SUBJECT: ANCIENT EGYPT
Survey Chapter:
RESOURCES
Student discussion readings for this lecture:
Read McGregor #1 and #8 ("Mummy" and "Egyptian Clay Model").
Student discussion videos for this lecture:
Optional in-class video resources for this lecture:
 See in the lecture plan for links to History Channel short videos
 PBS “Egypt’s Golden Empire,” Episode 2, “The Warrior Pharaohs” is a goood athome resource for Hatshepsut and broader intorduction to Ancient Egypt – a
good background resource for the instructor
LECTURE NOTES
Key question for the lecture: How did Ancient Egyptians prepare for death and the
afterlife? What were their conceptions surrounding life and death, and what do their
funerary sites and objects tell us about their culture?
Timeline: c. 3000 BCE (Palette of Narmer) to 196 BCE (the Rosetta Stone).
Objects covered:
1. Mask of Tutankhamen
2. The Narmer Palette
3. Pyramids - Mastaba, Djoser’s pyramid, Meidum Pyramid, Pyramids at Giza
4. Menkaure and Khamerernebty
5. Seated Scribe and Butcher Funerary statues
6. Book of the Dead
7. Hatshepsut Kneeling
8. The Rosetta Stone, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 196 BC
SLIDE: Mask of Tutankhamen
http://www.history.com/topics/the-egyptian-pyramids/videos#king-tut
 Probably the most well known Pharaoh.
 He lived only a short while, dying at 18 and ruling only from the age of 10.
So, he’s a relatively minor king in the grand scheme of things.
 He ascended to the throne in 1333 BC, at the age of nine or ten
 Prior to the discovery of his tomb in 1922 people were unfamiliar with this pharaoh.
In fact, his name had been excised by successive rulers. Damnatio memoriae
 King Tut was born 1341 BC during the Amarna Age, a time when the pharaoh
Akhenaten, his probable father, had introduced quasi-monotheistic beliefs into
ancient Egypt, replacing the traditional religion. Akhenaten had moved both the
administrative capital (Memphis) and religious capital (Thebes) to Akhetaten
(modern Tel el Amarna) in Middle Egypt, a site not previously associated with
any other god.
- Guided by court officials after his father’s death, Tutankhamun restored
the traditional gods and re-established Thebes as the religious capital and
Memphis as the administrative centre.
- King Tut reigned for only about nine years, as he died in his early teens,
but he has become famous the world over because his tomb was
uncovered in almost perfect condition.
 There are no surviving records of Tutankhamun's final days. What caused
Tutankhamun's death has been the subject of considerable debate. Major studies
have been conducted in an effort to establish the cause of death.
 Although there is some speculation that Tutankhamun was assassinated, the
consensus is that his death was accidental. A CT scan taken in 2005 shows that
he had badly broken his leg shortly before his death, and that the leg had
become infected. DNA analysis conducted in 2010 showed the presence of
malaria in his system. It is believed that these two conditions (malaria and
leiomyoma) combined, led to his death
 Tomb was gradully obscured by other buildings
 On November 4, 1922, workmen uncovered the top step of a staircase which
archaeologist Howard Carter followed to discover eleven stairs and a sealed
door.
 His eyes are white quartz with pupils of black obsidian, both godlike and human,
 Buried with a huge array of goods - from shrines and ritual couches, to three
coffins nestling one inside the other, to personal objects Tutankhamen would
need in the afterlife - game boxes, gloves, even what some believe to be a
tailor's mannequin for modelling his clothes.
 The entire contents of Tutankhamen's tomb can be seen as a portrait of the dead
king. But can this mask be called a portrait? It is idealised and hieratic, the
features mystically regular, a face turned into imperishable metal and stone.
 His symmetrical, neatly folded gold headdress is crowned with the cobra and
vulture, symbols of Lower and Upper Egypt.
