Art of Ancient Egypt
3 T’s:
Tombs, Temples, and
Timelessness
Four Periods
• Predynastic 2950-2575
• Old Kindom 2575-2150 BCE
• Middle Kingdom 1975-1640 BCE
• New Kingdom 1540-1075 BCE
– Armana Period 1353-1336
Gift of the Nile
• Longest river in the world
• Made civilization possible
–Calm, predictable
• Kept land fertile
• Annual floods
Written Language
• Pictographs became heiroglyphics
• Heiroglyphs represented objects,
ideas, or sounds
• Deciphered through Rosetta Stone
Religion
• Polytheistic
• Gods were animal, human or both
• Strong believers in the afterlife
Triple Concept of Spirit
• Ka-Soul of deceased
• Akh-Lived in heavens as spirit
• Ba-in and out of touch with deceased.
– Human head, bird body.
Burial
Body preservation for KA
1. Sand
2. Mastabas
3. Stepped Pyramid
4. Pyramid
Mummification
Egyptians developed embalming technique
4 step mummification process:
1. Organ Removal
2. Body Treatment
3. Wrapping
4. Protection
Tomb
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Mummy in sarcophagus
Food, drink, clothing, utensils
Images of deceased
Ushabtis-statuettes to do work in afterlife
The Pharaohs
• Deified with absolute power
• Pharaohs communicated with gods
• Sons of RA, the sun god.
• RA’s emblem was a pyramidal stone, hence
pyramid shaped tombs.
Painting/Relief Conventions
• Profile head, legs, feet
• Frontal eye, torso, arms
• ¾ view waist
Sculpture Conventions
• Solid, static, stiff, cube-like
• Slim, young, beautiful, timeless
Canon of Proportions
• Strict set of rules for figures
• Grid always drawn 18 units high
• Figure drawn over grid
Palette of Narmer
Predynastic
c. 3000
• Two sided palette commemorate Narmer’s
victorious unification of upper and lower
Egypt.
• One of first historical artworks
• EVERY image shows Narmer’s POWER.
• Registers/hierarchical scale/low relief
• Canon/Composite view
Mastaba Layout
Old Kingdom
• Preceded Pyramids
• Flat-topped, rectangular structure built
over burial chamber
• Shaft originally for Ka to leave if both
body and statue died, later filled in for
protection
Stepped Pyramid of Djoser
Old Kingdom
• 1st architect named Imhotep
• 1st pyramid (royal tomb).
• Huge staircase to the RA in the heavens
• Burial chamber below ground, stepped
pyramid is solid
Great Pyramids of Giza
Old Kingdom
• 3 pyramids-Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure
• Khufu=Kafre’s father
• Khafre=Menkaure’s father
• Pharaohs buried in pyramids
• Each side is oriented toward a point on the
compass.
• Each pyramid had a mortuary temple
• Face sunset-symbolizes death
The Great Sphinx, from Giza
• Body of a lion and head of a pharaoh
• In Khafre’s complex-portrait of him?
• Intelligence/human and strength/beast
• Originally brightly painted to stand out in the desert.
• Immovable, eternal silent guardian of the tomb.
• Carved in situ
Seated Khafre, 2500 BCE, Old Kingdom
• No spaces, serving to unify the king/throne.
• Special diorite
• Idealized features.
• Carved lions serve as guardians.
• The falcon God, Horus, is shown enfolding
the king’s head with his wings, protecting him.
• Temple statue of Khafre projects dignity,
power, and above all, permanence.
• Frontal, symmetrical, rigid, motionless,
cubic
Menkaure and a Queen
Old Kingdom
c. 2500
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Made of stone
Temple statue
Portrayed with idealized bodies
Gaze confidently and serenely into the
future
• “Eternal stillness”
• One leg forward, influenced early Greek
artists
Seated Scribe
Old Kingdom
• Features are more realistic than idealized
• Formality is relaxed and realism is
increased as a human subject’s
importance is decreased.
Ti Watching a Hippo Hunt
Old Kingdom
• Painted relief in the mastaba of Ti, a government
official
• Hunt shown as a memorial to the deceased.
• Hippos-agents of evil
• Heirarchy of Scale
Hippo from Tomb of Senbi
Middle Kingdom
c.1985-1795
• Hippopotami are seen as agents of evil.
Danger in water and with eating grain.
• Plant life drawn on side
• 3 of 4 legs broken on purpose to keep
hippo from harming deceased
Middle Kingdom
• Old Kingdom was characterized by long
succession of pharaohs ruling all of Egypt.
• Mostly peaceful, wealthy
• Due to a series of droughts, invasions, and
in-fighting, the Middle Kingdom emerged
as a time of turmoil and scaled back
architecture
Rock-Cut Tombs, Beni Hasan
Middle Kingdom
• New form of tomb for rulers and high
ranking officials-rock cut tombs
• hollowed out of the faces of cliffs
• small burial chambers inside
• In situ-Latin for “in its original location”
Non-functional columnsnon-load bearing
New Kingdom
• Country began to gain its strength back
politically and economically
• At the height of the New Kingdom, rulers
undertook extensive building programs
along the length of the Nile
New Kingdom Architecture
• Temples built to honor the gods and
emphasize pharaoh’s power
• Two massive pylons (flat, sloping walls)
flanked the entrance to each section often
with a pair of obelisks
• A long corridor led to an enormous hypostyle
hall, which led to the main sanctuary.
