To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART
Egyptian art and architecture, the ancient architectural monuments, sculptures, paintings, and applied crafts produced mainly during the dynastic periods of the first three millennia BCE in the Nile valley regions of Egypt and Nubia.
The course of art in Egypt paralleled to a large extent the country’s political history, but it depended as well on the entrenched belief in the permanence of the natural, divinely ordained order.
Artistic achievement in both architecture and representational art aimed at the preservation of forms and conventions that were held to reflect the perfection of the world at the primordial moment of creation and to embody the correct relationship between humankind, the king, and the pantheon of the gods.
For this reason, Egyptian art appears outwardly resistant to development and the exercise of individual artistic judgment, but Egyptian artisans of every historical period found different solutions for the conceptual challenges posed to them.
For the purposes of definition, “ancient Egyptian” is essentially coterminous with pharaonic Egypt, the dynastic structure of Egyptian history, artificial though it may partly be, providing a convenient chronological framework.
The distinctive periods are: Predynastic (c. 6th millennium BCE–c. 2925 BCE); Early Dynastic (1st–3rd dynasties, c. 2925–c. 2575 BCE); Old Kingdom (4th–8th dynasties, c. 2575–c. 2130 BCE); First Intermediate (9th–11th dynasties, c. 2130–1939 BCE); Middle Kingdom (12th–14th dynasties, 1938–c. 1630 BCE); Second Intermediate (15th–17th dynasties, c. 1630–1540 BCE); New Kingdom (18th–20th dynasties, 1539–1075 BCE); Third Intermediate (21st–25th dynasties, c. 1075–656 BCE); and Late (26th–31st dynasties, 664–332 BCE).
Geographical factors were predominant in forming the particular character of Egyptian art. By providing Egypt with the most predictable agricultural system in the ancient world, the Nile afforded a stability of life in which arts and crafts readily flourished.
Equally, the deserts and the sea, which protected Egypt on all sides, contributed to this stability by discouraging serious invasion for almost 2,000 years. The desert hills were rich in minerals and fine stones, ready to be exploited by artists and craftspeople.
Only good wood was lacking, and the need for it led the Egyptians to undertake foreign expeditions to Lebanon, to Somalia, and, through intermediaries, to tropical Africa. In general, the search for useful and precious materials determined the direction of foreign policy and the establishment of trade routes and led ultimately to the enrichment of Egyptian material culture. For further treatment, see Egypt; Middle Eastern religions, ancient.
Predynastic period
The term predynastic denotes the period of emerging cultures that preceded the establishment of the 1st dynasty in Egypt. In the 6th millennium BCE there began to emerge patterns of civilization that displayed characteristics deserving to be called Egyptian.
The accepted sequence of predynastic cultures is based on the excavations of British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie at Naqādah, at Al-ʿĀmirah (El-ʿÂmra), and at Al-Jīzah (El-Giza). Another earlier stage of predynastic culture has been identified at Al-Badārī in Upper Egypt.
From graves at Al-Badārī, Dayr Tasa, and Al-Mustaqiddah evidence of a relatively rich and developed artistic and industrial culture has been retrieved. Pottery of a fine red polished ware with blackened tops already shows distinctive Egyptian shapes.
Copper was worked into small ornaments, and beads of steatite (soapstone) show traces of glazing. Subsequently, in the Naqādah I and Naqādah II stages, predynastic civilization developed steadily. Pottery remains the distinctive product, showing refinement of technique and the development of adventurous decoration.
Shapes already found in Badarian graves were produced in Naqādah I with superior skill and decorated with geometric designs of white-filled lines and even representations of animals.
Later, new clays were exploited, and fine buff-coloured wares were decorated in dark red pigment with scenes of ships, figures, and a wide variety of symbols.
The working of hard stones also began in earnest in the later Predynastic period. At first craftspeople were devoted to the fashioning of fine vessels based on existing pottery forms and to the making of jewelry incorporating semiprecious stones.
Sculpture found its best beginnings not so much in representations of the human form (although figurines, mostly female, were made from Badarian times) as in the carving of small animal figures and the making of schist (slate) palettes (intended originally for the preparation of eye paint) and ivory knife handles. The Hunters and Battlefield palettes show sophisticated two-dimensional representation.
The basic techniques of two-dimensional art—drawing and painting—are exemplified in Upper Egyptian rock drawings and in the painted tomb at Hierakonpolis, now lost. Scenes of animals, boats, and hunting (the common subjects of rock drawings) were more finely executed in paint in the tomb, and additional themes, probably of conquest, presaged those found in dynastic art.
