38). “The anxious sense
of human vulnerability that pervades the Book of Job recalls the
Epic of Gilgamesh. Indeed, the two works bear comparison. Both
heroes, Job and Gilgamesh, are tested by superhuman forces, and
both come to realize that misfortune and suffering are typical of
the human condition. Gilgamesh seeks but fails to secure personal
immorality; Job solicits God’s promise of heavenly reward but fails
to secure assistance that once dead, he might return to life… The
notion of life after death (so prominent in Egyptian religious
thought) is as elusive a concept in Hebraic literature as it is in
Mesopotamian myth” (54).
2. “Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq) was the center of ancient
Near Eastern civilization. Its name is derived from the Greek
mesos (middle) and potamus (river). Mesopotamia is literally the
‘land between the rivers’ – the Tigris and the Euphrates. The
Mesopotamian climate was harsh, and its inhabitants learned
irrigation to make the land fertile” (Adams, Art Across Time 50).
The government of ancient Sumer was a theocracy. Judges and
priests were for the most part the same. Gods in the temple
were provided with food, revenue, and wives. Originally it seems
that the gods preferred human flesh; one liturgical tablet tells us
that “the lamb is the substitute for humanity; he hath given up
a lamb for his life” (Durant, Oriental Heritage 128). Schools were
attached to most of the temples wherein the clergy instructed
both boys and girls in writing and arithmetic. Women exercised
equal rights with her husbands over their children in Sumerian
society. In times of crisis, however, the male was lord and
master (129).
C White Temple and Ziggurat at Uruk, c. 3200-3000 BCE
use of mud brick/ desire for monumental architecture/ celestial orientation/ cella
1. “The ziggurat, derived from an Assyrian word meaning ‘raised up’ or ‘high,’ is a uniquely
Mesopotamian architectural form. Mesopotamians believed that each city was under the protection
of a god or gods to whom the city’s inhabitants owed service, and they built imitation mountains, or
ziggurats, as platforms for those gods” (Adams, Art Across Time 54). “Ziggurats functioned
symbolically… as lofty bridges between the earth and heavens – a meeting place for humans and
their gods. They were given names such as ‘House of the Mountain’ and ‘Bond between Heaven and
Earth,’ and temples were known as waiting rooms’ because the priests and priestesses waited there
for the gods and goddesses to reveal themselves” (Stokstad, Art History 66).
2. “The role of the temple as the center of both spiritual and physical life can be seen in the layout of
Sumerian cities. The houses were clustered about a sacred area that was a vast architectural
complex containing not only shrines but workshops, storehouses, and scribes’ quarters as well. In their midst, on a raised platform,
stood the temple of their local god. Perhaps reflecting the Sumerians’ origin in the mountains to the north, these platforms soon reached
the height of true mountains” (Janson 63). The main room atop the White Temple at Warka (or Uruk), or cella, “where sacrifices were
made before the statue of the god, is a narrow hall that runs the length of the temple and is flanked by smaller chambers. Its main
entrance is on the southwest side, rather than on the side facing the stairs or on one of the narrow sides of the temple as one might
expect. To understand why this is the case, we must view the ziggurat and temple as a whole. The entire complex is planned in such a
way that the worshiper, starting at the bottom of the stairs on the east side, is forced to go around as many corners as possible before
reaching the cella. In other words, the path is a sort of angular spiral. This ‘bent-axis approach’ is a basic feature of Mesopotamian
religious architecture, in contrast to the straight, single axis of Egyptian temples” (63).
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Unit ONE: Ancient Near East
STUDY GUIDE
White Temple and Ziggurat at Uruk, c. 3200-3000 BCE (CONTINUED)
3. “Ziggurats were impressive not because of size alone but also because their exterior surfaces were decorated with elaborate patterns
of colored clay mosaics and reliefs. The gods would have been pleased with all this handiwork, it was said, because they abhorred
laziness in their people” (Stokstad, Art History 66). “A stairway leads to the top but does not end in front of any of the temple doorways,
necessitating two or three angular changes in direction. This ‘bent-axis’ approach is the standard arrangement for Sumerian temples, a
striking contrast to the linear approach the Egyptians preferred for their temples and tombs” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 19). “There
were two large temple complexes at Uruk, the first independent Sumerian city-state. One complex was dedicated to Inanna, the
goddess of fertility, and the other probably to the sky god Anu, another major deity. The Anu Ziggurat was built up in stages over the
centuries until it ultimately rose to a height of about 40 feet” (Stokstad, Art History 66).
4. “It is possible to posit that …in Sumer much of life was focused on the temples of the gods. Individual deities owned their own cities
and territories. For example, Inanna, a complex goddess of many aspects including both love and war, owned Uruk; Nanna, the moon
god, possessed Ur; and Ningirsu, a fertility god as well as a warrior god, retained Lagash” (Aruz 22). The best known ziggurat “was at
Babylon (7th-6th cents. BC), the biblical Tower of Babel, which was some 300 ft high and had seven stages… At the top was the shrine of
the local deity, where a sacred marriage was performed annually. The tower is represented on neo-Babylonian seals” (Hall 97).
5. “Unlike the Egyptian pyramid, which functioned as a tomb, the ziggurat served as a shrine and temple. Hence, it formed the
spiritual center of the city-state. Striking similarities exist between the ziggurats of Mesopotamia and the stepped platform pyramids of
ancient Mexico, built somewhat later. Erected atop rubble mounds much like the Mesopotamian ziggurat, the temples of Meso-America
functioned as solar observatories, religious sanctuaries, and gravesites. Whether or not any historical link exists between these
Mesopotamian and the structurally similar Native American monuments remains among the many mysteries of ancient history” (Fiero,
First Civilizations 45).
D Statuettes from the Temple of Abu at Eshnunna
E Lyre from Sumerian Royal Cemetery (Ur,
(Tell Asmar), c. 2700-2600 BCE, gypsum
stylization of physical types/ hypnotic gaze
Iraq), c. 2600 BCE
1. “Marble statues dated to about 29002600 BCE from ruins of a temple at
Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar, Iraq) reveal
a
somewhat
humbler
aspect
of
Mesopotamian religious art. These votive
figures- statues made as an act of worship
to the gods- depict individuals.
They
represent an early example of an ancient
Near Eastern religious practice- the setting
up of simple, small statues of individual
worshipers in a shrine before the larger,
more elaborate image of a god” (Stokstad,
Art History 69).
2. “Cuneiform texts reveal the importance of fixing on a god with an
attentive gaze, hence the wide-open eyes. These standins are at
perpetual attention, making eye contact and chanting their donors’
praises through eternity” (70). “The eyes are shells and the pupils are
inlaid with black limestone” (Adams, Art Across Time 57).“The largest
male statue has no attributes of divinity and is thought to represent an
important or wealthy person dedicating himself to the god Abu. All the
statues probably represent worshippers of varying status whose sizes
were determined by the amount of money their donors paid for them.
As such, these figures are rendered with so-called hierarchical
proportions, a convention equating size with status” (57). “It is not
known whether these figures were originally a unified group, but most
hold a cup, and some hold a flower or branch” (57).
3. “The larger figures may be priests, and the smaller figures,
laypersons. Rigid and attentive, they stand as if in perpetual prayer.
Their enlarged eyes, inlaid with shell and black limestone convey the
impression of dread and awe, visual testimony to the sense of human
apprehension in the face of divine power. These images to not share
the buoyant confidence of the Egyptians; rather, they convey the
insecurities of a people whose vulnerability was an ever-present fact of
life” (Fiero, Lost Civilizations 46).
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1. This “elegant lyre soundbox from Ur
indicates not only the presence of
music and musical instruments, but
also the superb craftsmanship of early
Sumerian artists” (Adams, Art Across
Time 58).
2. “The scorpion-man, who appears in
the bottom scene on the front of the
box, may be one of the fearsome
guardians of the sun described in the
Epic of Gilgamesh. In addition to hybrid
forms combining animals with other
animals and animals with humans,
ancient Near Eastern art is populated
by animals- such as the goat holding a
cup and walking upright- who act like
humans. These figures could represent
either mythological
creatures or people dressed as animals” (59).
3. Found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, “this lyre was
meant to accompany liturgical chants, its sounds
associated with those of the divine bull and its sound box
providing a glimpse of the underworld banquet” (Aruz
107). “In the second register a canine animal, probably a
hyena in the role of a butcher, stands on his rear legs. In
his human heads he carries a table piled with animals
parts, and he wears a dagger stuck in his belt” (106).
“Gilgamesh is depicted standing between two humanheaded bulls, while some of the epic’s fantastic
characters, such as the Man-Scorpion, appear in the
registers below. The Great Harp itself may have been
used to accompany the chanting of this epic” (Fiero, First
Civilizations 39). “Described as two-thirds god and onethird man, Gilgamesh is blessed by the gods with beauty
and courage” (39).
Unit ONE: Ancient Near East
STUDY GUIDE
F Standard of Ur (Ur), c. 2700 BCE
contrast between war and peace/ use of registers to depict a narrative/ discoveries from royal Sumerian
graves/ depiction of human figures/ lapis lazuli
1. The excavator of the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Leonard Woolley, thought that this
object “was originally mounted on a pole and considered it a kind of military
standard- hence its nickname” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 24). The box is
“inlaid with mosaic scenes from shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli, set in
bitumen. On one side can be seen peace and prosperity, with a procession of men
bringing animals, fish and other goods. At the top the king banquets among his
friends, entertained by a singer and a man with a lyre. On the other side a
Sumerian army, with chariots (the earliest known representation of wheeled
vehicles) and infantry, charges the enemy. The prisoners are then brought before
the king” (Caygill 342).
2. In the uppermost register of the ‘war side,’ soldiers “present bound captives (who have been stripped naked to degrade them) to a
kinglike figure, who has stepped out of his chariot” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 24). “The city of Ur lay in southern Mesopotamia, close
to the ancient shoreline of the Gulf… Below the simple graves of the common people lay the elite of Ur, buried with magnificent treasures.
Among the richest tombs was that of Pu-abi, her name recorded on a fine cylinder seal of lapis lazuli. She lay on a wooden bier, a gold cup
near her hand, the upper part of her body entirely hidden by multi-coloured beads. Over her crushed skull she wore an elaborate
headdress. Buried with her were 25 attendants… It was surmised that the attendants had voluntarily taken poison and been buried
while unconscious or dead” (Caygill 341).
3. “The side depicting ‘war’ records the conquest itself in fascinating detail, including costume elements and a row of chariots pulled by
wild asses known as onagers, with a driver and spearman in each chariot. The ‘peace’ side shows officials celebrating as animals are
brought in for the feast, while on the bottom register onagers and other booty are being brought back. The triangular end panels also had
animal scenes. The figures have the same squat proportions and rounded forms as the statues from Tell Asmar” (Janson 66). “Although
the precise function of this object is unknown, the Standard of Ur provides a mirror of class divisions in Mesopotamia of the third
millennium BCE” (Fiero, First Civilizations 42).
G Victory Stele of Naram-Sin (from Susa, Iran), 2254-2218 BCE, pink sandstone
use of a stele to commemorate a victory/ Sargon of Akkad and Naram Sin/ hierarchical proportion/
organization of figures/ incorporating landscape
1. “The word “Sin” is the Akkadian name for the Mesopotamian mood-god. He is the son of Enlil and father of
Utu (Shamash) and Inanna (Ishtar). When represented in human form, he is crowned with a crescent mood.
His oldest temple and its adjoining ziggurat was built at Ur in the 23rd century” (Hall 204). “Sargon, who
reigned from c. 2340 to 2305 BC, was a king of Akkad and founder of the Akkadian empire. He was the son of
a gardener whose identity was unknown even to Sargon. According to tradition, he was chosen by the god
Enlil to assume the kingship” (Wren 1: 7). “Sargon I’s grandson, Naram-Sin, recorded his victory over a
mountain people, the Lullubians, in a commemorative stele- an upright stone marker. This form of recordkeeping used inscriptions and/or relief images to commemorate important events. When the Epic of
Gilgamesh says that the hero ‘cut his works into a stone tablet’, the author was probably referring to a stele.
Today when we speak of ‘making one’s mark,’ we mean essentially the same thing as the Mesopotamians when
they made marks in stone ‘markers’ that were intended to last” (Adams, Art Across Time 60).
