238 Statue of Darius. Susa. Greywacke. 2.46 m (8 ft) high. 522–486 BC.
‘I Shall Bring No More Offerings For You’: The Latest Art of Pharaonic Egypt |
As noted at the end of Chapter 12, following more than 2,000 years of pharaonic civilization, the atrocities of the Assyrian invasion of 664 BC were not about to extinguish the spiritual heart of Egypt. Likewise, a century of Persian rule from 525 BC left little trace on Egyptian art and architecture. Ironically, a colossal limestone statue of the Persian emperor Darius the Great (522–486 BC), which sat beside a palace doorway at Susa in Iran, is immediately recognizable as a pharaonic statue, down to the hieroglyphic inscriptions identifying the king with Atum and Ra-Horakhty [238]. Though the king himself is modelled in Persian dress, the pleats of which have been inscribed in three of the languages of the Persian empire, the statue is unequivocally Egyptian, more than likely sculpted in Egypt under the supervision of Darius’ contemporary ‘overseer of works’, Khnemibra. In effect, it shows the foreign ruler offering a pharaonic interpretation of himself to his own people, instead of presenting an occupier’s face to Egypt.
In the second half of the 1st millennium BC the ongoing search for inspiration in the art of earlier generations created renewed interest in polished hard stones for statues, an emphasis unseen since the first two dynasties of kings. Perhaps this emphasis arose partly from the stones’ own aesthetic properties, perhaps from the magisterial presence of genuinely ancient statues now devoid of their colouration, and perhaps from an awareness that the most ancient models were indeed made in hard stones (cf. [97, 100]). (There is no unequivocal evidence for the regular adoption of iron tools in Egyptian stone-working before the 3rd century BC, so a simple technological change is apparently not the appropriate explanation.) A statue of a 30th Dynasty priest has a plain, powerful physique and a simple kilt, comparable to the modelling of king Menkaura (see pp. 51, 59) in the 4th Dynasty, along with a beaded wig that would not be out of place on a 5th Dynasty statue [239]. The use of lead cladding on a purported royal statue from the 4th century BC may be one instance of innovation during this time, but only in material, not in form.
239 Statue of an anonymous priest of Amun-Ra. Presumably from Karnak, near Thebes. Diorite. 0.51 m (1 ft 8 in.) high. 30th Dynasty.
The art of royalty
The increasing simplicity of relief decoration at this time, especially in the treatment of hieroglyphic inscriptions, may also reference the simplicity of origins. At the start of the 30th Dynasty, a distinctive group of temple reliefs of Nectanebo I (380–362 BC) [240] exhibits the ‘feral’ excesses of the human form in early Amarna art – Nectanebo’s ‘jutting chin and nose seem to close like pincers,’ notes Stevenson Smith – as well as the fleshy torso and heavy jowls of Ankhhaf and his Old Kingdom peers, not to mention the skull-tight cap and elevated uraeus-cobra associated with images of Kushite kings (see pp. 242–43). Such reliance on old times might well have been connected with political uncertainty, of course, but it is not at all out of step with traditional practice, which had always sought inspiration in archetypes. In fact, Nectanebo’s reliefs are examples of a genuine architectural innovation – that is, a stone screen now fitted between the columns at the far side of hypostyle halls (that is, at the junction with the colonnaded Sun-court) in preference to a full-length wall, which had been the New Kingdom standard.
Indeed, with regard to royal imagery temples as ever provide the most pertinent illustrations, while very little has survived from – or is even known about – the burials of the kings in Egypt after the 22nd Dynasty. For much of the 1st millennium BC, most building essentially maintained the development of New Kingdom temples, and the activity of the era is best exemplified at Karnak and on the west bank at Thebes. That said, the additions of 26th Dynasty kings to temples elsewhere, including Memphis and the cities of the Delta – where an extraordinary granite shrine of Amasis (Ahmose III, 570–526 BC) stands 8 metres (26 feet) above the ruins of the ancient temple at Mendes – witness the fact that ancient patterns of royal conduct still continued throughout the country [241]. The principal new foundation surviving from the Persian era is a temple built for Amun-Ra beyond the Nile Valley at Hibis in the western oasis of el-Kharga, where again Darius the Great is shown as a traditional pharaoh in the company of Egyptian gods. The sanctuary of the temple includes a sequence of scenes illustrating the original act of Creation by Amun-Ra – scenes seemingly adapted variously from Sety I’s temple at Abydos and the New Kingdom tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
240 Section of a wall showing Nectanebo I offering bread to the goddess Edjo. Obtained near Alexandria, originally from elsewhere. Greywacke. 1.23 m (4 ft) high. 30th Dynasty.
241 View of the only granite shrine surviving from a series erected by king Amasis at Mendes to accommodate images of the gods in the sequence Ra, Shu, Geb and Osiris (see pp. 37–38). 26th Dynasty.