Transition: In King Tut’s time in the New Kingdom, Egypt was unified, but there
was a eriod of time when that wasn’t the case. Egypt joined in c. 3000 BCE with
Narmer,an early “pre-dynastic” ruler.
Slide: The Narmer Palette (both sides)
 Early Dynastic Period, c. 2950-2775 BCE
 Found in Hierakonpolis, the ancient Pre-Dynastic capital located in the south of
Egypt, by a British archaeologist during the excavation season of 1897/98
 Green schist stone, height 25” (65 cm)
 Egyptian museum, Cairo (recent looting)
We see Ancient Egyptian artistic conventions here;
- hieratic scale (more important=bigger)
- space in horizontal registers
- simplified drawings and contours
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-This stele announces the unification of Egypt and the beginning of the country’s
growth as an important power and nation-state
-exhibits many of the visual conventions that would be important from this point
on
-Narmer was first king of unified Egypt
-ruler’s name is in early form of hieroglyphics at center top of both sides of
palette
-horizontal fish=nar + vertical chisel=mer, inside of a palace façade
-palette=flat stone with circular depression on one side used for grinding
paint
-men and women painted their eyes to help reduce glare and infection
-carved in low relief, larger than normal palette, therefore it might have been
votive offering because it was found in temple to Horus (25 inches tall)
-Narmer wears crown of upper Egypt on one side and lower Egypt on the other
What is Narmer being depicted doing?
 -shows him in power vignettes as a unifier, protector, conqueror, leader
 -hieratic scale signifies status of people and groups within these vignettes, with
Narmer always as the largest
 -bull tail hangs from his waist- signifies strength
 -barefoot (attendant holds his sandals on both sides of the palette)
Why might he be barefoot? He’s on sacred ground, he performs sacred acts, tie
between king and gods.
 -On the back of the palette, he bashes an enemy with a club while Horus (sky
god, falcon-headed) holds rope around neck of a man whose head sprouts
papyrus (grows on banks of Nile and symbolizes lower Egypt);
 two other vanquished victims are in the lower register on this side
 message is that Narmer has brought lower Egypt under his control
 top register of opposite side: Narmer wears the Red Crown of Lower Egypt- ruler
of both lands
 attendant sandal-bearer behind him, his minister of state and four men are in
front of him carrying standards that symbolize different regions of the country
 decapitated bodies are arranged in two neat rows
 center register: elongated necks of two feline creatures – symbolizes the ordering
and taming of mythical figures, indicates the king controls nature and the cosmos
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intertwining necks may refer to the union of upper and lower Egypt
bull menaces a fallen foe in the bottom register- bull symbolizes strength and
virility; stand-in for Narmer
Slide: Close up of upper register of front of palette
What do we notice about the Human body in Egyptian art?
 twisted perspective: a method of depicting the human body so as to represent
each part from its most characteristic/aesthetically pleasing angle (*composite*)
 heads in profile, which allows for the nose, forehead, and chin to be clearly
delineated
 BUT eyes are frontal
 hips and legs are in profile, one leg in front of the other (this stance is very
indicative of “power” in Egyptian statues) while torso is fully frontal
 think of the 5 legged lamassau figure we saw last lesson – these figures are
more conceptual than realistic
 these conventions were almost always followed when depicting royalty and other
dignitaries- persons of lesser social rank sometimes appear in more natural
positions
 similar conventions determine how architecture, objects, and animals are
depicted: groundlines establish horizontal registers in which the uppermost
register is the most distant
 landscape combines the birds-eye view of a map with the depiction of elements
such as the trees from the side
Canon of proportions
Slide: Egyptian Canon of proportions
Slide: Vitruvian Man (compare)
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the set of mathematical proportions used to visually render the ideal image of the
human form
fist a unit
Hands to measure a horse
Egyptian artistic conventions – A SET WAY OF REPRESENTING THE VISUAL
WORLD:
- conventions: customary ways of representing people and the world,
generally used by artists and understood by patrons
o images are based on memory rather than study from life (different from
18th – 21st C painting conventions)
o mathematical formulas determine proportions
o importance determines size (hieratic scale)
o space is represented in horizontal registers
o drawing and contours are simplified
o colors are organized into clearly delineated planes of flat, solid, unvarying
hues
Just like we saw with Naramsin, Sargon, Gudea and others in the Ancient Near
East, depictions of rulers – royal portraits – were an important tool in conveying
the importance, and power over a mass of subjects for the Ancient Egyptians.