2. “The stele of Naram-Sin is a good example of so-called Machtkunst (German for ‘power art’), for it proclaims
the military, political, and religious authority of Naram-Sin” (60). “The focus of the composition is Naram-Sin,
who appears as god-hero-king, his divinity signaled by his horned helmet, his heroic magnificence suggested
by the perfection of his body, and his role as gallant king and warrior intimated by his stance with one foot
slightly raised, crushing the broken bodies of the defeated enemy. Because Naram-Sin was now considered
both god and king, it was no longer necessary to separate the terrestrial and divine worlds and relegated them
to different sides of the stele… Now one landscape representation fuses both worlds and even included the
great gods, emblazoned as star symbols situated at the top of the stele above the mountain peak. The text- unfortunately fragmentarysituates the battle, and the peculiarities of dress and hairstyle visually identify the mountaineers to the initiated viewers” (Aruz 195196).“Despite his many victories abroad, Naram-Sin ended his reign in disgrace. According to tradition, Naram-Sin sacked the timehallowed sanctuary of the god Enlil at Nippur. Akkad fell in an act of divine retribution for this sacrilege. Soon afterward, the Akkadian
kingdom began to shrink in size and influence. A three-year period of anarchy ensued” (Wren 1: 7-8). “In a sharp break with visual
tradition, the sculptors replaced the horizontal registers with wavy ground lines…As in most art from the Near East, [Naram Sin’s] greater
size in relationship to his soldiers is an indication of his greater importance” (Stokstad, Art History 74). “The great King Sargon is a man of
myth. In his legend, which he recorded himself, there are themes which are familiar from Judeo-Christian tradition: born without a father
to a chaste priestess, the later ruler was abandoned in a rush basket on the river, like Moses. As a gardener, he became the lover of the
goddess Ishtar. Portrayals of King Sargon himself are only preserved as crude fragments” (Bartz and Konig 64-65).
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Unit ONE: Ancient Near East
STUDY GUIDE
H Head of an Akkadian ruler (Ninevah, Iraq), c. 2250-2200 BCE, copper
balance of naturalism and stylization/ introduction of cast sculpture/ Akkadian concept of imperial power
1. When first found, this work “was thought to represent Sargon… The head epitomizes physical ideals of Akkadian
kingship, stressing as it does by means of the beard and elaborate hairstyle the heroic, masculine importance of hair.
It displays the perfect blend of varied patterns of beard and hair that set off the lips, nose, and eyes of the ruler, a
combination that imbues the king with a real sense of serene, yet powerful and all-knowing majesty” (Aruz 194).
2. “It is possible that the head was symbolically mutilated to destroy its power, for the ears appear to have been
deliberately removed, as have the inlays that would have filled the eye sockets” (Stokstad, Art History 74). The eyes
were “probably made of shell or ivory with lapis lazuli pupils” (Aruz 194).
I Seated Statue of Gudea from Lagash Neo-Sumerian c. 2100 BCE
the ensi Gudea/ image of piety for the god Ningirsu/ use of diorite
1. “After flourishing for about a century, the Akkadian dynasty was defeated by the Guti, mountain people from the
northeast who ruled Mesopotamia for roughly sixty yeas. Only one city-state, Lagash, managed to hold out, and it
prospered. When the Sumerians overthrew the Guti, there was a revival of Sumerian culture in the newly united
southern city-states, a period referred to as Neo-Sumerian. Gudea, the ruler of Lagash during the period of Guti
dominance, initiated an extensive construction program which included several temples” (Adams, Art Across Time 61).
2. “The temple plan resting on the lap of the seated Gudea identifies his role as an architectural patron. His gesture
of prayer establishes his relation with the gods and their divine patronage as revealed in his dream” (62). “In the
dream, Gudea saw the radiant, joyful image of the god Ningirsu wearing a crown and flanked by lions… Ningirsu told
Gudea to build his house; but Gudea did not understand until a second god, Nindub, appeared with the plan of a
temple on a lapis lazuli tablet” (61). “Ensi, the official title of Gudea that was given after the enumeration of offerings,
reveals that the gods in the pantheon had conferred on him rulership along with the qualities necessary to rule” (Aruz
427). “The text engraved on the statue affirms that exaltation of diorite as a noble material, more precious even than
metals or precious stones… The connotation is that diorite is more durable than the other materials and is thus more worthy of
representing the sovereign and perpetuating his memory” (427).
J Stele with law code of Hammurabi (Susa, Iran), c. 1780 BCE, basalt
use of law to establish a central government (talion law)/ god (Shamash) and ruler linked
1. “Hammurabi (c. 1817-1750 BCE) was approximately twenty-five years old when he became ruler of
Babylon. During the first thirty years of his reign, Hammurabi waged a series of successful military
campaigns against neighboring tribes” (Wren 1: 9). The Code of Hammurabi was issued at the end of the
king’s reign (9-10). “The relief sculpture at the top shows the king standing before the supreme judge, the
sun god Shamash. The figures were executed in smooth, rounded forms with a minimum of linear surface
detail. Shamash wears the four-tiered, horned headdress that marks him as a god and a robe that bares one
shoulder and ends in a stiff, flounced skirt. Rays of the sun rise from behind his shoulders, and in his right
hand he holds a measuring rod and a rope ring, symbols of justice and power. Hammurabi faces Shamash
confidently, his hand raised in a gesture of greeting. Any suggestion of familiarity in the lack of distance is
offset by the formality of the pose. The smaller, earthly law enforcer remains standing in the presence of the
much larger divine judge, seated on his ziggurat throne” (Stokstad, Art History 76).
2. “The Code of Haummurabi divided Babylonian subjects into three classes: the upper class, the
commoners, and the slaves. Punishments, which were severe, were distinguished by class and were
determined according to the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’ ” (10). “Though the stated purpose of
Hammurabi’s laws was to protect the weak from the strong, they also maintained traditional class distinctions: the lower classes were
more severely punished for crimes committed against the upper classes than vice versa. There was no intent to create social equality in
the protection of the weak, or in the expressed concern for orphans and widows, but rather to maintain the continuity and stability of
society” (Adams, Art Across Time 64).
3. “Three types of punishment stand out in the Law Code of Hammurabi. The Talion Law- the equivalent of the biblical ‘eye for an eye’operated in the provision calling for the death of a builder whose house collapsed and killed the owner. In some cases, the punishment
fit the crime; for example, if a surgical patient died, the doctor’s hand was cut off. Perhaps the most illogical punished was the ordeal,
in which the guilt or innocence of an alleged adulteress depended on whether she sank or floated when thrown into water” (64). “Most of
the 300 or so entries…deal with commercial and property matters. Only sixty-eight relate to domestic problems, and a mere twenty
deal with physical assault. Punishments depended on the gender and social standing of the offender” (Stokstad, Art History 76).
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Unit ONE: Ancient Near East
STUDY GUIDE
K Lion Gate (Boghazkoy, Turkey), c.1400 BCE,
Stele with law code of Hammurabi (Susa, Iran), c.
1780 BCE, basalt (CONTINUED)
limestone
Hittites in Anatolia/ use of heavy stone instead of
brick/ Kadesh Treaty
4. “Before Hammurabi there is no known equivalent attempt to
organize a legal system and to put it down in writing… The stele
also throws light upon the lawmaker himself. In a poetic prologue,
it praises Hammurabi’s reign from his ascent to the throne under
divine protection; after that it comments on the defeated towns
whose prosperity and temple cult Hammurabi secured after they
had been conquered” (Bartz and Konig 69).
1. “The Hittites were an Anatolian people whose capital city,
Hattusas, was located in modern Boghazkoy, in central Turkey.
Like the Mesopotamians, they kept records in cuneiform on clay
tablets, which were stored on shelves, systematically catalogued
and labeled as in a modern library. These archives, comprising
thousands of tablets, are the first known records in an IndoEuropean language… The Hittites cremated their dead and
buried the ashes and bones in urns, so that they left little tomb
art. There is, however, much evidence of monumental palaces,
temples, cities, and massive fortified walls decorated with reliefs.
The predominance of fortifications and citadels (urban
fortresses) attest to the need for protection from invading armies
as well as to the military power of the Hittites themselves”
(Adams, Art Across Time 65).
5. Hammurabi “sent out envoys to collect the local statues and had
them consolidated into a single body of law. Hammurabi’s Code- a
collection of 282 clauses engraved on an 8-foot-high stele- is our
most valuable index to life in ancient Mesopotamia. The Code is
not the first example of recorded law among the Babylonian kings;
it is, however, the most extensive and comprehensive set of laws to
survive from ancient times.
Although Hammurabi’s Code
addressed primarily secular matters, it bore the force of divine
decree. The fact is indicated in the prologue to the Code, where
Hammurabi claims descent from the gods. It is also manifested
visually in the low-relief carving at the top of the stele: Here, in a
scene that calls to mind the story of the biblical Moses on Mount
Sinai, Hammurabi is pictured receiving the law (symbolized by a
staff) from the sun god Shamash. Wearing a conical crown topped
with the bull’s horns, and discharging flames from his shoulders,
the god sits enthroned atop a sacred mountain, symbolized by
triangular markings beneath his feet” (Fiero, First Civilizations 43).
2. The Treaty of Kadesh “constitutes the world’s earliest
surviving peace treaty, agreed between the Egyptians and the
Hittites in 1269 BC. Among its many clauses are provisions for
the return of political refugees” (Inman 63).
3. At Hattushash, “the
blocks of stone used to
frame
doorways
were
decorated in high relief with
a
variety
of
guardian
figures, some 7-foot-tall,
half-humanhalf-animal
creatures,
others
naturalistically
rendered
animals like the lions
shown
here.
These
sculpted figures were part
of the architecture itself,
not added to it separately. The boulders-becoming creatures on
the so-called Lion Gate harmonize with the colossal scale of this
construction.
Despite extreme weathering, the lions have
endured over the millennia and still convey a sense of vigor and
permanence” (Stokstad, Art History 83-84).
6. “Written law represented a significant advance in the
development of human rights in that it protected the individual
from the capricious decisions of monarchs. Unwritten law was
subject to the hazards of memory and the eccentricities of the
powerful. Written law, on the other hand, permitted a more
impersonal (if more objective and impartial) kind of justice than
did oral law. It replaced the flexibility of the spoken word with the
rigidity of the written word. It did not usually recognize exceptions
and was not easily or quickly changed. Ultimately, recorded law
shifted the burden of judgment from the individual ruler to the
legal establishment. Although written law necessarily restricted
individual freedom, it safe-guarded the basic values of the
community” (43-44).
7. “Hammurabi’s Code covers a broad spectrum of moral, social,
and commercial obligations. Its civil and criminal statues specify
penalties for murder, theft, incest, adultery, kidnapping, assault
and battery, and many other crimes. More important for our
understanding of ancient culture, it is a storehouse of information
concerning the nature of class divisions, family relations, and
human rights. The Code informs us, for instance, on matters of
inheritance, professional obligations, and the individual’s
responsibilities to the community. It also documents the fact that
under Babylonian law, individuals were not regarded as equals.
Human worth was defined in terms of a person’s wealth and status
in society. Violence committed by one free person upon another
was punished reciprocally, but the same violence committed upon
a lower-class individual drew considerably lighter punishment, and
penalties were reduced even further if the victim was a slave.
Similarly, a principle of ‘pay according to status’ was applied in
punishing thieves: The upper-class thief was more heavily
penalized or fined than the lower-class one. A thief who could not
pay at all fell into slavery or was put to death” (44). “In Babylonian
society, women were considered intellectually and physically
inferior to men and- much like slaves- were regarded as the
personal property of the male head of the household. A woman
went from her father’s house to that of her husband” (44).
L Assyrian Kings
1. “Under Assurnasirpal II (reigned 883-859 BC), Assyria
became a formidable military force. His records are filled with
boastful claims detailing his cruelty. He says that he dyed the
mountains red, like wool cloth, with the blood of his slaughtered
enemies. From the heads of his decapitated enemies he erected
a pillar, and he covered the city walls with their skins” (Adams,
Art Across Time 66).
2. “The first imperial king, Tiglath-Pileser I (reigned c. 11141076 BC), recorded his intent to conquer the world and claimed
that the god Ashur had commanded him to do so” (66).
3. “The last powerful king of Assyria, Assurbanipal (reigned 668633 BC), combined cruelty with culture. He established a great
library, consisting of thousands of tablets recording the
scientific, historical, literary, religious, and commercial pursuits
of his time” (66).