242 View through the colonnaded Sun-court to the entrance of the hypostyle hall in the temple of Horus at Edfu.
The overthrow of Persian rule and the establishment of the 30th Dynasty in 380 BC, then the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC and subsequent rule by the descendants of his general Ptolemy, ushered in a new era of temple-building, not based on innovation so much as the opposite – the determination of the new regimes to establish themselves firmly within pharaonic tradition. From the 30th Dynasty temples were developed or built on old sites or new – from Philae and Elephantine in the Nubian borderlands to the far north in Heliopolis, Tanis and the new city of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast [243]. In its present form, the splendid avenue of sphinxes approaching Luxor Temple through the modern town dates from the reign of the first 30th Dynasty king, Nectanebo I – and so do the extant avenues at many other temples. At Naucratis in the Delta, a stela from the temple of the goddess Neith records Nectanebo’s stated intention of ‘protecting and augmenting the temple-offerings’. To this commitment, the Ptolemies – a foreign dynasty, at least to begin with – added the need to be seen as legitimate pharaohs, which perforce required temple-building (see pp. 20–21). The extant shrine of Amun-Ra in Luxor Temple was added for Alexander the Great (332–323 BC), while the shrine in Karnak was built for his ill-starred half-brother, Philip III (323–317 BC). During the 3rd century BC and, in particular, the middle of the 2nd century BC the relationship between the Ptolemaic kings and the priesthoods fostered a productive synergy between the economics of temple-building and the dynasty’s authority. Texts of this period, especially in the temple at Edfu [242] – which Ptolemy III Euergetes began rebuilding in 237 BC – remain the most detailed accounts we have of the whys and wherefores of building temples, typically inscribed above the traditional images of marshland as though to affirm the continuing reality of ‘the Risen Earth’ (see p. 46).
243 Statue of the god Horus with Nectanebo II. The composition is a writing of the king’s name. Heliopolis. Greywacke. 0.72 m (2 ft 4½ in.) high. 360–343 BC.
244 Scene on a wall in the temple of Hathor at Dendera, showing Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XV offering to the gods. 44–30 BC.
245 Statues of Ptolemy II and Arsinoë II, removed to the Sallustian Gardens in Rome by the emperor Caligula (AD 37–41), who probably commissioned the third statue to commemorate his late sister, Drusilla (died AD 38). Probably originally from Heliopolis. Granite. Each about 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in.) high. c. 280–260 BC.
With hindsight this was the last great age of pharaonic temple-building, and many temples exist today in the form in which they were built, decorated or redeveloped under Ptolemaic rule. These include iconic sites such as Debod (though the temple is now in Madrid), Philae, Kom Ombo and Dendera, as well as less familiar sites at Kalabsha, Elephantine, el-Kab, el-Tod, Coptos, Karnak, Medinet Habu, Deir el-Medina, Deir el-Bahri, Medamud, Thebaid Ptolemaïs, Hermopolis, Medinet Maadi, Hibis and, of course, Memphis and Saqqara. Today Edfu remains the best place to experience the architecture and decoration of an Egyptian temple as they would have been in ancient times, not as sanitized ruins. Many of these temples have survived because of the increasing distance of the south of the country from the major population centres, which by this time were concentrated in the north because of political and geographical shifts. Though the archaeology is much less well preserved in the Nile Delta, sites there from this era, such as Athribis and Alexandria, are the subject of ongoing investigation.
In the context of international politics, the Ptolemies developed the policy of presenting themselves as ‘king’ (basileus) in the Classical tradition of conspicuous ‘indulgence’ (tryphē). As has often been remarked, this policy may be reflected in the soft, fleshy forms of their Egyptian temple reliefs – round cheeks and deep-set eyes, ‘golf-ball’ chins, the rounded musculature of men, the heavy breasts of women. On the other hand, these characteristics are far from unknown in pharaonic art, whether in the decades preceding Ptolemaic rule or long before then. More pertinently for the present discussion, the Ptolemies essentially presented themselves within Egypt as traditional pharaohs [245]. To take a single well-known example, the reliefs of Cleopatra VII (51–30 BC) and her infant son Caesarion (Ptolemy XV) in the temple of Hathor at Dendera conform to the usual conventions of art, formally as well as in subject matter, including the infant king shown as an adult offering to the gods [244]. Indeed, much of what we know today about, for example, royal festivals or the cult of Osiris and Horus is detailed in temples of this period, including celebrated scenes of the primeval conflict of Horus and Seth (see p. 38) [246]. In belief, the king and queen remain the incarnations and chief officiants of the gods, so that even texts written in Greek refer to offerings made on their behalf. The model for architecture remains the New Kingdom temple, devoid of intrusive foreign architecture. Both the 30th Dynasty and the Ptolemies employed the best available native masons and sculptors to a large-scale, open-ended building programme, which returned both elegance and complexity to temple decoration, exemplified by ‘composite columns’ whose capitals incorporate various plant forms in a mesmerizing, extravagant and colourful new interpretation of ancient imagery. From the reign of Nectanebo I onward, temples were often provided with a new element, a mammisi or ‘birth place’ (a name derived from the Ancient Egyptian language but coined by Egyptologists), but this is simply a smaller, complementary temple where scenes of the queen’s insemination, or the royal heir suckled by Isis and dandled by Horus, are obviously analogous to the birth-scenes in the great New Kingdom temples at Luxor and Deir el-Bahri (see p. 197).