Conventions allowed a critical mass of people to understand a shared visual
language, and thus to comprehend the messages implicit in royal portraiture.
Today, we’re going to look at 1) conventions for royal portraits in Ancient Egypt,
2) link between gods and kings, often realized in temple architecture and 3)
Ancient Egyptian belief in the afterlife, “ka,” which often manifested in funerary
architecture
SLIDE: map
- By about 8000 BCE, inhabitants around the Nile (longest river in the world) had
become relatively sedentary but it’s not until
- 5000 BCE: aforementioned inhabitants adopt the agricultural lifestyle that
characterizes the Neolithic culture
- the common challenges presented by growing enough food in the increasingly
arid and dry north African climate lead the villages flanking the Nile to form
alliances with one another
- villages began to consolidate, conquering and/or absorbing weaker groups
- it’s not until approximately 3000 BCE however that Egypt becomes unified under
one ruler
- Egyptian history is divided into dynasties: periods in which members of the same
families inherited Egypt’s throne
- Before this dynastic rule, Egyptian history is known quite literally as the
“Predynastic period”: 5000-2950 BCE.
- According to Egyptian legend, earliest rulers/kings were gods who ruled on Earth
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Primary aim of Egyptian representations in both two and three dimensions
was to create images that would function as meaningful part of the cults of
the gods and the dead.
The associated aim of these works was to consolidate the power and rule
of the few over the masses. Only the rich could afford to have these works
made. Not everyone had them. Indeed, few people did. Again, *theme*, the
notion of objects as a visual manifestation of power and rule, both human and
divine.
 Old Kingdom 2575-2150 BCE
Slide: Pyramids
The Old Kingdom is the phase around 300 years after Dynastic rule starts, after
Narmer unites Egypt and power is handed down successively within ruling royal
families.
- growing wealth of the ruling families contributed to the increasing size and
complexity of the tomb structures
- often within these tombs are commissioned life-size or colossal royal portraits
- upper-level govmt officials could also afford to have elaborately decorated tombs
How did the pyramids come to be structured in the way they were, and What are
some of the term for Funerary Architecture of this period?
Slide: Funerary architecture
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The first pyramid was Djoser's Step Pyramid, built not long after Egypt had become a
unified land (in approximately 3000 BC). The Great Pyramid of Khufu, at Giza, was
raised a century later.
But these pyramids did not come from a technological void. A clear evolution can be
traced from the most ancient prehistoric graves to the splendours of the Giza plateau.
There are 138 pyramids discovered in Egypt as of 2008. Most were built as tombs for
the country's Pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods
Mastaba
 -most common tomb structure of Early dynastic Egypt, used by upper level of
society
 -flat-topped 1 story bldg with slanted walls above and underground burial
chamber
 -serdab-small sealed room with ka statue, chapel for mourning relatives and
offerings and a shaft to a burial chamber where the mummy was encased in a
sarcophagus or coffin surrounded by grave goods; chamber sealed after burial
 the term “necropolis” was used for a collection of these, still used today for
graveyards in cities
Djoser’s pyramid
 Djoser's pyramid has a stepped appearance. It is an extension of the mound
found in mastaba tombs and is usually interpreted as a symbolic mound of
creation, or a stairway to heaven.
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The tomb started life as an unusual square, solid mastaba, but a series of
extensions saw it develop into a six-stepped pyramid with a rectangular groundplan.