23
Unit ONE: Ancient Near East
STUDY GUIDE
M Assyrian Lamassu from the Citadel of Sargon II
(Khorsabad, Iraq) c. 720 BCE
reputation of the Assyrians/ royal citadel of Sargon II/
lamassu/ sculptor’s viewpoints
1. “In c. 900 BCE, Assyria was no more than a small
kingdom about seventy-five miles square. Centuries of
constant warfare had shaped Assyrians into skilled,
hardened warriors. During the ninth century, directed by
an intense sense of divine protections by Assur, the most
important Assyrian god, and leg by a succession of vigorous
warlords, Assyria began expanding its territories” (Wren 1:
12). The reign of Sargon II (?-705 BCE) was marked by
almost constant warfare. Sargon beat down the Chaldeans
in Babylonia… (and) he exiled the leaders of… Israel (12).
2. In order to reach the throne room of the royal citadel, “visitors had to pass
through an entrance guarded by monumental limestone figures called
Lamassu. Twice as tall as the Hittite lions guarding the gateway at Hattusas,
the Lamassu were divine genii combining animal and human features, in this
case the body and legs of a bull with a human head. The hair, beard, and
eyebrows are stylized. The figure wears the cylindrical, three-horned crown of
divinity. As is typical of ancient Near Eastern art, this figure combines
naturalism- the suggestion of bone and muscle under the skin- with surface
stylization- the zones of patterned texture scattered across the body” (Adams,
Art Across Time 69).
3. “The wings draw the eye of the viewer to the side of the Lamassu, a
transition unified by the ‘re-use’ of the forelegs in the side view, which
essentially creates a ‘fifth leg.’ This striking visual device enhance the
architectural function of an entrance, which is to mark a point of access: the
Lamassu appears to confront approaching visitors and simultaneously seems
to stride past them. By narrowing the space through which visitors must
pass, the figure builds up tension as one approaches the king” (69). “Bearing
the facial features of the monarch, these colossi united the physical attributes
of the bull (virility), the lions (physical strength), and the eagle (predatory
agility). The winged, human-headed bulls from the citadel at Khorsabad were
power-symbols designed to inspire awe and fear among those who passed
beneath their impassive gaze” (Fiero, First Civilizations 56).
N Assyrian reliefs from the palace of
Ashurbanipal (Ninevah, Iraq) c. 650 BCE
depiction of a wild beast/ bas relief
carving/ demonstration of the king’s
power
1. As in Egypt, Assyrian lion hunts “were more
like ritual combats than actual hunts: the
animals were released from cages into a square
formed by troops with shields. (At a much earlier
time, lion hunting had been an important duty of
Mesopotamian rulers as the ‘shepherds’ of the
communal flocks.) Here the Assyrian sculptor rises to
his greatest heights” (Janson 73). “The wounded
animal seems to embody all the dramatic emotion
that we miss in the pictorial accounts of war” (73).
2. “In the mid-seventh
century BC in what is
now Iraq lions were
particularly
common;
Assyrian records claim
that ‘the hills resound
with their roaring and the
wild animals tremble’”
(Caygill 186). These sculptures “record a vanished
species; the Mesopotamian lion survived in the
nineteenth century AD but is now extinct” (187).
3. “The sculptures, which were originally
painted, are largely from various rooms in King
Ashurbanipal’s (668-627 BC) North Palace at
Nineveh” (186). “Hunting lions was… the symbol of
the king’s care for
dispatches lion with
scene two guards
wounded lion that
behind” (187).
his country” (186). “The king
spear, sword and bow. In one
beside the king deal with a
springs at the chariot from
O Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire
1. “At the end of the seventh century BCE, the Medes from western Iran and the Scythians from the frigid regions of modern Russia and
Ukraine
northern
andthe
eastern
parts of Assyria. Meanwhile, under a new royal dynasty, the Babylonians reasserted
4.
What invaded
complexthe
problem
faced
sculptor
themselves.
This Neo-Babylonian
of
the “lamassu”
in regard to thekingdom
feet? began attacking Assyrian cities in 615 BCE, an allied army of Medes and Neo-Babylonians
captured Nineveh. When the dust settled, Assyria was no more. The Medes controlled a swath of land below the Black and Caspian seas,
and the Neo-Babylonians controlled a region that stretched from modern Turkey to northern Arabia and from Mesopotamia to the
Mediterranean Sea. The most famous Neo-Babylonian ruler was Nebuchadnezzar II” (Stokstad, Art History 81).
2. “Nebuchadnezzar II (?-562 BCE) was the son and successor of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian empire. The greatest
king of this dynasty, Nebuchadnezzar pursued a policy of military expansion, which took Babylonian armies into Syria and Palestine and
extended the Babylonian empire to the Egyptian border. His conquest of Jerusalem and Judea are described in the Old Testament in the
Book of Jeremiah” (Wren 1: 15).
3. “Using the wealth of his empire, which he collected through taxes and tribute, the king financed a series of ambitious projects and
transformed Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world. He strengthened the old city walls and built new defensive
fortifications. He enlarged the old palace… (and) he constructed terraced gardens, which legend referred to as the Hanging Gardens of
Babylon. In addition, Nebuchadnezzar completed a five-storied ziggurat, which rose approximately 300 feet high and which some
scholars have connected with the Tower of Babel described in the Old Testament in the Book of Genesis” (15).
4. “In the Old Testament in the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar is described as being punished for his arrogance by suffering from a
strange form of madness in which he imagined himself to be a beast. For an interval of four, or perhaps seven, years, Nebuchadnezzar
supposedly shunned the splendid city which he had created and led the life of a wild animal” (15).
24
Unit ONE: Ancient Near East
STUDY GUIDE
P Ishtar Gate (Babylon, Iraq), c. 575 BCE
Neo-Babylonian Period/ King Nebuchadnezzar/ Ishtar and Tammuz/ bulls, lions, and the mu u u/ the
“hanging gardens”
1. “Among the many architectural monuments Nebuchadnezzar commissioned for his capital city was a
ziggurat dedicated to the god Marduk, which is thought to have been the Tower of Babel referred to in the
Bible. Another was the Ishtar Gate, one of eight gateways with rounded arches that spanned a processional
route through the city. The gate was named in honor of the Akkadian goddess of love, fertility, and war. It
was faced (covered on the surface) with glazed bricks. Set off against a deep blue background are rows of bulls
and dragons molded in relief” (Adams, Art Across Time 71). “The main gate was decorated with the figures of
dragons, the emblem of the god Marduk, in smoothed brick, and bulls, associated with the Adad, the god of
storms, on enameled bricks” (Bourbon 195). The lions depicted on the gate are emblems of Ishtar, goddess of
war (195).
2. “Glazing is a technique for adding a durable, water-resistant finish to clay objects. Glazes can be clear,
white, or colored and are typically made from ground mineral pigments mixed with water. The minerals
become vitreous (glass-like) and fuse with the clay bodies of the objects when fired at high temperatures in
kilns” (Adams, Art Across Time 71). The consort of Ishtar was Tammuz. Their sacred marriage was performed
at the New Year Festival between the king and a priestess of Ishtar. (Tammuz was a shepherd who eventually became associated with the
Greek Adonis.) (Hall 190). “An avenue used for processions… passed beneath the gate of Ishtar, followed the double wall that protected
the palace and led into the heart of the city, where it connected the Heragila, a word meaning ‘the high-roofed temple’ or temple of Marduk
to the new year temple outside the city walls where celebrations marking the beginning of the year and lasting 12 days took place each
spring” (Bourbon 195). “The round arch, as used in the Ishtar Gate, is semicircular and stronger than a horizontal lintel. This is because
a round arch carries the thrust of the weight onto the two vertical supports rather than having all the stress rest on the horizontal”
(Adams, Art Across Time 71). Babylon is a name which actually means “The Gate of God” (Bourbon 193). “The inner wall had eight gates,
each protected by its own god, the most famous of which is the one dedicated to Ishtar” (195).
Q Royal Audience Hall (apadana) at Persepolis of Darius I (Iran), c. 500 BCE
Darius III and Alexander the Great/ elevation of platform/ apadana with bull capitals/loose groupings of
buildings/ satrapies
1. By 480 BCE, the Persians ruled what was then the largest known empire in history. It even included
Egypt. They divided this empire into satrapies, or provinces. Each of these was ruled by a governor, or
satrap, who was directly responsible to the king (Durant, Our Oriental Heritage 362-3). “In 518 BCE, Darius I
(ruled 421-486 BCE), the greatest of the Achaemenid dynasty of ancient Persia (now Iran), began to build a
capital at Parsa, or Persepolis, as the Greeks called it…. As we know from inscriptions and accounting records
construction there continued for more than two hundred years. In 330 BCE, the armies of Alexander the
Great defeated the Persian army and burned Persepolis, although according to Greek historians, the
destruction of the city was accidental” (Govignon 66).
2. Persepolis was built and maintained solely for the celebration of the great feast of the Spring equinox.
During this feast, the king held court there and received homages and offerings from the high Persian
nobility… At the close of the festival, the court returned to the empire’s primary capital at Susa, and Persepolis
was deserted until the next spring” (66). “The Persians followed the religious teachings of Zoroaster (c. 628551 BC), who taught that the world’s two central forces were light and dark: Ahuramazda was light and
Ahriman, similar to the Christian concept of evil, was dark. There were no Achaemenid temples, since
religious rituals were held outdoors, where fires burned on altars. The most elaborate Achaemenid architectural works were therefore
palaces, of which the best example is at Persepolis” (Adams, Art Across Time 73). “According to Zoroaster, a Last Judgment would consign
the wicked to everlasting darkness, while the good would live eternally in an abode of luxury and light- the Persian pairidaeza, from
which the English word “paradise” derives. Zoroastrianism came to influence the moral teachings of three great world religions:
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” (Fiero, First Civilizations 56).
3. “The Apadana, built by Darius and completed by Xerxes, was a square hall with 36 columns, three columned porticoes, a series of
other rooms on the south side and four corner towers” (Caygill 248). “On a huge terrace cut into the natural rock were a whole series of
palaces, columned halls and storerooms, reached by monumental stairways. The stone survives but the rest of the architecture,
constructed from mudbrick and wood, has gone. The stairways were carved with reliefs showing the Persian king receiving tribute (248).
“Construction was spread out over nearly sixty years, and Darius lived to see the erection of only a treasury, the Apadana (audience hall),
and a very small palace for himself. The Apadana, set above the rest of the complex on a second terrace, had open porches on three sides
and a square hall large enough to hold several thousand people” (Stokstad, Art History 86-87). “Although they were all executed with a
distinctly Persian flavor, the columns reflect design ideas from Mede, Egyptian, and possibly Greek sources. They stood atop bell-shaped
bases (foundations) decorated with leaves…. The capitals, the top sections of the columns on which ceiling beams rested, were lavishly
decorated with a combination of palm fronds, papyrus flowers, other plant forms, double vertical scrolls, and the heads and forequarters
of kneeling creatures placed back to back” (87).
25
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
A Egyptian Timeline
B Egyptian Religion
1. “From approximately 3000 BC, Egypt was
ruled by pharaohs, or kings, whose control of
the land and its people was virtually absolute.
Egyptian monumental art on a vast scale
begins with pharaonic rule, originating when
King Menes united Upper and Lower Egypt.
Much of our knowledge of Egyptian
chronology comes from ancient king lists, the
most comprehensive of which was compiled in
the fourth century BC by a priest, Manetho”
(Adams, Art Across Time 77).
1. “Besides the myths about the creation of the world, which are the source of many
symbols in Egyptian art, there are those that tell of the genealogy of the gods, their
rivalries and battles. They are distant echoes of real struggles for power between
tribal leaders in pre-dynastic times, and generated their won symbolic imagery.
Osiris was an early god of fertility and also ruler of the Underworld… He was a
former king of Egypt who brought the knowledge of agriculture and wine-making to
its people. He was the oldest child of the earth- and sky-gods, Geb and Nut, and the
brother of Isis, Seth, Nephthys and Thoth. Isis was both his sister and wife and
their son was Horus” (Hall 196).
2. “His list begins with the legendary reign of
the gods, followed by that of the human kings
from Menes to Alexander the Great.
He
divided Egyptian history into thirty dynasties,
or royal families (a thirty-first was added
later)” (77). “Modern scholars have divided
Egyptian history into Predynastic and Early
Dynastic periods, followed by Old, Middle,
and New Kingdoms, and the Late Dynastic
period. These were punctuated by so-called
‘intermediate periods’ of anarchy or central
political decline, as well as by periods of
foreign domination” (78). “One problem with
Manetho’s list has been to identify the
sequence of the names. Since Egypt had no
absolute system of dating (such as BC/AD),
each pharaoh treated the first year of his reign
as year one. However, with the help of other
king lists, inscriptions naming more than one
king, references to astronomical observations
which can be precisely dated, and correlations
with evidence from outside Egypt, nineteenthand twentieth-century scholars have compiled
a relate chronology” (78).