246 Scene in the temple of Edfu, showing Horus as pharaoh harpooning the hippopotamus that is Seth, his father’s brother and murderer.
247 Bronze statue of Horus in Roman ceremonial armour and conforming to Roman artistic conventions, presumably associated with a Roman imperial cult. Unknown provenance. 49 cm (1 ft 7 in.) high. 1st to 3rd century AD.
Statues of the Ptolemies and, much more especially, the Roman emperors who succeeded them after Cleopatra VII, do sometimes appear in Egypt in forms that adopt the artistic traditions of Greece and Rome – but these statues are from theatres, forums, temples and all kinds of buildings associated with Hellenistic urbanism and governance [247]. Meanwhile, statues from native temples steadfastly maintain the artistic conventions of the previous three millennia [248] so, as Elizabeth Brophy has helpfully summarized, ‘Egyptian, Greek, and Roman royal statues belong in recognisably Egyptian, Greek, and Roman spaces’. A handful of Greco-Roman temples, particularly those dedicated to the hybrid Greek–Egyptian god Serapis [251], include both Hellenistic and Egyptian architecture and decoration side by side, but they do not mix. Likewise, a complex of artists’ workshops at Athribis during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC has revealed traditional working practices and materials – from ceramics to faience to Egyptian stones to gold – employed side by side with imported materials such as marble, which were specifically for the production of sculpture in the Hellenistic tradition.
248 Sphinx of one of the early Ptolemies, from the temple of Serapis at Alexandria. Granite. 2.2 m (7 ft 2½ in.) high. 4th or 3rd century BC.
The art of officials
With regard to the statues of private individuals, the anonymous 30th Dynasty priest at the start of this chapter clearly ought to belong to the offering chapel of a tomb [239]. Actually it has no known provenance, and statues of this era do tend to be discovered in temples more often than in tombs. This may indicate an increased emphasis on a cultural phenomenon known from earlier times, and many examples do exhibit the seated-scribe pose of statues of Amenhotep, son of Hapu, or of Harwa, originally from the same temple context (see pp. 64, 245). The connection between temples and tombs, especially during the gods’ festivals, was both ancient and fundamental, and officials of this era may even be shown making offerings – a pose hitherto usually reserved for kings. However, the preponderance of examples from temples is also a function of the discovery of caches, which in turn reflects chance finds of statues collected together at some indeterminate date rather than systematic archaeological excavation. In fact, the picture we have of the tombs of Egypt after the Persian invasion in 525 BC is certainly skewed by a dearth of undisturbed cemeteries, a fact attributable partly to the reuse of earlier cemeteries for later burials and partly to the tendency of earlier generations of archaeologists to rifle through Greco-Roman sites to ‘get at’ earlier periods. For example, there are few statues of married couples of this era, which may reflect a genuine shift away from the practice of placing cult statues in tombs or simply the dearth of adequately excavated cemeteries. Sites less badly affected by early archaeology, such as Karanis or Tebtunis, have since added a great deal to our understanding of urban archaeology during these centuries, but rather less to our knowledge of the sacred precincts that typically furnish pharaonic art.
249 Door jambs from the tomb chapel of Tjaiseimu, an overseer of works. On one jamb he is suckled by an obscure goddess (cf. [144]). Saqqara. Plastered and painted limestone. 1.26 m (4 ft 1½ in.) high. 30th Dynasty.
Nonetheless, the limited information available does not suggest that tombs fundamentally altered at this time, and there are a handful of magnificent examples at familiar sites, including Thebes and Saqqara, and even Giza and Abusir. A relative increase in the use of painted and plastered wooden stelae in preference to inscribed stone is notable at this time, though formally they adhere to familiar conventions. Moreover, where there is relief work this continues to conform to earlier models and is often of excellent quality, exemplified by the door jambs of Tjaiseimu, ‘overseer of works’ for Nectanebo I [249]. Following one ancient archetype of a royal official, he is conspicuously corpulent beneath his cloak and carries a staff. His clean-shaven head is that of a priest, and the skull is a little distended after the manner of the Amarna Period. His left hand holds his cloak together to reveal the royal seal, which he wears as a ring rather than the typical pendant, while above him is a traditional account in hieroglyphs of his service to the king.
250 Statue of the troop-commander Horsatutu (or Horus, son of Tutu). Apparently obtained in Alexandria, but probably from elsewhere in the Nile Delta (perhaps Sais or Saft el-Hina). Diorite (?). 2nd century BC.
In such images of the Greco-Roman era – more so than with images of kings – there may seem to be an apparent fusion of art styles between Hellenistic or Classical, on the one hand, and pharaonic. However, features sometimes identified as ‘Hellenistic naturalism’ – just like the corpulence noted in royal reliefs – are probably not far removed, if at all, from traditional Egyptian forms. For example, the statue of Horsatutu is notably ageing and wrinkled but as such stands in the tradition of Ankhhaf and Harwa [250]. The figure maintains a frontal pose because it is a tomb statue, but its striding legs have been lost so the disproportionate visual influence of the contemporary hairstyle and dress may lead a modern observer towards interpretations more or less removed from its original function. What is most seemingly ‘Greek’ or ‘Roman’ about Horsatutu? First, the pleated drapery of his mantle – though, leaving the specific stylistic details aside, both pleats and fine linen are traditionally Egyptian. Secondly, his tightly curled wig, which again is a contemporary interpretation of a standard Egyptian feature – the more noticeable here because, typically of this time, the curls of hair have been left unpolished in contrast to the statue’s overall sheen.
