The Dawn of Egyptian Art

I walked through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with some friends yesterday. We visited the Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Egyptian collections.

The Met has a special exhibit of Pre-Dynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptian Art on display until August 5. The exhibit includes artifacts from museum collections all over the world. Photography is not permitted in this exhibit, so I cannot share any photos with you.

The exhibit is small, but has some wonderful pieces. Several famous slate palettes are on display as well as Pre-Dynastic pottery, jewelry, ivory hair pins and combs, etc.

Also, a number of objects from the Met's Egyptian collection have been removed from their cases and are not on display at this time. It is not just a few pieces, it is a fair number of them. One that I particularly missed is a small gold statue of the god Amen which dates to the Twenty-First Dynasty (if I remember the dating correctly).

All in all, a fun day visiting one of my favorite places with a few friends.

The Sasanian Empire

The Sasanians (third to seventh century A. D.) considered themselves to be the heirs of the Achaemenid (Persian) kings that had been defeated by Alexander the Great.

Copyright 2012 by John Freed

A man who became known as Ardashir I founded the Sasanian Dynasty in about 226 A. D. In his later years, he took his son (Shapur I) as a co-regent. In 240, the Sasanians conquered Hatra (about 100 km southwest if Nineveh).

Shapur I eventually pushed into Syria where he fought against the Roman Emperor Valerian.  A meeting was arranged between Valerian and Shapur, but Valerian was betrayed and remained a prisoner of Shapur’s for the rest of his life.

The fortunes of the Sasanians rose and fell over time, with victories and defeats at the hands of the Romans and, later, the Byzantine Empire. The last Sasanian King (Yazdegerd III) died in 651 after being defeated by the moslems.

The photograph in this article is a smaller than life-size mask of one of the Sasanian kings (Shapur II?) made from a single sheet of silver. The mask is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Tomb of Meketre

Copyright John Freed 2012

Copyright John Freed, 2012

Meketre was an Egyptian official who lived in the late Eleventh Dynasty. His tomb was found (accidentally!) at Thebes.

The tomb is famous for its well preserved wooden statues. These statues showed boats, scenes of running an estate (loading grain into a granary, force feeding cattle to make them fatter, making beer, etc.) and servants bringing food offerings to Meketre. These statues were split between the Cairo Museum and the Metropolitan Museum.

The statue that I especially like is that of a servant girl carrying food. It is about 1/2 life-size and is displayed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The body of the statue is made of wood and is very gracefully carved. The arms were made of separate pieces of wood that have been attached to the body. The statue was covered with a thin coat of plaster and beautifully painted.

Also note how she is holding a bird by it's wings in her right hand. I have seen women in Cairo (on the bus that runs from Tahrir Square to the pyramids at Giza) doing exactly the same thing. It really brings home the fact that, in some ways, people have not changed much since ancient times.

Hatshepsut's Mummy

Back on March 31, 2009, I reported on this blog that a news story claimed that the mummy of the Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut had been identified. However, an article in the current issue of KMT magazine (Spring 2012), casts some doubt on the claim that the mummy found in tomb KV60 is that of Hatshepsut.

The article, written by Dennis Forbes, also casts doubt on some of  the other recently "identified" royal mummies. It is an interesting read. If you can turn up a copy of KMT (Barnes and Nobles carries the magazine), then by all means read it.

The"Not So New" Newly Discovered King of Egypt

Discovery News published a story today with a headline about a "newly discovered" Pharaoh of Egypt's Seventeenth Dynasty. The headline is somewhat less than accurate.

The story tells of the recent discovery of a door jamb found at Karnak bearing the name of the Pharaoh Senakhtenre. The story below the headline accurately states that there are references to Senakhtenre but that this is the first actual monument known that can be dated to his reign. Other references to him come from documents written long after his death.

Senakhtenre had the second name of Tao and was the first of the two Tao's mentioned in papyri dealing with tomb robbery in the Late New Kingdom. The second (and far better known) Tao was Sekenenre, who seems to have died in combat against the Hyksos and whose mummy is now in the Cairo Museum.