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Below ground, a warren of tunnels, galleries and rooms surrounded Djoser's
burial chamber. Around the pyramid, his mortuary complex included courts and
buildings, each with its own particular function
Meidum Pyramid
 At Meidum, 30 miles south of Memphis, King Snefru (the first king of the 4th
Dynasty, who came to the throne around 2613 BC) built Egypt's first true, or
straight-sided, pyramid. This started as a stepped pyramid, but as it neared
completion the steps were packed with stone and the whole structure was cased
in finest limestone. In its final form the pyramid stood approximately 311ft (95m)
high.
 Unfortunately the pyramid was unsound. Its heavy outer layers eventually slid
downwards, leaving a square, three-stepped core standing in a mountain of sand
and rubble and the ruins of the pyramid complex.
Slide: Pyramids at Giza
So, we come to the “iconic” image of Egyptian architecture and art
http://www.history.com/topics/the-egyptian-pyramids/videos#the-great-pyramidsdeconstructed
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the first true pyramids were built during the 4th dynasty, (2575 BCE – 2450 BCE), the
beginning of the Old Kingdom
-angled sides probably symbolized the rays of the sun; there are inscriptions within the
monuments talk about pharaohs climbing up the rays to join the sun god Ra
-3 Great Pyramids of Giza built by 4th dynasty kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure (MenCow-Ray)
-Khufu’s is Oldest and largest (13 acres base), 481 feet tall (about 30 feet taller than
today) with limestone veneer, then Khafre (his son) and then Menkaure,
-each pyramid has funerary temple next to it with causeway leading to Nile; when
pharaoh died his body was ferried across the river to the West bank and was met with
ceremonies, and taken into the chapel where his family fed the spirit and brought
offerings; body entombed deep within the pyramid
-built so that the kings would never be disturbed: Khufu's tomb chamber is at the end of
a narrow, steep passage deep within the masonry of the pyramid, sealed with a 50-ton
stone block; also 3 false passageways to deter grave looters.
What can the pyramids tell us about Egyptian society in terms of the move
towards civilization and culture we have begun to talk about already in Chapters 1
and 2?
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They are more than mathematical puzzles. They hold the key to understanding
the structure of Egyptian society. The pyramids were built, not by the gangs of
slaves often portrayed by Hollywood film moguls, but by a workforce of up to
5,000 permanent employees, supplemented by as many as 20,000 temporary
workers, who would work for three or four months on the pyramid site, before
returning home.
The bureaucracy that we know lay behind this operation is staggering. Not only
did the workforce have to be summoned, housed and fed, but administrators also
had to coordinate the supplies of stone, rope, fuel and wood that were needed to
support the building work.
Pyramid studies confirm that a pre-mechanical society can, given adequate
resources and the will to succeed, achieve great things. Pyramid building would
have been impossible without strong government backed up by an efficient civil
service.
Thus, the pyramids are, like Stonehenge or the Ziggurats at Ur, monumental
structures that reveal and mirror the society that constructed them.
As with the contents of the ziggurats, these pyramids contained objects too:
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Images of the dead ensured their survival in the next world, and their
continuation of power.
These images provided crucial points of contact between the dead and the living:
dead could receive the offerings brought by the living
An image depicting an offering being made to the dead meant that those
represented items would be available in the next world (an extension of the cave
paintings we looked at where the image of a successful hunt might engender
success in real terms)
 Q: Why did Egyptian rulers build such monumental tombs?
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-Part of the reason was certainly to do with a bombastic display of power.