251 Rock-cut galleries beneath the Ptolemaic temple of Serapis at Alexandria. Subterranean galleries for burying mummified animals were a traditional devotional practice that proliferated during the Ptolemaic era.
During the 20th century, any suggestion of Hellenistic or quasi-Classical features in Egyptian art tended to be interpreted as prima facie evidence of the inevitable evolution of ‘ancient’ art into (more progressive) ‘Classical’ art. However, ‘Hellenism’ is not such a simple matter. In an obvious sense, the culture of even the Egyptian social elite under Greek-speaking rulers is still Egyptian: a Greek-speaking Egyptian serving the Ptolemies or the Roman emperors would have had less in common with, say, fellow Greek-speakers St Paul (born in Turkey) and St Luke (born in Syria) than a fellow Egyptian who happened not to speak Greek. Though the effect of Greek education may be significant, in the 1st century AD the historian Josephus noted that in his culture, among Aramaic-speaking Palestinians, learning Greek was considered ‘common’ (koinos). Meanwhile, letters from Ptolemaic Egypt written in Greek applaud men for learning Egyptian because they were likely to increase their exposure to pharaonic values as a result. So the cultural development of Greco-Roman Egypt need not be a simple matter of Egyptians being obliged to copy (more progressive) Greek-speaking masters. In fact, statues of this era may reveal or conceal complex artistic identities, both in respect of the subject (ethnically Egyptian, Greek or otherwise) and the sculptural form (pharaonic, Hellenistic or otherwise). Like Darius the Great at the start of this chapter, Greek subjects and Hellenistic gods may just as well be ‘Egyptian-ized’ as the other way round, and this certainly seems to be the case with funerary practice among indigenous and immigrant communities, as we shall see. Generally, however, in life as well as art, ‘among the classic parameters of cultural interactions, language, education, literature, religion and the like,’ writes Jean Bingen, a distinguished scholar of Egypt under Ptolemaic rule, ‘in most respects what prevailed was several centuries of relative opaqueness, impossibility or refusal of excessively visible cultural borrowings.’ In respect of art, this conclusion seems all the more reasonable when we remember art’s specific uses in Egyptian tradition.
252 View of the colonnaded entrance to the tomb chapel of Petosiris (cf. [242]). Tuna el-Gebel, near Hermopolis. 4th century BC.
More importantly, perhaps, the extent to which Egyptian and Hellenistic ideas and practices interact in a given context may be specific to individuals rather than subject to general principles of historical development. In this regard, the most famous instance is perhaps the most challenging – the decoration of the tomb at Tuna el-Gebel of Petosiris, a priest in Hermopolis [252]. Here several scenes on the lower walls and screens of the hypostyle hall have been interpreted by generations of scholars as straightforwardly Hellenistic in appearance, though the tomb itself has a standard Egyptian form, the scenes in question are arranged in canonical registers, and the subjects are traditional [253, 254]. Looking more closely, the ‘Classical naturalism’ of the figures is actually little different from the dynamic poses of minor figures in the tombs of the Old and New Kingdoms discussed earlier in this book (see pp. 121, 122). Stevenson Smith has suggested that the colouration of these scenes was more akin to contemporary Greek art than Egyptian, but he also noted the problem of knowing what the original colours might have been before the pigments faded in the Sun or changed their chemical composition. Actually, as with Horsatutu’s statue, the least Egyptian aspect of the minor figures’ appearance is simply the contemporary style of their clothing and hair. Inside the tomb chapel, where the principal characters in the offering cult are presented, the decoration is typically Egyptian; the dead man’s son, Djedthutefankh, makes the requisite offerings, accompanied by speeches from gods including Atum and Osiris-Khentyimentu. The possibility of ‘hybrid’ decoration in the hypostyle hall seems the more remarkable because Petosiris was a near contemporary of Tjaiseimu in the 30th Dynasty, and his death dates to the very start of the Ptolemaic era, so we ought not to underestimate the essentially Egyptian character of his tomb nor ascribe the art style to ‘creeping’ Hellenization. In part, perhaps, the scenes are the distinctive work of a local artist; in part they may simply reflect the specific dress and culture of whoever commissioned the relevant tomb scenes, whether Petosiris or Djedthutefankh. In any event, modern observers must consider whether their interpretation of the scenes as ‘Hellenistic’, ‘naturalistic’ or otherwise is a simple observation or has been coloured by their own expectations of what art in Egypt ought to be like under Greco-Roman rule.
253 Traditional scenes in the tomb chapel of the priest Petosiris, showing the purification of the soul above and the fecundity of Egypt below (cf. [27, 141]). Hermopolis. Plastered and painted limestone. 4th century BC.