The Opening of the Mouth Performed by the Gods

            One other point can be made regarding the Opening of the Mouth. Flint “Pesh-en-Kefs” have been found in predynastic graves[1] and some Old Kingdom burials have been found to contain the various instruments used in the Opening of the Mouth[2]. If the Opening of the Mouth ceremonies had been carried out before the interment of the deceased, then placing these items in the burial would be superfluous. The assumption could be made that the Opening of the Mouth could be performed for the deceased after the burial. From several texts it would seem that the gods could be convinced to perform this ceremony if it had not been performed for the deceased before his burial. For instance, in Chapter XXXb of the Book of the Dead:

“Behold, thou shalt make a scarab of green stone with its rim(?) plated with gold and placed within the heart of a person, it will perform for him the Opening of the Mouth…”[3].

And in the Papyrus of Ani is found:

“The scribe Ani triumphant saith: May the god Ptah open my mouth, may the god of my city loose the swathings, even the swathings that are over my mouth. Moreover, may Thoth, being filled and furnished with charms, come and loose the bandages of Set that fetter my mouth; and may the god Tem hurl them at those who would fetter (me) with them, then drive them back. May my mouth be unclosed by Shu with his iron knife wherewith he opened the mouth of the gods”[4].

In Spell 690 of the Coffin Texts we read, “I will enter into the place where is that august [god] who is in […]; he will open my eyes for me [that I may see with them], he will split open my mouth…”[5].

            Thus it would seem that the deceased could magically have the Opening of the Mouth performed for him in the underworld. The obvious contradiction that if the Opening of the Mouth was not performed at the time of burial then the deceased could not utter the spells which would assure its being opened in the underworld, was ignored by the Egyptians in much the same way that they ignored the fact that some of the people who were interred with copies of the Book of the Dead were illiterate.

---

[1] Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth, vol. I, p. vii.

[2] William C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978), vol. I, pp. 117 – 118.

[3] Budge, Book of the Dead, 1967, p. 15.

[4] E. A. W. Budge, The Book of the Dead (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1923), pp. 133 – 134.

[5] Robert O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, Vol. I, (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1977),  p. 255.

The Origins of the Opening of the Mouth

            According to Baly there are two distinct elements in the Opening of the Mouth. Baly claims that the purification ceremonies, the dressing of the statue and the opening of the mouth with the instruments are all Semitic in nature[1] while the sleeping of the Sem and the slaughter of the animals is Hamitic, or African, in origin[2].

            While Baly’s theory is interesting, the evidence for it is hardly conclusive. The major problem in this regard is the evidence for the Semitic origin of parts of the Opening of the Mouth. This evidence has been set forth by Blackman, who based his evidence on the comparison of a Babylonian ceremony, also called the Opening of the Mouth, to the Egyptian ceremony outlined in this paper. Blackman’s evidence may be summarized as follows:

• The statues used in both ceremonies were frequently purified with incense and water
• In both countries the statue is dressed and anointed with unguents
• At the end of the ceremonies in both countries the statue was borne away by nine courtiers
• The lips of the statue were washed during the course of the ceremonies in both countries
• The placing of the bandlets about the eyes and mouth of the statue in the Egyptian ritual has been compared to the placing of red, white and blue wools about the neck of the statue in the Babylonian rite
• The meal at the end of the Opening of the Mouth has been compared to the constant presentation of food and drink to the statue in the Babylonian ritual[3]

While this evidence will admit the possibility that the Babylonian and Egyptian rituals have a common ancestor at some point in the far past (as Blackman theorizes), it will not admit the possibility that the Babylonian ritual was directly derived from the Egyptian ritual (as Langdon speculates). One problem with Langdon’s theory is that the evidence could, in places, be explained by simple coincidence. For instance, the use of water and incense in purification rituals is a common feature in many religions throughout the world and their use in both the Babylonian and Egyptian rituals does not prove a thing.

           Another problem with Langdon’s theory becomes apparent when the difference between the two ceremonies is examined. In the Egyptian ceremony, the statue is placed facing south; in the Babylonian ceremony the statue is placed facing east. In the Egyptian ceremony, the statue is placed on a small heap of sand at the beginning of the rituals while in the Babylonian ceremony it is placed on a mat[4].The most important difference between the two rituals is in their basic purposes. The Egyptian ceremony is designed to re-unite the soul of the deceased with his body (or with a statue representing that body)[5] and to provide the deceased with the ability to eat, drink and breathe in the afterlife. The Babylonian ritual seems to be a dedicatory ceremony performed upon a newly carved or restored statue[6].

---

[1] Baly, p. 176 – 177.

[2] Baly, pp. 177 – 180, gives several African parallels to the Opening of the Mouth.

[3] Blackman, pp. 53 – 56.

[4] Blackman, p. 53.

[5] Baly, p. 177.

[6] Baly, p. 181.