A Quirk of Egyptian Art

Fig. 1 - Osiris, from a Relief of Nectanebo II

     Have you ever looked carefully at an Egyptian relief to see how the human body is shown? I mean, have you ever looked really close? Take a look at figure 1, (from the reign of Nectanebo II) which shows Osiris in human (unmummified) form. Notice that his head is shown in profile. His shoulders are shown "face on" to the viewer even though his arm are shown sort of in profile. His abdomen and hips are shown in profile as are his legs. No human could actually stand this way. What seems to be going on is the Egyptian need to show the human body as fully as possible, regardless of artistic perspective.

Fig. 2 - two of Akhenaten's Daughters Embarace

     One of the attractions of Amarna art is its charming portrayal of the royal family's private life. We even see scenes of the Queen sitting on the Kig's lap while the royal couple play with their children. Artistic conventions were much freer during the Amarna interlude, but even then old conventions did not completely die. Take a look at the relief in figure 2 where two of Akhenaten's daughters are shown. The older daughter on the left is shown with her head in profile, her chest is "straight on" as if she is facing the viewer while her waist and dress are shown in profile. But yet this relief does have the charm that the art of this period is famous for as the two sisters embrace each other.

     One can go all the way back to the Old Kingdom and see carvings with these same contorted portrayals of the human body. Even in a period of three thousand years, Egyptian art did not change all that dramatically. This is truly one of the most interesting examples of artistic conservatism in all of history.

Just a Few Mistakes.....

Fig. 1 - Akhenaten (Metropolitan Museum)

     Yesterday I mentioned the large numbers of magazines that are now available giving short articles with lots of photos on various historical topics. I started reading some of this month's stack and got a few chuckles out of the article about Akhenaten in National Geographic's History magazine.

     On the third page of the article is a photo of a white stone statue of a pharaoh. The caption next to the picture says "Akhenaten's Father, Amenhotep III had also promoted the cult of Aten". The statue however has an inscription that says (in part), "The good god, lord of the two lands, Djeserkara". Djeserkara is Amenhotep I, not Amenhotep III.

     On the next page is a photo of the Luxor Temple with a caption describing how Akhenaten's monuments at Karnak were taken apart and its sandstone bricks were used in other temples. True as far as the statement goes, but I am not aware of any of Akhenaten's monuments being re-used in the Luxor Temple (if I am wrong on this someone please correct me.....).

     The accompanying article tells the story of an Egyptian Queen writing to the King of the Hittites asking that a Hittite prince be sent to Egypt for her to marry and make King of Egypt. This letter is usually ascribed to Ankesenamen (Tutankhamen's widow), but here the claim is made that the letter was written by Nefertiti. This is possible, but very few scholars, if any, make this claim.

     Yet another caption is slightly off in the article. A large photo of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and two of their daughters worshiping the Aten has several captions describing important points about the iconography of the relief being shown. Each caption has an arrow going from the caption to the part of the relief being described. One caption mentions the distorted bodies of the royal family "clearly seen here in the depiction of Nefertiti." But the arrow goes from the caption to one of the daughters, not Nefertiti.

     Last but not least is the caption to a photo of Amun and Horemhab. The caption says that Horemhab was named heir to the throne by Tutankhamen but was pushed aside by Aye. This is the first time I have ever seen this claim and I have no idea what the evidence is to back it up. As far as I know there is no record at all of who Tutankhamen designated as his successor and no record that Horemhab was "pushed aside" by Aye.

     National Geographic really might want to consider getting someone to fact check the articles before they publish them. There are a lot of errors in just this one article.

Check the Magazine Rack

     There is something new going on in publishing. "Magazines" are being published at very high prices. These journals tend to be full of color photos and short, but sometimes interesting articles that give a layman just enough information. Some of these magazines cover science, others cover military topics. Increasingly, they cover history, including ancient history.

     I just got back from a trip to Barnes and Noble's bookseller with a large stack of these magazines. There were some usual suspects like KMT , Biblical Archaeology Review, and Minerva which routinely include coverage of the ancient Near East. There were also some of these "special issue" magazines. This month's issue of History Revealed has an articles about "Cleopatra" and "The Pharaohs of Egypt" (there is also an article on how medieval knights went to the bathroom while wearing armor, but that's another story.....). All About History this month is fully devoted to Ancient Egypt with articles on the Pyramids, Nefertiti, Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Amenhotep III and (of course) an article on Tutankhamen (among several other articles).