254 Scene of a vineyard and wine press in the entrance colonnade of the tomb chapel of Petosiris (cf. [27]). Painted limestone. 4th century BC.
As a final note, before presuming to use the tomb of Petosiris as a model for its age, we must not underestimate its personal, almost individual character. In this instance a lament for his dead son, Thutrekhu, inscribed in Ancient Egyptian, brings home the individual stories within the edifice: ‘Whoever hears my words, his heart may break as a result. Because I am a child snatched by force, cut short in years without cause, suddenly snatched as an infant like an old man taken away in sleep.’ Interestingly, more than 400 years later in the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian (AD 117–138), in the same cemetery at Tuna el-Gebel, a man built a tomb still in the traditional Egyptian style, but this time inscribed in Greek with two poems for his own child, Isidora, tragically drowned. ‘This is for you,’ he says. ‘The offerings made each year, the ceremony like that for the immortal gods. But I shall bring no more offerings for you, my daughter, because of the weeping.’ What do we make of this ostensibly Egyptian father’s poetry in Greek: an affectation, a sophisticated commission or the most personal aspect of the whole tomb?
In the rock-cut complex of officials’ tombs at Kom el-Shuqafa in Alexandria, mostly dated to the 2nd century AD, more than one Egyptologist has suggested we finally encounter reliefs and paintings ‘which can no longer be identified as truly ancient Egyptian art’ [255, 256]. However, we may also recognize this unfamiliar and disorientating subterranean complex as a local adaptation to traditional practice. Perhaps the burials of animal mummies in vast subterranean galleries – a religious phenomenon that proliferated and thrived under Greco-Roman rule – might have influenced the design here [251], but probably the main factor was the need to develop a cemetery inside a populous coastal city that stands on waterlogged ground. Inside the complex, a communal area for funeral ceremonies and subsequent offerings at the top of the complex gives way to a lower-level network of individual tomb chapels and niched galleries for large numbers of burials. The chapels are decorated with relief scenes familiar from the traditional offering cult, though the hairstyles and clothing may reflect contemporary styles and there are occasional details taken from Roman religious symbolism. Elsewhere in Alexandria there are certainly tombs of the same date that have little or no traditional Egyptian decoration, but doubtless these serve to indicate that, in imperial Alexandria, it was not so much the case that native art was evolving but that the urban demography of the Eastern Mediterranean was morphing.
255 Traditional scene from a vaulted tomb chapel at Kom el-Shuqafa, showing Anubis preparing the deceased for burial, on a lion-shaped bed, in the presence of Horus and Thoth (see pp. 275–76). Probably 2nd century AD.
256 View of the colonnaded entrance to the same tomb at Kom el-Shuqafa, exhibiting standard architectural forms. The crowned uraeus-serpents and Sun-discs flanking the door originate in traditional Egyptian iconography but have been adapted to incorporate references to Classical mythology.
257 Sarcophagus of the senior royal official Horkhebit, with Isis spreading her protective wings across his chest. Saqqara. Greywacke. 2.57 m (8 ft 5 in.) high. 26th Dynasty.
In fact, subtly shifting emphases in Egyptian art during these centuries may best be illustrated in coffins, where painting on wood may occur alongside hard stone sculpture. In paintings especially, specific forms may seem more familiar to modern eyes and ‘less Egyptian’, though the underlying beliefs remain essentially unchanged and the imagery of Osiris still predominates. Clothing and jewelry may seem naturalistic and certainly contemporary but, in a funerary context, they actually relate to the concept of ‘adoration’ and recall the elegantly dressed denizens in the age-old tombs of Sabni or Ramose (see pp. 101, 116, 120). Again, there is no simple equation of traditional Egyptian art with stereotypes and Greco-Roman art with Hellenistic naturalism.
The most prominent development in the form of coffins during this period – which was, in fact, a tendency since the late New Kingdom – is the increased prominence of faces [257]. In the most obvious manifestation of this development, faces tend to become relatively larger and broader, until they may seem grossly out of proportion with the overall figure. Of course, a mummy with an uncovered face, a wig and a collar is the ancient image of Osiris, but the increased prominence of the face presumably also relates to the meaning of the Book of the Dead Spell 151 inscribed on the gold mask of Tutankhamun (see pp. 213–14). Recognizing this emphasis on faces, we can also appreciate the indigenous Egyptian aspect of the phenomenon of the ‘Faiyum portraits’, dating from the 1st to the 3rd century AD. They are so called because they have been collected mostly from sites in the Faiyum region, especially Hawara, and formally the portraits are obviously related to the Hellenistic tradition of painting in three-quarter view, often with naturalistic shadows and highlights. On the other hand, the portraits were painted on wooden boards, then fastened into the linen wrappings of mummies over the face, a custom that is definitively Egyptian. Though the clothing, hairstyles and jewelry illustrate fashions common across the whole Roman empire, the appearance of these items in Egyptian funerary art is entirely to be expected. Perhaps some of the principals among the Faiyum communities in question were Greek-speaking immigrants, at least by descent, who adopted Egyptian beliefs, rather than Egyptians for whom ‘Classical art’ seemed to be the way forward. For example, the face of the woman shown on either side of a portrait board in the Ashmolean Collection has been interpreted as more ‘Roman’ (that is, more naturalistic) in presentation on one side, more ‘Egyptian’ on the other [258]. However, we may simply see in the faces portraits at different ages, in line with an indigenous tradition exemplified by the statues of Amenhotep, son of Hapu or, more pertinently perhaps, the stela of the lady Khu (see p. 249).