Ancient Egyptian Architecture
The pharaohs, priests and the royals lived in well build houses ado with paintings and sculptures. The pharaohs believed to be agent god, when they died they were buried in special tombs called pyramid The pyramids probably took around 20 years to build.
They were so bi^ that they used to house all belongings of the pharaohs including their wives and servants who were buried with them. They believed that the dead pharaoh being god still needed servants in another world This used granite doors and false passages to deter robbers. However bv 1000 B.C all pyramids had been robbed of their precious contents.
Dynastic Egypt
Evidence suggests that the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt drew together the various threads of what was to become the rich tapestry of Egyptian culture and started the intricate weave on the loom of time. Many of the new artistic developments undoubtedly can be traced back to the Naqādah II period; but the abundant evidence from the great tombs of the 1st dynasty at Abydos and Ṣaqqārah far outweighs what was found in the modest burials of earlier times.
The impression is certainly one of an extraordinary efflorescence of civilization. The motif of conquest is dramatically characterized in the scenes shown on the Narmer Palette, where Narmer (better known as Menes), probably the last ruler of predynastic Egypt, is depicted as the triumphant ruler.
The Narmer representations display much of what is typical of Egyptian art of the Dynastic period. Here is the characteristic image of the king smiting his enemy, depicted with the conventions that distinguish Egyptian two-dimensional art.
The head is shown in profile, but the eye in full; the shoulders are frontally represented, while the torso is at three-quarters view; the legs again are in profile.
To render each part of the human form from its most characteristic viewpoint was the principal intention of the artist—to show what he knew was there, not simply what he could see from one perspective.
Further conventions, well established by the 4th dynasty, included the showing of both hands and feet, right and left, without distinction. Scenes were set on baselines, and the events were placed in sequence, usually from right to left.
Unity in a scene was provided by the focal figure of the most important person, the king or tomb owner. Relative size established importance: the ruler dwarfed the generally high official, while the tomb owner dwarfed his wife and, still more so, his children.
Conservatism in artistic matters was nurtured by a relative coherence of culture, strengthened by a vigorous tradition of scribal training and tempered by a canon of proportion for the representation of the human figure.
In the Old Kingdom, walls prepared for decoration were marked out with red horizontal guidelines; in later times vertical lines were added. During much of the Dynastic period a grid of 18 rows of squares was used to contain the standing figure of a man; from the 26th dynasty, 21 rows of squares were used for the same purpose.
At different periods, variations in the placing of specific bodily features produced interesting and subtle nuances. During the so-called Amarna period a distinctive reappraisal of the canon took place. The full range of changes and the many variants still remain to be studied, but it is clear that the basic canon lay deeply rooted in the training of the Egyptian artist.
Architecture
The two principal building materials used in ancient Egypt were unbaked mud brick and stone. From the Old Kingdom onward stone was generally used for tombs—the eternal dwellings of the dead—and for temples—the eternal houses of the gods.
Mud brick remained the domestic material, used even for royal palaces; it was also used for fortresses, the great walls of temple precincts and towns, and for subsidiary buildings in temple complexes.
Most ancient Egyptian towns have been lost because they were situated in the cultivated and flooded area of the Nile Valley; many temples and tombs have survived because they were built on ground unaffected by the Nile flood.
Any survey of Egyptian architecture will in consequence be weighted in favour of funerary and religious buildings. Yet the dry, hot climate of Egypt has allowed some mud brick structures to survive where they have escaped the destructive effects of water or man.
Tomb architecture
Mortuary architecture in Egypt was highly developed and often grandiose. The tomb was a place in which a corpse might be protected from desecration and be provided with material objects to ensure continued existence after death.
Part of the tomb might be decorated with scenes that would enable the individual to pursue magically an afterlife suitable and similar to his or her worldly existence. For a king the expectations were quite different; for him the tomb became the vehicle whereby he might achieve his exclusive destiny with the gods in a celestial afterlife.
Most tombs comprised two principal parts, the burial chamber (the tomb proper) and the chapel, in which offerings for the deceased could be made. In royal burials the chapel rapidly developed into a mortuary temple, which beginning in the New Kingdom was usually built separately and at some distance from the tomb. In the following discussion, funerary temples built separately will be discussed with temples in general and not as part of the funerary complex.