Front of Temple
Reconstruction Drawing of Hypostyle Hall,
Great Temple of Amun at Karnak
New Kingdom
• Amun-god of the air and sky
• Temple of Amun:
– Largest columned temple in world
– 134 columns, 24 meters high
• Hypostyle Hall-Columns support the roof
• Purposes
– lead Pharaoh and High Priest only to an
inner sanctuary containing images of
the gods
– permit extra light in this area
• Base of column waist high
• Columns-sunken reliefs
Flower and Bud Columns,
Great Temple of Amun at Karnak
New Kingdom
• Capitals-top of column
• Inspired by papyrus with open and closed
buds
• Within hypostyle hall
• Egyptian columns are based on plant forms
Hatshepsut
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History’s first great female ruler
Crowned King of Egypt
“Female Horus”
Often portrayed as sphinx
Represented in male pharaoh costume
Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut
New Kingdom
c.1470 BCE
• 3 colonnaded terraces and 2 ramps
– Terraces originally had gardens
• Visually coordinated with the natural setting– long horizontals and verticals
– patterns of dark and light
• Harmonized with its landscape*
Hatshepsut's Sphinx
New Kingdom
• Sculptors portrayed her as having male
and female characteristics.
• In traditional pharaoh dress
• Part pharaoh part lion: again, intelligence
of human with strength of a lion
Hatshepsut with offering jars
New Kingdom
• Destroyed, put back together
• Offering to RA, only knelt before gods-not
mortals
• Anatomically male
Updated 9/12/14
It IS the AMARNA period!
Grace was right! Names that
are really similar are hard for me
to get straight/spell correctly
because my brain sees one
thing and thinks its something
else…UGH! Sorry!!
Amarna Period
• Amenhotep rules, controversial
• Monotheistic-Aton-represented only as a sun
disk
• Changed name to Akhenaton (servant of Aton)
• Defaced all the other god images, emptied
temples.
Amarna Style
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Naturalistic Representations
Refined Sensuality
Unprecedented Intimacy
Specific features
– Thin arms
– Prominent bellies
– Full lips
– Heavily lidded eyes
– Dreamy expression
Akhenaton and His Family
Amarna
• Sunken relief
• Unprecedented for Egyptian royal figuresrelaxed poses, curved outlines, flowing
drapery
• Humanity of royal family*
• Aton-sun disk-rays turn into hands. Ankh
giving the breath of life
Queen Tiy
Amarna
• Mother of Akhenaton
• shown here as older--more relaxation of rules in
this period.
• Stylized naturalism. Armana Style
• Tiny wood carving w/gold, silver, lapis lazuli
Bust of Nefertiti by Thutmose
Amarna
• Akhenaton’s wife
• Life size portrait bust. The queen wears a
deep, tall, unique, blue crown
• Graceful, refined, idealized
• Armana style
• Painted Limestone
Akhenaton Pillar Statue
Amarna
• Long, curving body, feminine features
• long neck, full lips, heavy lidded eyes,
dreamy expression
• Weak arms, narrow waist, protruding belly,
wide hips
• Not heroically proportional body of a
pharaoh.
King Tutankhamen-New Kingdom
• Inside famous tomb discovered
in 1922 by Howard Carter
• Mummified body inside coffin
• Gold coffin 6’7”
• Smooth idealized featurestraditional
Return to tradition
• King Tut was the son of Akenaton
• Rejected monotheism
• Returned Egypt to polytheistic religion
Ramses II
• Egypt’s last great warrior pharaoh
• Ruled for 77 years
• Average life expectancy was 35 years.
Ramses II Temple
New Kingdom
• Sandstone
• Rock-cut statues at entrance to temple
• 4 images of himself to proclaim greatness
• Shape of beard is reflected in shape of wallinfluenced by pylon
• *Sacrificed refinement due to size (approx.
65’tall).
Ramses II Court and Pylons
New Kingdom
• Pillar statues
• Columns had sunken reliefs with stories told
through registers
• Used precise cutting and weight to hold
stone in place
• Similar to post and lintel
Queen Nefertari Making an
Offering to Isis
• Painting inside the tomb of Nefertari, the
favorite Queen of Ramses II
• Small rock tomb was north of temple at
Abu Simbel. Shows her great importance
to Ramses
• One of the most detailed and decorated
tombs
• Here she offers two jars to Isis
Judgement before Osiris, from the
Book of the Dead
New Kingdom
• Page from Book of the Dead
– book of spells and charms
• On Papyrus scroll
• Anubis (jackal headed god of underworld)
weighs heart against feather. If guilty, hippo/lion
hybrid eats heart.