258 Mummy board with the face of a woman on each side. Faiyum region. Encaustic painted wood. 38 cm (1 ft 3 in.) high. 2nd century AD.
Undoubtedly another type of mask used with mummies at this time has a more traditionally Egyptian appearance, like the three-dimensional face of a wooden coffin but modelled in clay or plaster. Some of these masks are entirely stylized, whereas others are moving evocations of real human beings. A poignant example is the mummy of a girl excavated by Flinders Petrie in a shallow pit, also at Hawara. The wrappings are arranged in lozenges with gilded studs and a gilded plaster foot-case, and, though she was little more than five years old when she died, following Egyptian artistic conventions her gilded mask shows her as a mature woman with prominent breasts. Her hair and jewelry seem fashionable, though formally the mask is very different from the contemporary ‘Faiyum portraits’. Once interred her mummy was covered with a linen sheet, and copper mirrors were placed on her breasts and belly (see p. 263), and she was accompanied by items including a faience statuette of the infant Horus and a statue of a lion. A wooden board or stela found beside her head is painted on each side with a figurative scene conforming to Egyptian conventions: one shows a naked woman or goddess giving birth; the other a seated man holding some shears over a brazier – perhaps a doctor? The Classicist Véronique Dasen has suggested that the imagery of the burial conveys the hope that the girl’s destiny to be a mother may be fulfilled in the afterlife, though we may also speculate whether the meaning lies closer to traditional Egyptian mythology, perhaps in the relationship between Osiris and Isis.
The advent of Christianity
The girl from Hawara passed away in the 2nd century AD, as did Isidora at Tuna el-Gebel and most of the folk interred at Kom el-Shuqafa. By then international politics were already hastening the demise of pharaonic culture. Mighty, ruthless Rome, having disposed of the Ptolemaic dynasty in 30 BC, sought to appropriate the authority of pharaonic Egypt by transporting its monuments to imperial Alexandria or to Rome and the Egypt-themed gardens springing up on the estates of Italy’s wealthiest politicians and land-owners. Today more Egyptian obelisks stand just in the city of Rome than in their original locations in Egypt. Even the obelisks of Thutmose III in London and New York travelled overseas after first being removed to Roman Alexandria. The whole nation is portrayed on coins of the conqueror Octavian (who became the emperor Augustus, 30 BC to AD 14) beneath the legend ‘Aegypto capta’. Ironically Egypt is here represented as a crocodile, the very image once used by Ankhtyfy to symbolize Egyptian national unity (see p. 185). Many high priesthoods were effectively abolished in the aftermath, including the office of ‘greatest of directors of craftsmen’, which was as old as written history (see p. 76). Under Roman governance, Greek-speaking entirely displaced the Ancient Egyptian language in administration – even in personal correspondence – and by the 2nd century AD an inability to write in Greek was defined as illiteracy. A sequence of emperors from Commodus (180–192) to Decius (249–251) on one wall of the hypostyle hall in the temple of Khnum at Esna may be the last procession of kings in traditional temple decoration [261]. However, the bloody Roman soap opera entailed in the succession from Septimius Severus (193–211) to Caracalla (198–217) and Geta (209–211) has no relevance here, where the priesthood was investing its worship in absentee ‘pharaohs’. When Caracalla did actually visit Egypt in 215, he ordered the expulsion of all Egyptians from Alexandria and the execution of all the city’s young men for treason. A statue discovered near the shrine of Amasis in the temple at Mendes seems almost to superimpose the fearful, alien countenance of Caracalla on the primordial image of the pharaoh [260], and may serve in this book as the closing statement of pharaonic art, the bookend to Narmer’s palette (see p. 22).
260 Unfinished statue of a pharaoh, identified as Caracalla by comparison of the face with those of named statues. Mendes. Quartzite. 1.42 m (4 ft 8 in.) high. AD 198–217.
261 Scene showing the emperor Tiberius being presented as pharaoh to the god Khnum, in the Sun-court of the temple at Esna. AD 14–37.
262 A 19th-century watercolour showing the shrine of the temple of Amun-Ra at Luxor as discovered in its final form, plastered over and decorated for a Roman cult in favour of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian.