C The Nile River
1. “The Nile was central to ancient Egyptian
religious life, and it was addressed as a god
by the Egyptian people.
In the Egyptian
cosmos, the river was the physical and
symbolic meeting place of heaven and earth.
The elongated river valley, which was the
center of the Egyptian world, was in the
Egyptian mind likened to a man lying prone
on whose back the activities of the day-to-day
world took place. The sky was conceived as a
sea upon which the sun sailed westward in a
bark during the day… The river was regarded
as the major arena of divine and human
interaction” (Wren 1: 20).
2. “The annual floods deposited a residue of
nutrient-rich soil over the fields and made the
land fertile. To the Egyptians, therefore, these
inundations signified the joy of the gods and
their beneficence to humankind.
Drought
resulted in famine and starvation and was
regarded as a sign of the gods’ displeasure”
(20).
2. “There are varying accounts of different dates that tell how Osiris was murdered by
his brother, the usurper, Seth, who threw his body into the Nile, later dismembered it
and scattered the remains throughout the Nile Valley. (This may be an aetiological
myth seeking to explain the many cult centers that claimed to possess a relic of the
god.) The grieving Isis collected her husband’s remains and, having reassembled
them, was successfully inseminated by him and conceived Horus. She is depicted in
the form of a kite hovering over the mummified, yet ithyphallic, Osiris. Together with
Horus who, like Hamlet, sought revenge for his uncle’s murder of his father, they
succeeded in bringing Seth before a tribunal of the gods. Osiris was thereafter king
of the Underworld” (196). “From predynastic times, the king of Egypt was, during his
lifetime, regarded as a god and was identified with Horus… The successor to the
throne, a new Horus, as thus, aptly a divine son of a divine father. Osiris is first
represented in the 5th Dynasty. His body is encased in a mummy’s wrappings, his
hands free, holding the royal insignia, the crook and flail. He usually wears the Atef
crown. In the Book of the Dead he presides, enthroned, in the Hall of Judgment. As
a god of vegetation Osiris, in funerary art, was symbolized by corn. The grains,
trodden underfoot by goats or pigs, denoted Seth’s victory; corn sprouting from the
supine body of Osiris symbolized his resurrection” (196).
3. “Archaeological evidence suggests that prehistoric Egyptian religion consisted of
local gods or cults that were confined to a particular district, or nome. After the
unification of Upper and Lower Egypt c. 3000 BC, the importance of these local
deities increased or diminished with the military or political fortunes of their
districts. For example, the sky god Horus, usually represented as a falcon, was
originally a local god who later achieved national status” (Adams, Art Across Time 77).
“For the ancient Egyptians, kingship was a divine state. As in Mesopotamia, kings
mediated between their people and the gods.
In Egypt, however, the kings
themselves were considered gods. They ruled according the principle of maat,
divinely established order (personified by Maat, the goddess of truth and orderly
conduct). From the Third Dynasty, the compound god Amon-Ra, in the guise of the
reigning pharaoh, was believed to impregnate the queen with a son who would be
heir to the throne” (79). “The strength of the belief that each pharaoh united and so
re-created the kingdom is also the kingdom is also shown in the Egyptian calendar.
Unlike Christians and Moslems, they had no founders of religion whose birth or
death determined the year zero. The Egyptians reset it with every king and started
dated from their accession to the throne, fro instance, day three in the 2nd month of
the Nile inundation, in the 10th year of government of King X” (Hagen and Hagen,
Egypt 42).
4. “At night, Re travels through the kingdom of the dead. Here, planets row the
divine barque over the primeval waters Nun, which flow through the underworld.
When the barque approaches it becomes light, the dead awake and cheer him, for the
sun heralds regeneration and rebirth for them even more strongly than the fertilitygod Osiris The ‘tired’ Osiris represents yesterday, but Re is the morrow. All hope to
climb into his barque and to ascend with him out of the underworld participating in
the journey across the sky. But before that the divine crew must overcome a series
of dangers on the journey through the underworld, for Re’s enemy Apophis, a giant
dragon-like snake, will try time and time again to capsize their boat, in order to
annihilate the gods. This is described in the ‘Books of the Underworld’ in pictures
and writing. It is all in vain however, the magic of the gods gathered in the boat
proves to be more powerful and Re appears victorious every morning on the eastern
horizon, greeted with cheers by baboons. During the nightly struggle with Apophis,
his crew of gods stand by Re, with the ibis-headed god of wisdom and the world,
Thoth, acting as his herald” (175).
26
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
D The Palette of King Narmer, c. 3100-3000 BCE, slate
unification of Lower and Upper Egypt/ hierarchical proportion/ Horus (a human-armed falcon), Seth, Osiris,
and Isis/other representations of the king/ Hathor/ ceremonial use of a utilitarian object
1. “The links between divine and earthly power noted in earlier civilizations reappear in an
important Egyptian ritual object, the Palette of Narmer… On both sides, the palette is
decorated in low relief. The large scene… is depicted according to certain conventions that
lasted for over two thousand years in Egypt. For example King Narmer (thought to be
Menes, the first pharaoh) is the biggest figure- his size and central position denote his
importance. His composite pose, in which head and legs are rendered in profile view with
eye and upper torso in frontal view, is an Egyptian convention. This is a conceptual,
rather than a naturalistic, approach to the human figure, for the body parts are arranged
as they are understood, and not as they are seen in nature. The entire body is flat, as is
the kilt, with certain details such as the knee caps rendered as stylizations, rather than
as underlying organic structure” (Adams, Art Across Time 79). “At the top center of each
side of the palette is a rectangle known as a serekh. A serekh contained a king’s name in
hieroglyphs (pictures symbolizing words that were the earliest Egyptian writing system.
On either side of the serekh, frontal heads of the cow goddess Hathor indicate that she
guards the king’s palace.” (80) Hathor “was regarded as the divine mother of the pharaoh
whom, as a cow, she suckles… She was also goddess of love, music and dancing” (Hall
187).
2. On the front of the palette, “two felines, roped by bearded men, occupy the central register. Their elongated necks frame an indented
circle similar to those that held liquid for mixing eye makeup on smaller palettes. This one, however, was found as a dedication in a
temple, and is larger than those used in everyday life. Although derived from such palettes, the Palette of Narmer was most likely a
ceremonial, rather than a practical, object. It is not certain what the felines, called serpopards, signify, but their intertwined necks
could refer to Narmer’s unification of Egypt” (Adams, Art Across Time 80). “Palettes, flat stones with a circular depression on one side,
were common utensils of the time. They were used for mixing eye paint. Men and women both painted their eyelids to help prevent
infections in the eyes and perhaps to reduce the glare of the sun, much as football players today blacken their cheekbones before a
game. The Palette of Narmer has the same form as these common objects but is much larger. It and other large palettes decorated with
animals, birds, and occasionally human figures probably had a ceremonial function. King Narmer appears as the main character in the
various scenes on the palette. They may commemorate a specific battle, or they may simply make use of established images of conquest
to proclaim Narmer as the great unifier” (Stokstad, Art History 96). “Interestingly, the kneeling man that Narmer holds by the hair and
prepares to strike with his heavy mace would be very close to the king’s height if he were standing. His size suggests that he may
represent Narmer’s counterpart, the conquered ruler of Lower Egypt. Narmer himself wears the White Crown of Upper Egypt, and from
his waistband hangs a ceremonial bull’s tail signifying strength. He is barefoot, suggesting that this is not an illustration of an actual
military encounter but rather a symbolic representation of a hero’s preordained victory. An attendant standing being Narmer holds his
sandals. Above Narmer’s kneeling foe, the god Horus, in the form of a hawk with a human hand, hold a rope tied around the neck of a
man’s head next to a few stylized stalks of papyrus, a plant that grew in profusion along the lower Nile. This combination of symbols
again makes it clear that Lower Egypt has been tamed. In the bottom register, below Narmer’s feet, two of his enemies appear to be
running away, or perhaps they are sprawled on the ground just as they fell when they were killed” (96).
3. “On the other side of the palette, Narmer is shown in the top register wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, making it clear that he
now rules both lands. Here his name- the fish and chisel- appears not only in the rectangle at the top but also next to his head. With
his sandal bearer again in attendance, he marches behind his minister of state and four men carrying the standards that may
symbolize different regions of the country. Before them, under the watchful eye of the hawk Horus, is a gory depiction of the enemy
dead. The decapitated bodies of Lower Egyptian warriors have been placed in two neat rows, their heads between their feet” (96-97). “In
the bottom register, a bull menaces a fallen foe outside the walls of a fortress. The bull, an animal known for its great strength and
virility, is probably meant to symbolize the king. The images carved on the palette are strong and direct, and although scholars
disagree about some of their specific meanings, their overall message is simple and clear: a king named Narmer rules over the unified
land of Egypt with a strong hand. Narmer’s palette is particularly important because of the way it uses pictographs and symbols,
showing much about the development of writing in Egypt. Moreover, it provides very early examples of the quite unusual way Egyptian
artists solved the problem of depicting the human form in two-dimensional art such as relief sculpture and painting” (97).
4. “Many of the figures on the palette are shown in poses that would be impossible to assume in real life. By Narmer’s time, Egyptian
artists, using the ‘memory image’, had arrived at a unique way of drawing the human figure. The Egyptians’ aim was to represent each
part of the body from the most characteristic angle. Heads are shown in profile, to best capture the subject’s identifying features. Eyes,
however, are most expressive when seen from the front, so artists rendered the eyes in these profile heads in frontal view. As for the
rest of the body, they treated the shoulders as though from the front, but at the waist they twisted the figure drastically to be able to
show hips, legs, and feet in profile. If both hands were required in front of a figure, artists routinely lengthened the arm reaching across
the body rather than turn the body sideways. Unless the degree of action demanded otherwise, they placed one foot in front of the
other on the groundline, showing both from the inside, with high-arched insteps and a single big toe. This artistic tradition, or
convention, was followed especially in the depiction of royalty and other dignitaries, and it was considered so successful that it
persisted until the fourth century BCE. Persons of lesser social rank engaged in more active tasks tended to be represented more
naturally” (97-98).
27
Unit ONE: Egyptian
E Mummification and the Afterlife
1. “By c. 3000 BC, the Egyptians had invented a
seventy-two-day process of embalming corpses.
According to Herodotos, writing in the fifth
century BC, the first step was the removal of the
internal organs, except for the heart, which was
believed to be the seat of understanding and was
therefore left intact. The body was then packed
in dray natron (a natural compound of sodium
carbonate and sodium bicarbonate found in
Egypt), which dehydrated the cadaver and
dissolved its body fats. Then the corpse was
washed, treated with oils and ointments, and
bandaged with as many as twenty layers of linen
in a way that conformed to its original shape.
The substances applied to its skin caused the
body to turn black; later travelers took this to
mean that the body had been preserved with
pitch, for which the Arabic term is mumiyahence the English terms ‘mummy’ and
‘mummification’” (Adams, Art Across Time 83).
“Ornaments placed on the body or inside the
wrappings included amulets (charms against
evil or injury), scarabs (a representation of a
scarab beetle used as a protective device and
symbol of the soul) wedjats (Eye of Horus) and
djeds (pillars symbolizing stability)” (83).
2. “No less important than preservation of the
body was the preservation of the organs which
had been removed. These were embalmed and
placed in four so-called canopic jars, but the
brain was discarded as useless. Each jar held a
particular organ and was under the protection of
one of the Horus’s four sons. Each son had a
characteristic head (man, ape, jackal, and
falcon). Until c. 1300 BC the jars had humanheaded stoppers, but later they were carved in
the form of the head of the relevant protective
deity” (83). “For the ancient Egyptians, death
was not the end of life but the transition to a
similar existence on another plane. To ensure a
fortuitous afterlife, the deceased had to be
physically
preserved
along
with
earthly
possessions and other reminders of daily
activities… But, in the case the body of the
deceased did not last, an image could serve as a
substitute. The dead person’s ka, or soul, was
believed able to enter the surrogate before
journeying to the next world” (81).