Royal tombs
In the earliest dynasties the tombs of kings and high officials were made of mud brick and of such similar size that it is difficult to distinguish between them. The tombs at Abydos are royal, whereas those at Ṣaqqārah are noble.
The latter, better preserved than the former, reveal rectangular superstructures, called mastabas (see below), with sides constructed in the form of paneled niches painted white and decorated with elaborate “matting” designs.
These great superstructures were constructed over many storage chambers stocked with food and equipment for the deceased, who lay in a rectangular burial chamber below ground. Also within the superstructure, but not always clearly evident, was a low mound of earth, possibly representing the grave of earlier times.
The Step Pyramid of Djoser, second king of the 3rd dynasty, was built within a vast enclosure on a commanding site at Ṣaqqārah, overlooking the city of Memphis. A high royal official, Imhotep, has traditionally been credited with the design and with the decision to use quarried stone.
This first essay in stone is remarkable for its design of six superposed stages of diminishing size, and also for its huge enclosure (1,784 by 909 feet [544 by 277 metres]) surrounded by a paneled wall faced with fine limestone and containing a series of “mock” buildings that probably represent structures associated with the heraldic shrines of Upper and Lower Egypt.
There the Egyptian stonemasons made their earliest architectural innovations, using stone to reproduce the forms of early wood and brick buildings. Fine reliefs of the king and elaborate wall panels in glazed tiles in parts of the subterranean complexes are among the innovations found in this remarkable monument.
Pyramid of Khufu
For the Old Kingdom the most characteristic form of tomb building was the true pyramid, the finest example of which is the Great Pyramid of King Khufu (Cheops) of the 4th dynasty, at Al-Jīzah (Giza). The form itself reached its maturity in the reign of Snefru, father of Khufu.
Subsequently only the pyramid of Khafre (Chephren), Khufu’s successor, approached the size and perfection of the Great Pyramid. The simple measurements of the Great Pyramid indicate very adequately its scale, monumentality, and precision: its sides are 755.43 feet (230.26 metres; north), 756.08 feet (230.45 metres; south), 755.88 feet (230.39 metres; east), 755.77 feet (230.36 metres; west); its orientation on the cardinal points is almost exact; its height upon completion was 481.4 feet (146.7 metres); and its area at the base is just over 13 acres (5.3 hectares). Other features in its construction contribute substantially to its remarkable character: the lofty, corbeled Grand Gallery and the granite-built King’s Chamber with five relieving compartments (empty rooms for reducing pressure) above.
The pyramid formed the focal point of a group of buildings that constituted the funerary complex of a king. Two temples linked by a causeway were essential components. The valley temple, built on the edge of the desert escarpment, was the place of reception for the royal body. The most striking valley temple is that of Khafre, a structure of massive granite blocks with huge alabaster flooring slabs, starkly simple but immensely impressive. The best-preserved causeway serves the pyramid of King Unas of the 5th dynasty; it contains low-relief wall decorations and a ceiling adorned with stars. The pyramid temple of Unas is distinguished by the extensive use of granite for architectural elements, including doorways and splendid monolithic columns with palm capitals.
The pyramids built for the later kings of the Old Kingdom and most kings of the Middle Kingdom were comparatively smaller in size and not as well constructed. The tomb of King Mentuhotep II of the 11th dynasty is, however, of exceptional interest. Its essential components were a rectangular structure, terraced porticos, a series of pillared ambulatories, an open court, and a hypostyle hall tucked into the cliffs.
The monumentality of the pyramid made it not only a potent symbol of royal power but also an obvious target for tomb robbers. During the New Kingdom the wish to halt the robbing and desecration of royal tombs led to their being sited together in a remote valley at Thebes, dominated by a peak that itself resembled a pyramid.
There, in the Valley of the Kings, tombs were carved deep into the limestone with no outward structure. The earliest tombs were entirely hidden from view; those of the Ramessid period (19th and 20th dynasties) are marked only by a doorway carved in the rock face.
They had no identical plan, but most consisted of a series of corridors opening out at intervals to form rooms and ending in a large burial chamber deep in the mountain. The finest of the tombs is that of Seti I, second king of the 19th dynasty; it extends 328 feet (100 metres) into the mountain and contains a spectacular burial chamber, the barrel-shaped roof of which represents the vault of heaven.
After the abandonment of the valley at the end of the 20th dynasty, kings of the subsequent two dynasties were buried in very simple tombs within the temple enclosure of the delta city of Tanis. No later royal tombs have ever been identified in Egypt proper.