In this context, the Christian call to ‘give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and give to God the things that are God’s’ defined the gulf between domains of faith and authority that in Egypt had previously been one and the same for millennia [262]. Effectively the subject of this book ends when a hermit named Antony walked into the forum in Alexandria about AD 305, anticipating judicial execution for his beliefs but obtaining instead an Egyptian-speaking Christian Church, for which the artistic embers of pharaonic authority had no meanings left other than either Rome or Christ. Astoundingly, in Egypt the pharaohs had become the essence of impropriety and foreign oppression – Antony and his fellow Christians were celebrated for defying Diocletian (284–305) and Maximian (286–305), ‘lawless and degenerate kings’. By the middle of the 4th century, possibly half the population of Egypt was openly Christian, and the overwhelming majority would be so before its end. In 371 Egypt became a separate diocese of the Roman empire divided into four separate regions, but an alternative national authority emerged in the form of the Coptic Church – ‘Coptic’ being simply the Greek word for ‘Egyptian’. To reclaim the use of their own language in writing the Coptic community adapted the Greek alphabet to translate holy scripture, philosophy and biography into Egyptian. Hence on Coptic funerary stela the crux ansata (‘cross with a handle’) had become a Christian symbol, whose meaning as a hieroglyph was now lost [263]. In cultural terms, however, a boat evidently evokes religious festivals and beliefs in life after death whose models were the most ancient pharaonic ideas and practices [264].
263 Coptic stela in the form of a ‘false door’, though the characteristic shape, lack of decoration and open ‘doorway’ indicate that it originates in the Roman era and is probably not a reused pharaonic monument. The inscription records the death of a church elder named Matay. West Thebes, probably Medinet Habu. Painted granite (?). 0.6 m (2 ft) high. 5th to 8th century AD.
264 Stela roughly inscribed for a monk named Peter, with a processional boat adapted from pharaonic iconography. Unknown provenance. Limestone. 38 cm (1 ft 3 in.) high. 5th to 8 th century AD.
At Philae a historic grant by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC) of taxes from a 12-mile (19-kilometre) district south of Aswan (the dodecaschoenus) had allowed the temples there to flourish, partly at the expense of the more ancient temples at Elephantine [265]. Philae endured even while briefly occupied by the Meroitic king Arqamani as early as 207 BC because, of course, he still maintained the pharaonic traditions of the 25th Dynasty (see Chapter 12). His successor Adikhalamani founded the temple at Debod (see p. 285), while the latest known inscriptions in Egyptian hieroglyphs and the indigenous cursive script appear at Philae alongside inscriptions in Meroitic. Typically, the inscriptions in both languages summarize the contributions of kings and officials to the cult of Isis and her procession to the temple of Osiris on a neighbouring island. However, they come to an end in AD 452 and the temple itself was shut for the last time by order of the emperor Justinian in 543.
265 View of the temple of Isis on the island of Philae, probably the last pharaonic temple to function other than as a Christian church. Now relocated to Agilqiya, near Aswan.
As early as 385 the Roman prefect Maternus Cynegius had arranged the closure of the other pharaonic temples in Egypt but for many of them this was far from the end. Once again Thebes provides the best example, where we see the descendants of the villagers from Deir el-Medina still living at Medinet Habu 1,800 years after the Valley of the Kings had been closed, in a town still named Djeme (see p. 198). Here the mighty temple of Ramesses III continued in service as a Christian church, while the Ptolemaic temple at Deir el-Medina became the Church of St Isidore the Martyr. The people of these communities were prosperous – in some instances remarkably wealthy – with business interests extending through the length of the country, until they were evicted under Islamic rule in the late 700s. Today these places are tourist destinations but after AD 385 they had remained homes for villagers and priests, when the Christian centuries at Thebes breathed life and service back into the ancient sacred spaces, conveniently exemplified by a Christian stela inscribed on a pharaonic false door.
Masterpiece
The Tazza Farnese
266 The interior of the Tazza Farnese incised in cameo with a scene set in Egypt. Agate. 20 cm (8 in.) diameter. Ptolemaic era.
The magnificent, enigmatic Farnese Cup (Tazza Farnese) is made by cameo from a rich sardonyx agate featuring yellow and black striations. The ‘cup’ is presumably in fact a libation dish, 20 cm (8 inches) in diameter, reputedly manufactured in Alexandria. If so, its assimilation of Egyptian mythology to the Hellenistic art tradition seems undeniable, and the cup stands as an outlier in the present book – an Egyptian masterpiece of the pharaonic age manufactured entirely apart from the indigenous art tradition. On the interior surface, figures carved from a stratum of white and gold include the central trio of an old man, a crowned lady and a young man. In an Egyptian context, indicated by the sphinx below them, such a trio may be interpreted as a family of gods, in this case presumably Osiris (or Serapis), Isis and Horus. However, the art style is Hellenistic, so accordingly the forms of the putative Osiris and Isis are those of the Greek gods Pluto and Demeter together with the agricultural god Triptolemus. The cornucopia in Pluto’s hand may evoke the Nile Inundation, which from the planting of the seed in Triptolemus/Horus’ bag brings forth the harvest, here held by Demeter. Perhaps the two figures at bottom right holding out a cornucopia and a dish (this very ‘cup’?) represent the consumption of the harvest in its traditional Egyptian aspects of bread and beer.