3. “The ka was only one aspect of the Egyptian
triple concept of the spirit. In its aspect as a
‘double,’ the ka was viewed as the life force that
continued after death and permitted the
deceased to eat and drink offerings provided by
relatives and priests.
The akh was more
detached from the body than the ka and resided
in the heavens as the spiritual transformation of
the dead person. The third aspect of the spirit,
the ba, was literally in touch with the deceased,
and its mobility in and out of the body was
reflected in its depiction in art as a bird with a
human head” (81).
STUDY GUIDE
F Imhotep. The Stepped Pyramid of King Djoser (Zoser), c.
2675-2625 BCE, Saqqara
the ka and the ba/ mummification and canopic jars/ scarabs
and other amulets/ mastaba and serdab/ necropolis/ stepped
pyramid/first known instance of using columns in recorded
history- Imhotep/ sed rituals and the priesthood
1. “For his tomb complex at Saqqara, King
Djoser (Dynasty 3, ruled c. 2681-2662
BCE) commissioned the earliest known
monumental architecture in Egypt. The
designer of the complex was a man called
Imhotep. His name appears inscribed on
the pedestal of Djoser’s ka statue in the
serdab of the funerary temple to the north
of the tomb. His is thus the first architect in
history known by name.
Born into a
prominent family, Imhotep was highly
educated and served as one of Djoser’s chief
advisers on affairs of state. It appears that
he first planned Djoser’s tomb as a singlestory mastaba, then later decided to enlarge
upon the concept. In the end, what he produced was a stepped pyramid
consisting of six mastabalike elements of decreasing size placed on top of each
other. Although his final structure resembles the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, it
differs in both its planned concept and its purpose of protecting a tomb.
Djoser’s imposing structure was originally faced with a veneer of limestone.
From its top a 92-foot shaft descended to a granite-lined burial vault. The
adjacent funerary temple, where priests performed their final rituals before
placing the king’s mummified body in its tomb, was also used for continuing
worship of the dead king. In the form of his ka statue, Djoser was able to
observe these devotions through two peepholes bored through the wall between
the serdab and the funerary chapel. To the east of the pyramid were sham
buildings- simple masonry shells filled with debris- representing chapels,
palaces with courtyards, and other structures. They were provided so that the
dead king could continue to observe the sed rituals that had ensured his long
reign. His spirit could await the start of the ceremonies in a pavilion near the
entrance to the complex in its southeast corner. The running trials of the sed
festival took place in a long outdoor courtyard within the complex. After proving
himself, the king’s spirit proceeded first to the South Palace then to the North
Palace, to be symbolically crowned once again as king of Egypt’s Two Lands”
(Stokstad, Art History 99, 101).
2. “Mastabas were customarily constructed of mud brick, but toward the end of
Dynasty 3 and more incorporated cut stone… In its simplest form, the mastaba
contained a serdab, a small, sealed room housing the ka statue of the deceased,
and a chapel designed to receive mourning relatives with their offerings” (99).
“The kings of Dynasties 3 and 4 were the first to devote huge sums to the design,
construction, and decoration of more extensive aboveground funerary
complexes. These structures tended to be grouped together in a necropolisliterally, a city of the dead- at the edge of the desert on the west bank of the Nile”
(99).
3. “Situated on a level terrace, this huge commemorative complex… was
designed as a sort of miniature replica of the king’s earthly realm. Its enclosing
wall, fitted out with fourteen gates, only one of which was actually functional,
represented the realm’s boundaries. Inside rose the tomb structure proper, a
funerary temple, and other buildings and courtyards for the king’s use in the
hereafter” (100). “Imhotep’s architecture employs the most elemental structural
techniques and the purest of geometric forms. Although most of the stone wall
surfaces were left plain, in some places he made effective use of the columns.
Some of these are plain except for fluting, others take the form of stylized plants.
The engaged columns spaced along the exterior walls of the North Palace, for
example, resemble stalks of papyrus” (101).
28
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
Imhotep. The Stepped Pyramid of King
Djoser (Zoser), c. 2675-2625 BCE, Saqqara
(CONTINUED)
G The Great Pyramids at Gizeh, 2600=2475 BCE
4. “Stylized papyrus blossoms serve as their capitals. These
columns may have been patterned after the bundled
papyrus stalks early Egyptian builders used to reinforce
mud walls and symbolized Lower Egypt. By contrast, the
architectural decorations of the South Palace featured
plants symbolic of Upper Egypt, the flowering sedge and the
lotus” (101-2).
1. “Of the eighty-odd pyramids
known
to
exist,
the
three
outstanding examples were built
by, and for, three Old Kingdom
pharaohs of the Fourth dynasty:
the pyramid of Khufu (the largest,
known as the Great Pyramid); the
pyramid of his son Khafre, 22 feet
shorter and 15 percent smaller in
volume; and the pyramid of
Khare’s son Menkaure, only 10
percent of the size of Khufu’s. All three are near Cairo at Giza, on the
west bank of the Nile, facing the direction of sunset (symbolizing death),
as was customary… Across the river to the northeast was Helioplolis,
the center of the cult associated with the sun god Ra” (Adams, Art
Across the Time 86).
5. The base of Djoser’s pyramid “is right-angled but not
completely square, as the later pyramids were” (Hagen and
Hagen, Egypt 26). “The funerary complex of King Djoser, the
founder of the Third Dynasty, was also planned as a
mastaba, but it was the first to be built of stone and raised
in a step-like structure. Its final height was 60 meters. The
result was a stepped pyramid, on an almost square ground
plan. The Step Pyramid was surrounded by various cult
buildings and the complex as a whole was encompassed by
a 10-meter high wall. It was then the biggest funerary
complex ever to have been built” (29). “Imhotep was still
revered right up to the New Kingdom, being regarded as the
son of the god Ptah, the lord of all builders” (29).
H The Great Sphinx (Gizeh), c. 2575-2525
BCE, sandstone
image of absolute kingship/ eternal guardian
(tutelary)/ association of the nose with the life
force
1. “As was the custom,
Khafre commissioned
various stone portraits
of himself to perpetuate
his memory for all
time…
The
Great
Sphinx,
a
colossal
monument some 65
feet tall standing just
behind the valley
temple, combines his head with the long body of a
crouching lion” (Stokstad, Art History 104). “Lions were
particularly appropriate as guardians because they were
thought to be watchful and to sleep with their eyes open.
They were also associated with the sun as the eye of
heaven… It also faces the rising sun, which reinforces its
association with the pharaoh. Surrounding the sphinx’s
head is the trapezoidal pharaonic headcloth (the nemes
headcloth) that fills up the naturally open space above the
shoulders and enhances the sculpture’s monumentality”
(Adams, Art Across Time 88).
2. “Hollow sections inside the statue have been detected but
are as yet still uninvestigated” (Hagen and Hagen, Egypt
36).
“Several times over the past millennia sand has
practically buried the giant sculpture, leaving only the head
sticking out. And at least twice during the time of the
pharaohs it was dug out on divine instruction. The gods
delivered their instructions through princes, who were
assured of pharaoh status if they uncovered the Sphinx”
(36). “The oldest sphinxes are Egyptian” (Hall 47). They
represent “superhuman power” (47). “The sphinx is first
seen in the Near East on Assyrian cylinder seals” (47).
ben-ben /Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure/ Re/ celestial
orientation
2. “Although the Giza monuments have been surrounded by desert
since antiquity, recent archaeological excavations suggest that the site
was once a river harbor. Each of the pyramids was connected by a
causeway (or elevated road) to its own valley temple at the edge of the
original flood plain of the Nile. Upon the death of the king, his body
was transported across the Nile by boat to the valley temple. It was
then carried along the causeway to its own funerary temple, where it
was presented with offerings of food and drink, and the Opening of the
Mouth ceremony was performed” (86). “Constructing a pyramid was a
formidable undertaking. A huge labor force had to be assembled,
housed, and fed. Most of the cut stone blocks used in building the Giza
complex- each weighing an average of two and a half tons- were
quarried either on the site or nearby” (Stokstad, Art History 104).
3. “Finally, the pyramid was surfaced with a casing of pearly white
limestone, cut so precisely that the eye could scarcely detect the joints.
A few casing stones can still be seen in cap that covers the Pyramid of
Khafre” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 52). The ancient Egyptians
“carefully oriented the pyramids to the points of the compass and may
have incorporated other symbolic astronomical calculations as well.
These immense monuments reflect not only the desire of a trio of kings
to attain immortality but also the strength of the Egyptians’ belief that
a deceased ruler continued to affect the well-being of the state and his
people from beyond the grave” (Stokstad, Art History 104).
4. In Khufu’s temple, “the burial chamber is near the center of the
structure rather than below ground, as in the Step Pyramid of Djoser.
This placement was a vain attempt to safeguard the chamber from
robbers. According to a recent theory, the three pyramids are arranged
in the same formation as the stars in the constellation Orion, which
was identified with the god Osiris. The mythical founder of Egypt,
Osiris was associated first with the Nile and later with the underworld
as the god of fertility, death, and resurrection” (Janson 47). “One of the
so-called ‘air-shafts’ in the king’s chamber of the Pyramid of Khufu
pointed to the polar stars in the north, which are always visible; in
ancient times the other lined up with Orion when it was visible in the
southern sky after an absence of some two months. The shaft thus
served as a kind of ‘escape hatch’ that allowed the pharaoh to take his
place as a star in the cosmos. Another hidden shaft in the queen’s
chamber was aligned with the star of Isis (Sirius). It seems to have
been used in the ritual of fertilization and rebirth described in the
Egyptian Book of the Dead” (47-48). “Clustered about the three great
pyramids are several smaller ones and a large number of mastabas for
members of the royal family and high officials. The unified funerary
district of Djoser has given way to a simpler arrangement. Adjoining
each of the great pyramids to the east is a mortuary temple” (48).
29
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
I Khafre (Gizeh), c. 2575-2525 BCE, diorite
J Seated scribe (Saqqara), c.2450-2350 BCE,
permanence of material/ intertwined lotus and papyrus/
Old Kingdom kilt/ canon of ideal proportions/ “blocklike” characteristics/ subtractive method of carving
painted limestone
use of increased realism in subordinate figures/
accounts by Herodotus
1. “An over-lifesized diorite statue of Khafre
illustrates the conventional representation
of a seated pharaoh… The sculptor began
with a rectangular block of stone to which
the planes of the figure still conform”
(Adams, Art Across Time 88). “The standing
lions carved on Khafre’s throne are the
king’s guardians, and images of regal power
in their own right. Horus, who protects the
back of Khafre’s head, was the son of Isis, a
mother goddess called the ‘Pharaoh’s
throne.’ Both gods reinforce Khafre’s divine
right of kingship. The association of a ruler
and his throne is reflected in modern usage
when we refer to the ‘seat of power’” (89).
“The pharaoh was often equated with Horus
as the son of Osiris and Isis” (Janson 49).
2. “As was the custom, Khafre commissioned various stone portraits of
himself to perpetuate his memory for all time. In his roughly lifesize ka
statue, discovered inside his valley temple, he was portrayed as an
enthroned king…. Khafre sits erect on a simple but elegant throne.
Horus perches on the back of the throne, protectively enfolding the
king’s head with his wings. Lions- symbols of regal authority- form the
throne’s sides, and the intertwined lotus and papyrus plants beneath
the seat symbolize the king’s power over Upper and Lower Egypt.
Khafre wears the traditional royal costume: a short kilt, a linen
headdress with uraeus, the cobra symbol of Ra, and a false beard
symbolic of royalty. Viewed from the front, the vertical lines of the legs,
torso, and upper arms convey a strong sense of dignity, calm, and
above all permanence. The statue was carved in diorite, a stone
chosen for its great durability, and the figure’s compactness- the arms
pressed tight to the body, and the body firmly anchored in the blockensured that the image would provide an alternative home for the
king’s ka for eternity” (Stokstad, Art History 104).
3. “When carving such a statue, Egyptian sculptors approached each
face of the block as though they were simply carving a relief. In one the
figure would be seen straight on from the front, in the others from the
side or the back. Carving deeper and deeper, they finally ended up
with a three-dimensional figure, and all that remained was to refine its
forms and work up its surface details” (104). “Here the ‘cubic’ view of
the human form appears in full force. After marking the effaces of the
block with a grid, the sculptor drew the front, top, and side views of the
statue, then worked inward until these views met. This approach
encouraged the development of the systematic proportions used in
representing the pharaoh. In fact, the canon of forms can be readily
deduced, so standardized did it become, though it varied somewhat
over time. The grid system and carving techniques used in Egyptian
sculpture were not very different from those of the pyramids at Giza.