However, Egyptians believed that essential part of every human’s spirit was life
force or ka that lived on after death
-the ka needed a body to live in, like a sculpted likeness
it was important to provide a comfortable body for the king so he would live on
and ensure well-being of Egypt
-this was part of the elaborate funerary practices to help the dead move on to the
afterlife
-preserved bodies (mummified them) helped ensure the “ka” would live on in the
same way the funerary statues would; the living also filled chambers with all the
things the dead might need for eternity
Slide: Menkaure and Khamerernebty (Camera-nebty) AND KHAFRE
Similar funerary statue to Khafre’s
 -Menkaure was Khafre's heir
 -Again, an air of dignity, calm, permanence to the statue
 Again, found in Menkaure’s valley temple, part of his pyramid complex
Class Q: What do you notice about the figures, and how do they compare to
Khafre’s statues? what elements unite them as a couple?
 -figures depicted almost the same size, joined by the stone from which they
emerge
 -symbolic embracing gesture
 -poses echo each other
 -calm facial expressions
 -Pharaohs were depicted as youthful and athletic; this pose is typically Egyptian,
balanced: left foot forward with arms straight to sides clenching cylindrical objects
 -queen has sheer, tight fitting garment that emphasizes her curves- note the
impossibly tight, second skin garment (emphasis on fertility)
 -traces of red paint on Menkaure; black paint on queen's hair
These statues give us an “ideal’ rather than “real” depiction of these rulers.
Slide: “Seated Scribe” and “Butcher”
In comparison to the ruler funerary statues, what do we notice about these
figures? These figures were also found in tombs.
Method: Compare and contrast will often be used in art history exams!
 -less prominent figure, more lively and less formal than royal portraiture
 Lower in status than a king; more realistic depiction
 -What elements are naturalistic?
 -round head and face, alert expression, close-cropped hair
 -scribe writes on papyrus tablet; sedentary job has made him flabby (free from
hard labor, prosperous), curving rounded forms of stomach and pecs
 -right hand probably held reed pen
 -eyes give illusion of being in motion because pupils are slightly off-center from
irises; also makes him appear intelligent
 -found near tomb of government official named Kai, could be portrait of him
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-high ranking scribes were considered important, copies scientific and priestly
texts which were placed in early libraries
the butcher is depicted in action, perhaps guaranteeing the deceased will have
food in the next life, or perhaps a “real” image of someone he wanted to take with
him performing an auspicious act like that of providing food
What else was found in these large tomb structures apart from statuary?
Slide: Mummification on tomb wall (Annubis, god of mummification, attending to a
mummy)
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-basic process of mummification has been found in images painted on tomb
walls: body went to mortuary, priest supervised workers removing brains through
the nose, emptied the body cavity through incision in left side, placed body and
major organs in a vat of natural salt for a month or more, which blackened the
body so that they had to dye it to restore color
-Color conventions extended from the walls to the painting of the actual body
itself so red ocher was used for man, yellow for woman
-packed body with clean linen soaked in herbs and ointments
-wrapped organs and placed them in jars that were placed in the tomb chamber
-wound the body with cloth strips often inserting charms amidst the wrapping;
book of the dead might be placed btwn mummy’s legs
Slide: Book of the Dead
What was the Book of the Dead?
- A little like a subway map, the Book of the dead: funerary text with illustrations
- Provides the deceased with the knowledge necessary to reach the next world
safely though spells and explanations
The Book of the Dead was used from c1500 BCE onwards in the New Kingdom, so not
in the time of the Pyramids, but during the Old Kingdom there were similar texts from
which the Book of the Dead derives in part.
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Books of the Dead were usually illustrated with pictures showing the tests to
which the deceased would be subjected.
The most important was the weighing of the heart of the dead person against
Ma'at, or Truth (carried out by Anubis). The heart of the dead was weighed
against a feather, and if the heart was not weighed down with sin (if it was lighter
than the feather) he was allowed to go on.
The god Thoth would record the results and the monster Ammit would wait
nearby to eat the heart should it prove unworthy.
The earliest known versions date from the 16th century BC during the 18th
Dynasty (ca. 1580 BC1350 BC). It partly incorporated two previous collections of
Egyptian religious literature, known as the Coffin Texts (ca. 2000 BC) and the
Pyramid Texts (ca. 2600 BC-2300 BC), both of which were eventually
superseded by the Book of the Dead.