     National Geographic History has an article on Akhenaten, while the BBC has published a special "Collectors Edition" entitled The Story of the Ancient World. This magazine has two articles on Tutankhamen, the female Queens of Egypt, the Book of the Dead, Alexander the Great and Persia (among articles on Greece, Rome and the Mayans).

     Even at very high prices these magazines must be selling as I am seeing more and more of them each month.

Still More Tutankhamen News

Copy of the Interior of Tutankhamen's Canonic Chest

     The Egyptians believed that to say the name of the dead was to make them live again. If so, Tutankhamen is having one blessed afterlife as his name never seems to be out of the news for very long.

     The latest tidbit is that the Egyptian Minister of Tourism may have let something "slip" regarding the work that is being done on Tutankhamen's tomb. The minister seems to suggest that it has been confirmed that there are other chambers in KV 62 and that they are filled with treasures. How the minister knows this I have no clue. Why he would reveal this before the official announcement of findings (scheduled for April) is beyond my ability to comprehend as well. In any event, here is an article on this development.

Middle Kingdom Mummy Masks

Fig. 1 - Death Mask of Wah

Fig. 2 - Death Mask of Wah

Fig. 3

     Most of us are familiar with the fabulous gold death mask of King Tutankhamen from the Eighteenth Dynasty. Surely it is one of the most famous, and beautiful, objects know to man. But the average Egyptian could not aspire to being buried with such a wonderful work of art. In the early Middle Kingdom non-royal personages sometimes had more modest death masks. They were usually made of wood and cartonnage with painted details. Two such masks are shown here.

     Figures one and two show the mask of a nobleman named Wah who was buried near the tomb of Meketre at Thebes and whose funerary equipment is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Wah was apparently not major nobility, but his mummy was extremely well wrapped and had some interesting jewelry on it. His death mask has a broad collar painted on it, as is typical. There are a couple of interesting things about this mask that help date it. The rectangular false bear that extends down from the chin is one of them. The other is the beard and mustache that Wah wears. Facial hair was not commonly shown among Egyptian men in ancient times, but it does appear fairly often on Middle Kingdom masks.


     A similar object from the same time period, now in Hildesheim but found in Asyut, shows the deceased with the inevitable broad collar and, once again, facial hair similar to that found on Wah's mask. This man also wears a single stranded bead necklace around his neck above the broad collar and has an interesting diadem painted around his forehead. The portion of the diadem that is at the exact center of his forehead is decorated with two birds (vultures representing the goddess Mut I think).

     Similar examples of these types of masks can be found in other museums around the world and they seem to have been rather common at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom.

Third Dynasty Boat Found at Abu Sir

     A boat possibly dating to the reign of Huni, the last Pharaoh of Egypt's Third Dynasty has been found by a Czech team. The find is associated with a nobleman's burial, rather than a royal burial. I believe this is the first example known of a full sized boat being buried with a nobleman.

     The boat is also interesting in that the wood planks are in their original places and the ropes that held them together are preserved in places. An article on the discovery can be found here.

Meketre Servant Statue

     One of my favorite pieces of Egyptian art, a wooden statue of a servant girl, is from the tomb of Meketre. It was found at Dier el-Bahari near the temple of Queen Hatshepsut by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Meketre was a nobleman of the early Middle Kingdom and his tomb contained a large number of models of daily life that are now split between the Cairo Museum and the Met.

     The statue is carved from several pieces of wood. The head and body are one piece, while her two arms were carved separately and joined to the torso of the statue.   The feet of the statue are also carved separately and joined to the lady's body. Finally the statue is joined to a wooden base. After the various pieces were joined the wood was covered with gesso (plaster) and painted.

     The serving girl has a graceful set of curves carved into the wood. She wears a dress that has two (bead-work?) straps that go up over her shoulders while a beaded broad collar is shown around her neck. A nice touch that is not normally noticed by visitors to the Met is the duck she holds by its wings in her right hand. On my first trip to Egypt I took the bus from downtown Cairo to Giza, and there was a woman on the bus holding a live duck in the exact same way. The duck was less than pleased and there were feathers all over the bus. To me it was a memorable slice of real life.