The result is a figure almost overwhelming in its firmness and
immobility. Truly it is a fitting vessel for the spirit! The body, at once
powerful yet idealized, is completely impersonal. Only the face suggests
some individual traits” (Janson 49). “Statues made for use in Old
Kingdom tombs underwent a magical ritual on completion which
imbued them with the spirit of the dead person represented” (LucieSmith, Art and Civilization 36).
30
1. “Egyptian scribes began
training in childhood.
Theirs
was a strenuously guarded
profession, its skills generally
passed down from father to son.
Some girls learned to read and
write, and although careers as
scribes seem generally to have
been closed to them, there is a
Middle Kingdom word for female
scribe. Would-be scribes were
required to learn not only
reading and writing but also
arithmetic, algebra, religion, and
law.
The
studies
were
demanding, but the rewards
were great. An observation found in an exercise tablet,
probably copied from a book of instruction, offers
encouragement: ‘Become a scribe so that your limbs remain
smooth and your hands soft, and you can wear white and
walk like a man of standing whom [even] courtiers will
greet.’ A high-ranking scribe with a reputation as a great
scholar could hope to be appointed to one of several ‘houses
of life,’ where lay and priestly scribes copied, complied,
studied, and repaired valuable sacred and scientific texts.
Completed texts were placed in related institutions called
‘houses of books,’ some of the earliest known libraries”
(Stokstad, Art History 107).
2. “The inset blue eyes, which have lent the man a lively
expression over so many thousands of years, are made of
copper, rock crystal, and magnesite” (Bartz and Konig 124).
“The ‘scribe’ has only recently been dated as originating
from the time of the pyramids, after people had for a long
time placed him in the 5th dynasty and the rise of
government officials within the Old Kingdom at that time.
This statue is the most impressive of the many figures from
Ancient Egypt who bring home just what an outstanding
ability a knowledge of writing was in this early culture…
This scribe determined how people were portrayed in
Ancient Egypt for generations” (124). The scribe’s statue is
“not a true portrait.
Rather, it is a composite of
conventional types. In fact, the face’s sunken cheeks are
difficult to reconcile with the flabby body. Nonetheless,
these realistic touches were unthinkable in a pharaonic
statue” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 56).
3. “The name of the sitter (in whose tomb at Saqqara the
statue was found) is unknown, but we must not think of
him as a secretary waiting to take dictation. Rather, he was
a high court official, a ‘master of sacred- and secret- letters’.
The solid, incisive treatment of form bespeaks the dignity of
his station, which at first seems to have been restricted to
the sons of pharaohs. Our example stands out for the
vividly alert expression of the face and for the individual
handling of the torso, which records the somewhat flabby
body of a man past middle age” (Janson 50).
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
K Egyptian Hieroglyphics and the Rosetta Stone
L Relief of Hesire (Saqqara),
1. “By around 3100 BC the Egyptians were using a form of picturewriting known as hieroglyphic (from the Greek hieros, or ‘sacred,’ and
glypho, ‘I carve’)… This method of writing was slow, so for everyday
purposes the Egyptians developed a faster system, an abridged form of
hieroglyphic called hieratic” (Adams, Art Across Time 82). “In the
seventh century BC a simpler form of writing known as demotic
(because it was used by the ordinary people, demos in Greek) became
the standard for all but religious texts.
These three systemshieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic – remained in use until the
Christian era when they were replaced by Coptic, which was composed
of Greek letters and supplemented by seven demotic signs. From the
fifth century AD to 1822, reading ancient Egyptian scripts was a lost
art” (82).
2. “In 1799, soldiers of Napoleon’s French Expeditionary Force, working
on fortifications at the village of Rashid (called Rosetta by Europeans)
in the Western Delta, discovered a slab of black basalt- the Rosetta
Stone- built into an old wall. The importance of the Rosetta Stone lay
in its three separate inscriptions, each a version of the same text in a
different script and two languages- hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek.
The Greek version was soon translated and found to be a decree passed
by a council of Egyptian priests in honor of the first anniversary of the
coronation of the pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes (205-180 BCE)” (82).
“Primary credit for the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone goes to JeanFrancois Champollion (1790-1832), a young French scholar who
realized that hieroglyphs could be divided into two categories:
ideograms, which recorded an idea pictorially, and phonograms, which
denoted sounds representing one or more consonants (The Egyptian
script had no vowels), independent of their meaning. Some hieroglyphs
could be either ideograms or phonograms, depending on their context…
Once the Egyptian text on the Rosetta Stone was deciphered, the
meaning of thousands of preserved Egyptian texts became available for
study” (82).
3. “Hieroglyphs are pictorial signs of two types: signs that represent
sounds, like the letters of the alphabet, or parts of words and signs that
represent objects and ideas. The oldest surviving hieroglyphic texts
date to c. 3200 BC. The signs are incised or painted on ivory labels
and pottery vessels, imprinted on jars with cylinder seals or carved on
ceremonial palettes. They record names, especially those of the kings,
which were written in a serekh (rectangular panel with niched section).
The motif of niched walls and the use of cylinder seals derive from
Meospotamia, where it is thought the idea of writing originated. The
hieroglyphic script had a religious significance and was designed for
lasting inscriptions on wood, ivory and particularly on stone.
Hieroglyphic texts are usually read from the direction towards which
the animal or human figures are looking. Hieroglyphs were in use until
the end of the fourth century AD. The last known hieroglyphic
inscription, on the island of Philae, dates to 394 AD” (Caygill 116).
4. “In addition to hieroglyphs the Egyptians employed two other scripts,
both descended from hieroglyphs, called by the Greeks hieratic (priestly
writing) and demotic (people’s writing). In contrast to hieroglyphs,
which could be written in either direction, hieratic and demotic were
always written from right to left, usually in ink on papyrus, potsherd or
limestone flake with a rush brush. Hieratic at first differed from
hieroglyphs only because it was written with a rush brush instead of a
pointed tool. Sporadic examples on stone are known from the first
three dynasties. The oldest texts on papyrus still in existence are
administrative documents of c. 2500 BC. By the Eleventh Dynasty
hieratic had developed into a much more distinctive and cursive script
and texts were usually written in vertical columns. During the Twelfth
Dynasty scribes began to write texts in horizontal lines, a practice
which encouraged hieratic to become even more cursive” (116).
31
c. 2675-2625 BCE, wood
hieroglyphics and the Rosetta Stone/ JeanFrancois Champollion/ conceptual vs. optical
approach/ twisting perspective and the use of a
grid
1. “Canons of proportion are
commonly accepted guidelines
for depicting the ideal human
figure
by
specifying
the
relationships of the parts of the
body to one another and to the
whole. They vary from culture
to culture and have evolved over
time. The canons followed by
Egyptian artists changed only
slightly from the Old to the New
Kingdom, a reflection of the
unusual stability of ancient
Egypt” (Adams, Art Across Time
89). “The surface for the relief or
painting is divided into a grid of
squares, each equivalent to the
width of the figure’s fist. The
distance from the hairline to the
ground is eighteen fists, from
the base of the nose to the
shoulder one fist, and from the
fingers of a clenched fist to the
elbow 4 1/2 fists. The length of
a foot (heel to toe) is 3 1/2 fists”
(89). “Note the characteristic way of depicting the human
body: the shoulders and the one visible eye are frontal; the
head, arms, and legs are shown in profile, while the waist is
nearly in profile but is turned sufficiently to show the navel.
One purpose of this system was to arrive at a conventional,
instantly recognizable image. The persistence of such
canons contributed to the continuity of Egyptian style over
a two-thousand-year period” (89).
2. “The beauty of the style we saw in the Narmer palette did
not develop fully until about five centuries later, during the
Third Dynasty, and especially under the reign of King
Djoser, its greatest figure. From the Tomb of Hesy-ra, one
of Djoser’s high officials, comes the masterly wooden relief
showing the deceased with the emblems of his rank,
including writing materials, since the position of scribe was
highly honored. The view of the figure matches that of
Narmer on the palette, but the proportions are far more
balanced and harmonious. The carving of the physical
details shows keen observation as well as great delicacy of
touch” (Janson 45). “The name and title of a person was
considered to be as much a part of the individual as their
soul and shadow. They could not be missing from any
representation in the tomb or temple” (Hagen and Hagen,
Egypt 100). The hieroglyphics above this relief identify the
figure as “Hesyra” and “Head of the Royal Scribes” (100).
“The name was regarded as part of the personality- without
it there was no individuality and no magical revival. For the
Egyptians, the entire universe was full of magic forces and
naturally this played a major part in creating works of art.
When craftsmen were working, they recited magic formulae,
which- together with their expert skills- were passed down
from father to son” (100).
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
M Rock cut Tombs (Beni Hasan), c. 2000-1900 BCE
constant threats to power/ greater focus of interior of tombs/ sarcophagi/ fluted columns and a portico
1. “Tomb art reveals much about domestic life in the Middle Kingdom. Wall paintings, reliefs, and even small
models of houses and farm buildings complete with figurines of workers and animals reproduce everyday
scenes on the estates of the deceased. Many of these models survive because they were made of inexpensive
materials of no interest to early grave robbers” (Stokstad, Art History 109).“During Dynasties 11 and 12,
members of the nobility and high-level officials frequently commissioned rock-cut tombs- burial places
hollowed out of the faces of cliffs- such as those in the necropolis at Beni Hasan on the east bank of the Nile.
The various chambers of such tombs and their ornamental columns, lintels, false doors, and niches were all
carved out of solid rock. Each one was therefore like a single, complex piece of sculpture, attesting to the
great skill of their designers and carvers. A typical Beni Hasan tomb included an entrance portico, a main
hall, and a small burial chamber set back in its farthest recesses. The hall might be quite large, with slightly
vaulted ceilings and rows of freestanding papyrus-style columns” (110-111). “The walls of rock-cut tombs were
commonly ornamented with painted scenes. Relief decorations were rare. Among the best-preserved paintings
at Beni Hasan are those in the Dynasty 12 tomb of the local lord of life on his farms” (111).
2. “Monumental architecture continued in the Middle Kingdom, though much of it was destroyed by the New Kingdom pharaohs for use in
their own colossal building projects. Besides pharaohs’ pyramids, a new form of tomb was introduced. This was rock-cut architecture, in
which the sides of cliffs were excavated to create artificial cave-chambers. Rock-cut tombs became popular with aristocrats and high-level
bureaucrats in the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, and then, in the New Kingdom, with the rulers themselves” (Adams, Art Across Time
92).
N The Ankh and the Djed Pillar
1. The ankh, the Egyptian hierogylph for life, was “possibly originally a representation of a sandal strip. As a
symbol it denotes eternal life and when held to the nose of a dead pharaoh ensures his everlasting existence. It
is held by many deities, in particular, Atum, the sun-god of Heliopolis, and (when seated) Sekhmet, the lionheaded war-goddess of Memphis” (Hall 1).
2. “The origin of the Egyptian djed pillar is uncertain but may have been connected with prehistoric harvest
rites. In funerary painting at Saqqara they support the heavens, marking the limits of the pharaoh’s earthly
realm beneath. In the New Kingdom the djed became a symbol of Osiris. It was used in his rites and was
called his ‘backbone.’ The columns of the Egyptian temple represent papyrus, lotus, and palm, which support
the vault of heaven, which is painted with stars and sacred birds” (Hall 77).
O Senmut. Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Deir-el Bahri), c. 1473-1458 BCE
invasion of the Hyksos/ Senmut/ Queen Hatshepsut/ mortuary temple’s relationship to its backdrop/
colonnades/ Thutmose III
1. “After the instability of the Second Intermediate Period, during which the so-called Hyksos invasion occurred, Egypt once again
recovered its political equilibrium. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom re-established control of the entire country and reasserted their
power” (Adams, Art Across Time 95). Thutmose I (reigned c. 1504-1492 BCE) was the first Egyptian pharaoh buried in a rock-cut tomb
carved out of a cliff face in the Valley of the Kings, which is across the Nile from Luxor and Karnak” (97). “The Eighteenth Dynasty is also
notable for its female pharaoh, Hatshepsut (reigned c. 1479-1458 BCE). She was the wife and half-sister of Thutmose I’s son, Thutmose
II. When Thutmose II died, his son by a minor queen, Thutmose III, was under age. Around 1479 BCE Hatshepsut became regent for her
stepson/nephew, but exerted her right to succeed her father and was crowned King of Egypt in 1473 BCE. Although female rulers of
Egypt were not unprecedented, Hatshepsut’s assumption of specifically male aspects of her office- such as the title of king- was a
departure from tradition. Despite her successor’s attempts to obliterate her monuments, many of them survive to document her
productive reign” (97).