 Here we have another example of a funerary monument that was meant to preserve
“ka” and help the Pharaoh into the next life while preserving his power in the present
through memorialization.
 See example on the Met website for further reading:
 Nany, a woman in her seventies, was a chantress (ritual singer) of the god
Amun-Re
 Her coffin and boxes of shawabtis (servant figures) were accompanied by a
hollow wooden Osiris figure, which contained a papyrus scroll inscribed with a
collection of texts from the Book of the Dead, known to the Egyptians as the
"Book of Coming Forth by Day."
 It is more than seventeen feet long when unrolled.
 The scene depicted here shows the climax of the journey to the afterlife.
Nany is in the Hall of Judgment. Holding her mouth and eyes in her hand,
she stands to the left of a large scale
Mummification video: http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/videos#how-tomake-a-mummy
Book of Dea/Journey to the Afterlife: http://www.history.com/topics/ancientegypt/videos#journey-to-the-afterlife
Transition: The final monumental funerary work I’d like us to look at is a complex
from the New Kingdom, an unusual one.
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A number of important ancient cities and temples are known from ancient Egypt.
One of the most famous cities is Thebes, a major religious center and the burial
place of the kings of the New Kingdom.
The city’s tombs, including the Valley of the Kings and Queens, are located on
the west bank of the river Nile, in the area’s limestone cliffs. The mortuary
temples of many of the New Kingdom kings edge the flood plain of the Nile.
To the north stand the temples of Karnak. Karnak can be divided into four
sections; central Karnak, with houses a temple to the god Amun.
The temple of Amun at Karnak is made up of a series of separate structures and
features that combine to form one huge building complex.
Arriving at the temple, the worshiper passed the ceremonial tribune and
proceeded down a sphinx-lined alleyway. Extending out from the west side of the
temple towards the Nile, this would have been the main temple entrance.
Before entering the temple, one passed through a monumental stone pylon.
Once past the first pylon, the visitor stood in one of the temple courtyards.
The first court led through the second pylon and into the hypostyle hall.
The heart of Karnak lies in its sanctuary. It is here, in the central-most part of the
building, where the statue of the god Amun-Ra would have been housed and
where the temple’s “daily ritual” took place. The god’s image was stored within a
stone naos or shrine.
Hatshepsut and Thutmose III
 Dynastic dramas played out within Karnak’s halls, as a king’s imagery in the
cultic space was seen as directly linked to his memory and legitimacy. Rulers
who had fallen from grace could literally be “excised” from history, and the
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erasures and modifications tell the story of those who rose and fell spectacularly
from power.
One such case is that of the 18th Dynasty queen Hatshepsut, wife and half-sister
of king Thutmose II and daughter of king Thutmose I. The queen acted as regent for her husband’s heir, Thutmose III (a son of the king by a secondary wife),
when pharaoh died and left the child the throne. (r. c. 1473-1458 BCE)
Reliefs and statuary from Karnak and other temples show that she waited no
more than seven years to proclaim herself pharaoh, assigning herself royal
titulary and representing herself in image as a male king.
She built extensively at Karnak, erecting at least two obelisks and a series of
papyri-form
When the queen died, Thutmose III regained his crown and sat alone on the
throne for thirty-two years. Some time after the king’s sole reign began,
Hatshepsut’s constructions at Thebes were changed, defaced, destroyed, or
covered up.
At Karnak, this process included the erasure of relief scenes of the queen,
destruction of reliefs in the series of rooms she built in the center of the temple
(the “palace of Ma’at”), the bricking in of the base of her obelisks she had builtl,
and the dismantling and defacing of the queen’s central shrine, the “red chapel.”
Evidence of all these changes can still be seen at Karnak today.