2. “The main architectural innovation of Hatshepsut’s reign was the terraced mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. The primary function of
the Egyptian mortuary temple, which was usually constructed from a pylon plan, was twofold: first, to worship the king’s patron deity
during his lifetime, and, second, to worship the king himself after his death. The function of the Deir el-Bahri complex as a mortuary
temple for both Hatshepsut and her father reinforced her image as her successor. At the same time, the major deities Amon, Hathor, and
Anubis were worshiped in shrines within the temple complex. On the exterior, terraces with rectangular supports and polygonal columns
blended impressively with the vast rocky site” (98). “Hatshepsut’s architect Senenmut was the main artistic force behind the temple and
its decoration. His special status is reflected in the fact that his tomb, which was never completed, was begun inside the royal religious
complex, and its unfinished ceiling was decorated with texts usually reserved for a pharaoh’s burial. Senenmut’s contribution to the
artistic renewal under Hatshepsut is evident in a series of characteristic self-portraits. These show him kneeling in prayer to Amon and
were located in the temple behind doors to the chapels and niches for statues. When the doors were opened during religious rites, the
figures of Senemut became visible” (98-99).
32
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
Senmut. Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Deir-el Bahri), c. 1473-1458 BCE (CONTINUED)
3. “The structure was not intended to be her tomb; Hatshepsut was to be buried, like other
New Kingdom rulers, in a necropolis known as the Valley of the Kings, about half a mile to
the northwest. Her funerary temple was magnificently positioned against high cliffs and
oriented toward the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak, some miles away on the east bank on
the Nile. The complex follows an axial plan- that is, all of its separate elements are
symmetrically arranged along a dominant center line. An elevated causeway lined with
sphinxes once ran from a valley temple on the Nile, since destroyed, to the first level of the
complex, a huge open space before a long row of columns, or colonnade. From there, the
visitor ascended a long, straight ramp flanked by pools of water to the second level. At the
ends of the columned porticos on this level were shrines to Anubis and Hathor. Relief scenes
and inscriptions in the south portico relate that Hatshepsut sent a fleet of ships to Punt, an
exotic, half-legendary kingdom probably located on the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden, to bring
back rare myrrh trees for the temple’s terraces” (Stokstad, Art History 117-8). “The
uppermost level consisted of another colonnade fronted by colossal royal statues, and behind this a large hypostyle hall with chapels to
Hatshepsut, her father, and the gods Amun and RaHorakhty- the power of the sun at dawn and dusk. Centered in the hall’s back wall
was the entrance to the temple’s innermost sanctuary. This small chamber was cut deep into the cliff in the manner of Middle Kingdom
rock-cut tombs” (118). “At the end of Hatshepsut’s reign, Thutmose III, then in his late twenties, finally assumed sole power (c. 1458
BCE). He demolished the images and cartouches of Hatshepsut and emphasized his own role as the successor of his father, Hatshepsut’s
brother/spouse Thutmose II. Whereas Hatshepsut’s reign had been notable for diplomatic missions, Thutmose III became a great
conqueror, gaining control of Nubia and invading the Near East” (Adams, Art Across Time 99).
4. “Hatshepsut reigned like a man- ‘twenty-one years and nine months’, noted the Egyptian historian Manetho, and we can take his
calculation as correct. If Hatshepsut had been born male, the power would have been handed to her on a plate, because she was a
princess, the only ‘legitimate’ daughter of Tuthmosis I, second pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, and his ‘Great Royal Wife’. However, women in
Egypt were excluded from the succession to the throne and Hatshepsut was married, as was the custom to her half-brother, a son of the
king and a concubine, who then ascended the throne as Tuthmosis II. After his early death, his eight-year-old son, again by a concubine,
was named successor. Hatshepsut herself had only borne him a daughter, Neferura. Hatshepsut should have taken over as regent for
this half-nephew, but instead of staying in the background,, like other female Egyptian regents, and ceding power when he came of age,
she pushed him aside. In 1490 BC, in the seventh year of Tuthmosis III’s nominal reign, she proclaimed herself ruler. Pharaoh
Hatshepsut proclaimed: ‘I myself am a God. That which happens, is meant. Nothing I say is erroneous’. Her coup d’etat was supported by
important administrative officials at court, who were engaged in a power struggle against the military. The army had achieved great
influence under Hatshepsut’s father, through their victory over the Hyksos, the enemy occupying northern Egypt. The military wanted
the fight to go on, favoring a policy of conquest; the officials on the other hand pleaded to stay within the traditional borders. Hatshepsut
sided with the officials and demanded that the destroyed country be rebuilt. When, after Hatshepsut had ruled alone for about twenty
years, another enemy, the Mitanni people, threatened Egypt, Tuthmosis III, who had been pushed aside (but not assassinated), made
himself head of the army, demanding sole power. The queen disappeared, possibly killed. Her tomb in the Valley of the Kings remained
empty, and her mummy was never found. Her successor obliterated the name of Hatshepsut from stelae and temple walls, defaced her
features, and destroyed or renamed the statues. He did not do this because he hated Hatshepsut, but because in Egypt a female pharaoh
did not fit in with the ‘natural’ world order” (Hagen and Hagen, Egypt 122-123).
5. “From the moment she seized power, Hatshepsut had herself depicted in an emphatically masculine form, with a naked male upper
torso, short kilt and royal beard. However, all the statues show female features, a tapering face, slightly full lips, and almond-shaped
eyes. The attractive face of the ruler served as a model for the sculptors of the kingdom, most statues of the epoch looking like her. The
queen influenced formative style, just as Akhenaten did later, and used art as a means of power to emphasize her calm to the throne and
her legitimacy. A succession of (unfortunately badly preserved) reliefs demonstrates how Amun himself came to resemble Hatshepsut’s
mother, the Great Royal Wife, bearing her features. The queen could be distinguished from the god only by his fragrance of incense,
which soon pervaded her body too. Sexual relations were discreetly hinted at with both of them sitting next to each other on a bed.
Further reliefs celebrate the ruler’s great deeds: manufacturing, transporting and setting up two obelisks at Karnak (one is still standing,
the other lying there) or a reconnaissance and trade expedition, which in the eighth year ventured to far-away Punt, because Amun longed
for his favorite fragrance from the far-off country. This was a land on the African shore of the Red Sea, perhaps in present-day Eritrea.
From there, incense trees were brought in tubs, kept damp on the way and probably planted in front of the temples of Deir el-Bahari”
(124). “Today we can see the queen’s importance and power of all in her ‘House of a Million Years’. This mortuary temple of Deir el-Bahari
in western Thebes is dedicated to the gods Amun, Hathor and Anubis. In a wide rock basin facing east, surrounded by an impressive
sand and stone desert, it stands, half set into the mountain. The central axis of Hatshepsut’s temple is aligned with the temple of Amun at
Karnak, an ideal straight line leading through the mountain directly to her tomb in the Valley of the Kings. But above all it stands as an
immense demonstration of Hatshepsut’s own might. With the triumphal avenue of sphinxes- imitated by many successors- the temple
made an ideal setting for the ceremonies of a female ruler stressing her legitimacy. Almost immediately after her takeover, Hatshepsut
began building. Her master builder was called Senenmut, and he left many hidden traces of himself in the temples: portraits, statues and
inscriptions with his name. Senenmut was an efficient overseer, devoted to the queen and probably her lover. As a special sign of favor,
he was given permission to have a secret tomb built under the temple of Deir el-Bahari. But for a thousand years fate separated the
servant from his mistress, their names were removed, their facial features chiseled out, and they were not to be able to see, hear, smell,
breathe, or speak, even in death. For more than three centuries this ’damnatio memoriae’, condemning to oblivion, remained in effect.
Not until our century did Egyptologists re-discover the identity of the queen and her loyal overseer” (124-125).
33
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
P Temple of Ramses II (Abu Simbel), c. 1290-1224 BCE
figures of king outside the temple/ figures of king inside the temple (atlantids) and sunken reliefs/ façade/
corridor axis
1. “At the time of Ramesses II (ruled c. 1279-1212 BCE), whom some believe to be the
‘pharaoh’ of the biblical story of Moses and the Exodus, Egypt was a might empire.
Ramesses was a bold military commander and an effective political strategist. In about
1263 BCE he secured a peace agreement with the Hittites, a rival power centered in
Anatolia that had tried to expand its borders to the west and south at the Egyptians’
expense. He reaffirmed that agreement a little over a decade later by marrying a Hittite
princess” (Stokstad, Art History 118). “In the course of his long and prosperous reign,
Ramesses II initiated building projects on a scale rivaling the Old Kingdom pyramids at
Giza. The most awe-inspiring of his many architectural monuments is found at Abu Simbel
in Nubia, Egypt’s southernmost region. There Ramesses ordered the construction of two
temples, a large one to himself and a smaller one to his chief wife, Nefertari” (118). “Like
Hatshepsut’s funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri, the monumental grandeur of the king’s
temple communicates to the viewer a sense of unlimited majesty. It was carved out of the
face of a cliff in the manner of a rock-cut tomb but far surpasses earlier temples created in this way. Its dominant feature is a row of four
colossal seated statues of the king, each more than 65 feet tall. Large figures of Nefertari and other family members stand next to his feet,
but they seem mere dolls by comparison, since they do not even reach the height of the king’s giant stone knees” (118).
2. “The interior of the temple stretches back some 160 feet and was oriented in such a way that on the most important day of the Egyptian
calendar the first rays of the rising sun shot through its entire depth to illuminate a row of four statues- the king and the gods Amun,
Ptah, and Ra-Horakhty- placed against the back wall. The front of the smaller nearby temple to Nefetari is adorned with six statues 33
feet tall, two of the queen wearing headdress of Hathor, and four of her husband” (118-9). “These two temples are no longer in their
original location. That site was inundated as the result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s. An international
campaign to salvage these monuments raised large sums of money, and astute engineers found a way to move the temples to a spot some
215 feet higher and 690 feet farther back from the river. The façade sculpture and the inner temple walls were cut into blocks and
reassembled against artificial cliffs” (118). A famous “bas-relief showing Ramses II in his war chariot during the battle of Qadesh is on one
of the walls of the portico. The bow and the arms of pharaoh, shown as he fires at his Hittite enemies, appear to be doubled, as if the
artist had second thoughts and covered his first version with a layer of plaster, now lost” (Bourbon 135). “The portico … is 60 feet long
and decorated with eight Osiric pillars, about 30 feet high, showing Ramses II in the form of Osiris” (134).
3. “There are various inscriptions on the surrounding rock, including one that tells the story of the marriage of Ramses II with a Hittite
princess. Above the main entrance to the temple is an image of Ra-Harakhti, sculpted in strong high-relief. The god is shown walking,
from the front, with his arms by his sides. His right hand is resting on a scepter-user, his left on an image of Maat, the goddess of justice.
The presence of these two elements leads to a secondary interpretation of the entire composition that, interpreted as a rebus, makes it
meaning to be ‘Powerful in justice is Ra.’ The fact that the sculpture can be interpreted as an effigy of Ra or as the name of Ramses II is
extremely significant, and forms part of the attempt at self-glorification which is a constant feature of this ruler’s reign, and finds its most
complete manifestation here at Abu Simbel. On either side of the image of Ra-Harakhti are two other figures of Ramses II in an attitude of
adoration. The entire composition can therefore be interpreted as a scene in which the sovereign pays homage to Ra –Harakhti and, at
the same time, honors his own name. The Greater Temple is designed in such a way that all the major divisions of the classical Egyptian
sanctuary are incorporated within a structure completely dug out from the rock. For instance, the first hall is decorated like the
courtyard of a temple by means of the pillars supporting imposing figures of the ruler, in a standing position with his arms folded over his
chest” (137-139).
4. “The temple was designed so that on 21 October, the anniversary of Ramesses’ coronation as pharaoh of Egypt, and again on 21
February, Ramesses’ birthday, the rays of the rising sun would penetrate the whole length of the temple and light up the streets of
Ramesses and the god Amun carved into the back wall of the innermost chamber” (Jessop 11). “The temples of ancient Egypt were houses
for the gods, who were represented as statues. Gods were believed to have the same needs as humans, and it was the duty of the temple
priests to serve these needs. Every morning the priests would wash, dress and offer food to the small image to the temple god… No crowd
of worshippers gathered here; only temple priests at this outpost. In fact, there is no evidence that Ramesses himself ever visited Abu
Simbel” (Jessop 12).