Many historians have interpreted these modifications as examples of the final revenge of Thutmose III against the hated aunt who had co-opted his throne. However, Thutmose III did not begin his proscription against the image and name of
Hatshepsut until nearly twenty years after her death.
Instead of being motivated by revenge, it may have therefore been just a
“covering up” of what the king now decided set a bad precedent ‒ allowing
women to wield unchecked power.
In either case, the Karnak temple served as the main locus for “re-writing”
history, showing the importance of this structure in royal presentation.
What is The Valley of the Kings and Queens?
It is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th
century BC, tombs were constructed for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New
Kingdom. The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes (modern
Luxor).
Slide: Hatshepsut Kneeling ON VIEW AT THE MET!
What do we notice?
- offering
- male form, beard, linen loincloth, headdress
 The kneeling pose was assumed by Egyptian kings when they came into close
proximity with a deity, for instance, when the pharoah opened the shrine in which
the god's image resided.
 According to the inscription on the base, Hatshepsut is represented here as "the
one who gives Maat to Amun." Maat was the goddess of order, right balance,
and justice, and for a king to offer an image of Maat to another deity meant
reaffirming that this was the guiding principle of his/her rule
 When the Met museum excavation team went to Egypt in the late 1920s they
found this and other statues in fragments. The serpent on her headdress was
hacked off, her eyes were picked out, and the entire sculpture was subsequently
smashed to pieces. Like all the statues the Met now owns, this figure has been
reassembled from fragments discovered in various dumps near Hatshepsut's
funerary temple at Deir el Bahri.
The Rosetta Stone, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 196 BC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/awwjbIoORUaQXm9LmiTz8A
 The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a
decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V.
 Prior to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and its eventual decipherment, there
had been no understanding of the Ancient Egyptian language and script since
shortly before the fall of the Roman Empire.
 The usage of the hieroglyphic script had become increasingly specialised even in
the later Pharaonic period; by the 4th century AD, few Egyptians were capable of
reading hieroglyphs.
 The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script (cursive Coptic, an Egyptian
script), and the lowest Ancient Greek.
 Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor
differences between them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of
Egyptian hieroglyphs.
 The Greek text on the Rosetta Stone provided the starting point. Ancient Greek
was widely known to scholars, but the details of its use in the Hellenistic period
as a government language in Ptolemaic Egypt were not familiar: lthe earliest
translations of the Greek text of the stone show the translators still struggling with
the historical context and with administrative and religious jargon
 Originally displayed within a temple, the stele was probably moved during the early
Christian or medieval period and eventually used as building material in the
construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta.
 It was rediscovered there in 1799 by a soldier, Pierre-François Bouchard, of the
French expedition to Egypt.
 As the first ancient trilingual text recovered in modern times, the Rosetta Stone
aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher the hitherto
untranslated Ancient Egyptian language.Lithographic copies and plaster casts
began circulating amongst European museums and scholars.
 Meanwhile, British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, and the original
stone came into British possession under the Capitulation of Alexandria.
Transported to London, it has been on public display at the British Museum since
1802. It is the most-visited object in the British Museum.
 Since 2003, demands for the stone's return to Egypt.
 Decipherment of the Egyptian texts was announced by Jean-François Champollion
in Paris in 1802
 The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a larger stele
In class Quiz for Egypt
1) Discuss how the Palette of Narmer is an early example of several ancient Egyptian
conventions of representation.
Twisted perspective
Simplified contoured figures
Low relief
Different registers used to indicate distance and hierarchy
Hieratic scale
Animal figures used to indicate the narrative (eg. Intertwined tails of the bulls =
unification)
Hieroglyphs
Equating earthly ruler with godly ruler
Glorification of the king
2) What is “ka”? Which structures and objects were created in the “funerary industry” of
Ancient Egypt, and why? Link some of the objects we have discussed in class today to
the way Ancient Egyptian material culture reveals cultural attitudes toward death.