5. Ramessess “was a master of self-portrayal, of propaganda, not only through buildings, but also in texts. An example: In the famous
battle of Kadesh (south of Beirut) he walked into a trap set by the king of the Hittites, his army was beaten and he himself only just
escaped death or dishonorable imprisonment. However, on the temple walls at Luxor, the near-catastrophe is made into an act of
heroism: ‘his majesty slaughtered the armed forces of the Hittites in their entirety, their great rulers and all their brothers… their infantry
and chariot troops fell prostrate, one on top of the other. His majesty killed them… and they lay stretched out in front of their horses.
But his majesty was alone, nobody accompanied him…’ Contrary to all tradition, the war report contains a reprimand. It is addressed to
any commander who had given the king false information about the enemy, and presumably served to disempower officers who were antipeace. For peace was the king’s aim. His predecessors had extended Egypt’s sphere of influence again, so that it now stretched from the
Turkish border far past Nubia. Ramesses wanted to secure the borders, then live in peace having reduced military expenditure. During
his reign Egypt flourished for one last time. By glorifying himself with the buildings he commissioned, internal order was also
maintained- the king was omnipresent” (Hagen and Hagen, Egypt 50). “To leave a record of his dominion over Nubia, his southern
neighbor, Ramesses II had several temples built or cut into the rocks, the most famous of them being the temple of Abu Simbel, which lies
north of Aswan. In front of the entrance are four statues, of the king, each 20 meters high” (51).
34
Unit ONE: Egyptian
STUDY GUIDE
Q Temple at Luxor, c. 1290-1224 BCE
pylon/ hypostyle hall and clerestory windows
1. “As durable and impressive as the tombs, Egyptian temples provided another way of establishing the worshiper’s
relationship with the gods. The first known Egyptian temples in the Neolithic period were in the form of huts preceded
by a forecourt. From the time of Menes at the beginning of the dynastic period, a courtyard, hallway, and inner
sanctuary were added. The columned hallway, called a hypostyle (from the Greek hupo, meaning ‘under,’ and stulos,
‘pillar’),… was constructed in the post-and-lintel system of elevation and had two rows of tall central columns flanked
by rows of shorter columns on either side” (Adams, Art Across Time 95). “The standard Egyptian temple, called a pylon
temple after the two massive sloping towers (pylons) flanking the entrance, was designed symmetrically along a single
axis” (95). As worshipers moved from the bright outdoors towards the dark inner sanctuary, they were confronted by
“two rows of gods in animal form facing each other. At the end of the row were two obelisks (tall, tapering, four-sided
pillars ending in a pointed tip called a pyramidion) and two colossal statues of pharaohs” (96). “The obelisks were
derived from the sacred benben-stone worshiped as a manifestation of Amon at Heliopolis. At dawn, the rays of the
rising sun caught the benben-stone before anything else, and the stone was thus believed to be the god’s dwelling place.
The obelisks flanking the pylon entrance were arranged in relation to the positions of the sun and moon and, like the
pyramids, were probably capped in gold” (96).
2. “From the courtyard, the worshiper entered the hypostyle hall, its massive columns casting shadows and creating an
awe-inspiring atmosphere. The upper, or clerestory, windows let in small amounts of light that enhanced the effect of
the shadows. Most people never entered the temples, but watched from the outside the processions for which the
temples were planned. The elite were allowed to enter the courtyards, while the priests carried the images of the gods in
and out of the innermost sanctuaries in boat-shaped shrines called
barks. The transitional quality of this architecture is carefully designed
to evoke a feeling of a mysterious enclosure, a space implicitly inhabited
by pharaohs and gods” (96). “The New Kingdom temple of Amon-MutKhonsu at Luxor is dedicated to a triad of gods. This triad was worshiped
at the New Kingdom capital city of Thebes and its importance steadily
increased. The plan of the temple shows that the hut and courtyard of
the Neolithic era had developed by this date into a much more elaborate
structure. At the far end of the sanctuary- the ‘holy of holies’- a small
central room with four columns shown at the far left of the plan. Many
pharaohs contributed to the construction of this temple, each adding to
its complexity. Later, Alexander the Great and the Romans made further
additions” (96).
3. “Ancient Egyptian temples were considered microcosm of the universe,
and as such they contained both earthly and celestial symbolism.
Column designs were derived from the vegetation of Egypt and
represented the earth. In the temple of Amon-Mut-Khonsu, for example,
the original ceiling was painted blue and decorated with birds and stars
denoting its symbolic role as the heavenly realm” (96). French philosopher and Egyptologist R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961) “spent
decades of his life at the site of the Temple of Luxor, primarily because he considered it the apex of Egyptian symbolism… The Egyptians
assigned body parts to the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the proportions of their architecture reverberated with the human figure.
Schwaller de Lubicz related the plan of the Temple of Luxor to a human figure. He believed that astrology was the determining factor in
the construction of Egyptian temples. Schwaller de Lubicz related the organs of the body, the parts of the temple and the phases of
history, and considered the whole of Egyptian civilization as a dance through four millennia. He regarded Luxor a perfect example of the
symbolic in Egypt, a vast stone monument which expresses the totality of their wisdom” (Mann 108-109).
4. “The great anomaly of Luxor is the divergence of axes of the sequence of buildings. The shifts in axis at Luxor reflect the changing
angle of the Pole Star throughout the hundreds of years of its construction. As each section of the temple was designed and built, the axis
shifted, requiring a new alignment so that the rising sun would shine through the wonderful halls of pillars to the shrine within. What is
revolutionary about Schwaller de Lubicz’s ideas about the axis shift is that he assumes that the Egyptians knew the entire form of the
building before it was built, and acknowledged that they would have to adjust it according to the earth’s astronomical movements. As
they certainly knew about the mechanics and mathematics of the precession, they would have known beforehand and integrated such
knowledge into their masterpiece” (109-110). “The sacred district at Luxor was already the site of splendid temple complex by the
thirteenth century BCE. Ramesses II further enlarged the complex with the addition of a pylon and a peristyle court, or open courtyard
ringed with columns and covered walkways” (Stokstad, Art History 116). “The gods of Egypt did not live in far-away heaven, but here on
Earth in mighty temples” (Hagen and Hagen, Egypt 190). “When the gods accepted them, and entered the inner sanctum of the temple to
unite with their statue of gold or silver, then happiness, order and prosperity were ensured. For this reason the country was covered with
‘houses to the gods’, giant complexes which, with their might white-washed double towers, stood much higher than any other buildings.
Flag fluttered high above them on masts ‘reaching to the stars’. A high wall surrounded the entire sacred part of the temple, which also
included a grain store, priests’ apartments, a library and a scribes’ school, but these utilitarian buildings were made of mud and have
long since disappeared. On both sides of the gate were pylons, massive wide towers with sloping outer walls, a symbol for a house of the
gods since the 11th Dynasty” (190). “Between the entrance and the inner sanctum were the halls, only the first of which, a courtyard open
to the skies and located directly behind the pylons, was accessible to ordinary people on special feast days” (191).
35
Unit ONE: Egyptian
R Senmut with Princess
Nefrua (Thebes, Egypt), c.
1470-1460 BCE, granite
block statue
1. “Extremely popular during the
Middle and New Kingdoms were
block statues. In these works the
idea that the ka could find an eternal
home in the cubic stone image of the
deceased was expressed in an even
more radical simplification of form
than was common in Old Kingdom
statuary” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and
Tansey 66-67).
2.
Seen
here,
“Hatshepsut’s
chancellor holds the pharaoh’s
daughter by Thutmose II in his ‘lap’
and envelops the girl in his cloak.
The streamlined design concentrates
attention on the heads and treats the
two bodies as a single cubic block,
given over to inscriptions… The
frequent depiction of Senmut with
Nefrua was meant to enhance
Senmut’s
statue
through
his
association with the princess (he was
her tutor) and, by implication, with
Hatshepsut herself. Toward the end
of her reign, however, Hatshepsut
believed that Snemut had become
too powerful, and she had him
removed” (67). “Senenmut is shown
here
with
Hatshepsut’s
only
daughter. We only know the year of
his death from the date recorded on
the wine jugs in his tomb.
For
thousands of years the powerful man
and his queen disappeared from the
memory of the people” (Hagen and
Hagen, Egypt 124).
STUDY GUIDE
S Fowling scene from the tomb of Nebamun (Thebes, Egypt), c.1400-
1350 BCE, fresco on dry plaster
concept of the afterlife/ figures in proportion to rank/ function of the boat
in Egyptian life/ naturalistic depiction of birds/ dry fresco technique/ flat,
linear style
1. “Most Egyptian wall paintings were frescoes,
painted using the fresco secco, or dry fresco,
technique. Pigments were mixed with water and
applied to a dry plaster wall. As a result, the
paintings were less durable than those made
using the later buon fresco, or true fresco,
technique. In buon fresco, pigments are applied
to wet plaster with which they bond as it dries,
preventing the flaking to which fresco secco is
prone. Egyptians also used water-based paint
on papyrus and on sculptures” (Adams, Art
Across Time 99). “A New Kingdom fresco secco
from the tomb of Nebamun shows him enjoying
a favorite sport, bird-hunting.
He is
accompanied by his wife and daughter and
surrounded
by
animals
and
landscape.
Following the conventional Egyptian pose, his
head and legs are in profile, and his torso and eye are frontal. He also wears a trapezoidal kilt.
Nebamun’s wife and daughter are small and curvilinear by comparison, continuing the Old
Kingdom tradition of increasing naturalism for decreasing rank. Paintings of this period, were
slightly more naturalistic than during the Old Kingdom. Note that Nebamun’s wife is rendered
with brown skin rather than with the conventional lighter skin of Egyptian women in art… The
birds turn more freely in space than the human figures, and on the fish there is evidence of
shading, which conveys a sense of volume” (99-100).
2. “Family life was heavily determined by the profession of the father, whose role was to
provide for the family. Marriage was a private matter, arranged by the future husband and the
father of the bride and sealed with a marriage contract…. Most marriages involved men and
women from the same social class. Only in the upper class might a man have several
wives…Adultery was frowned upon. An adulterous affair between a man and a married
woman could result in drastic punishment- the mutilation of nose or ears, castration, or
banishment (which was considered equivalent to death). Marriage, however, only attained its
full status after the arrival of children… Children also served as guarantors of the future path
into the afterlife, because the familial bonds continued after death and attending to them was
one of the family’s central duties” (Scholz 60). “The ancient Egyptians prized their cosmetics.
Oil derived from both imported and domestic plants and organs, and not normally mixed with
alcohol (as is common practice today), were the main ingredients of their perfumes. Their
effect and the endurance of the odors intermingled with ideas of life, love, and prosperity- as
opposed to the stench of evil or of menace or, in short, of downfall. Pleasing scents were an
intrinsic part of cult rituals and medicinal treatment. Countless tomb illustrations show
women with incense cones mixed with fat in their hair” (83-84).
3. “In many religions a boat has two symbolic functions. It is the vehicle of the sun-god and
also carries the soul of the deceased to the afterlife… Egyptian solar deities traveled by day
across the celestial ocean in a barque which returned to the east at night through the
Underworld. It bore the dead to the afterlife and so model boats were usually buried with
them, especially in tombs of the Middle Kingdom” (Hall 57). “Hunting scenes reminded
Egyptians of Horus, the son of Osiris, hunting down his father’s murderer, thus assuring a
happy existence for Nebamun” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 68).
4. This is the “best-known painting of the series: Nebamun, his wife and daughter in a
papyrus boat hunting in the marshes. The painting is teeming with incident and detail.
Nebamun, dressed in a brief kilt and an elaborate collar, wields a throwing stick and grasps
three decoy herons. In the papyrus thicket panic has overtaken the roosting birds but
iridescent fish swim placidly in the water. Delicate butterflies flutter in the air. A ginger cat
seizes birds with its teeth and claws. Other scenes from the tomb show Nebamun’s garden
pool, geese and cattle being brought for inspection, crops being assessed for tax purposes and
men bringing produce from the fields” (Caygill 225). “Hunting in the papyrus thicket in female
company was probably a metaphor for an erotic relationship” (Hagen and Hagen, Egypt 140).
36