In other words, the mythology and geography of the principal scene could well be Egyptian, or at least Egyptianizing, but the artistic interpretation and treatment is Hellenistic or Classical. The exterior base of the cup is completely filled by the head of a Gorgon with locks of snakes, drawn straight from Greek mythology. On the other hand, the uniqueness of the cup is such that various scholars have dated the piece to each one of the Ptolemaic centuries, or suggested links to historical events right down to the reign of Cleopatra VII or the victory of Octavian (Augustus). The recorded history of the cup actually begins in Persia in the 15th century, from where it reached the Aragonese court of Naples, and latterly the celebrated collection of Lorenzo de’ Medici. In Naples, the specific imagery on the cup, including two figures in the sky representing seasonal wind and rain, might have become part of the inspiration for Botticelli’s celebrated Birth of Venus.
Masterpiece
Statue of the priest Pasherbastet
Though conventionally dated to the 1st century BC, a smaller than life-size statue of the priest Pasherbastet seems essentially traditional in form, made in basalt, one of the characteristic hard stones used for statuary at the end of the 1st millennium BC. The priest strides forward onto his left foot with one hand gripping the nub of a ‘staff’, according to the age-old archetype from the tomb chapel. He wears a vest, kilt and fringed cloak gathered in his left hand, so in pose and costume Pasherbastet in three dimensions recalls the image of Tjaiseimu in relief (pp. 287–88), while his cloak alone is reminiscent of that in the ivory of an early king (see p. 130). More obviously than is the case with Tjaiseimu, the image of this man has a bulbous, enlarged cranium after the ‘Amarna’ style, leaving the mouth and jaw disproportionately small, though his nose and eyes are proportionate – and noticeably large in profile as a consequence. The apparent traces of a beard and moustache have been caused by the deterioration of the stone surface, and in fact his clean-shaven head is a more characteristic indication of his priestly depilation (see p. 262). This statue has a powerful, ‘young torso’ rather than the heavy physical presence of an archetypal ‘older’ man, such as Tjaiseimu. However, the shape of the head, together with the lines in his face, heavily lidded eyes and careworn expression evoke familiar virtues, such as experience, responsibility, serenity and wisdom. In fact, his downturned mouth and round eyes are characteristic of late Ptolemaic royal statues, though the typical uncertainty of this era applies regarding the specific provenance and dating of Pasherbastet’s statue.
268 Statue of a priest, Pasherbastet. Unknown provenance. Basalt. 49 cm (1 ft 7½ in.) high. Probably 1st century BC.
Masterpiece
Wooden portrait board of woman wearing jewelry
The so-called ‘Faiyum portraits’ represent a specific phenomenon rather than a historical artistic trend, but formally many are obviously related to the Hellenistic tradition of portrait painting (see p. 293). These mummy boards are often described as encaustic portraits, that is to say, painted using hot wax or resin – using the Greek word ‘burnt in’ (en-causticos; compare the English word ‘caustic’) – though in Egyptology encaustic has come to mean any method of decoration using pigments mixed with wax. Nonetheless, encaustic painting on wood evokes the appearance of oil painting because the pigments could be applied in thick layers with free brush strokes, and are often more vividly preserved than the surface colours of tomb scenes or statues.
This beautiful example, excavated at Hawara in 1911, shows a woman wearing a scarlet dress, and a scarlet cloak with a blue and gold fringe. Of course, it was originally bound into the exterior wrappings of a mummy, which were arranged in lozenges with gilded studs and a gilded foot-case like the young girl’s in. The young adult woman portrayed here has her hair arranged into four tiers of curls, with a plaited bun secured by a fancy top-pin and decorated with a gold chain. Her jewelry consists of a pair of earrings, three beaded necklaces round her throat, and a gold collar and pendant. The visual impact of her jewelry and cloak has been enhanced through the use of fine gold leaf, which is entirely typical of ‘Faiyum portraits’, and perhaps comparable to the traditional gilding of faces in Egyptian coffins. The specific details of the hairstyle, dress and jewelry have been used to date the portrait to the first half of the 2nd century AD, and certainly they each reflect styles worn across the Roman empire generally rather than just this part of Egypt. On the other hand, her face is shown frontally with an ‘expressionless’ visage after the pharaonic manner, while her elaborate wig with a decorative band may be understood as a contemporary interpretation of the appearance of Nofret (see p. 87) and countless well-heeled Egyptian women of earlier centuries. The use of shadows and highlights does correspond to the Hellenistic tradition, and the three-quarters view across her neck and shoulders creates a naturalistic drop from the ‘near’ shoulder to the ‘far’ one. This arrangement seems to have impacted upon the eyes, which stare along the perspective line created, so that the ‘far’ eye sits below the level of its counterpart, whereas the frontal pose seems to require them to sit on the same horizontal.
‘He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest, may know / At first sight, if the bird be flown; / But what fair well or grove he sings in now, / That is to him unknown,’ sang the Welsh mystic, Henry Vaughan. However, the art of ancient Egypt represents a committed attempt throughout the centuries to illustrate human lives in a context that does not move on or pass away. In that respect, how can ancient Egyptian art be understood in anything other than pharaonic terms? In pharaonic culture, acts of creating, building and decorating, together with the festivals, rituals and beliefs they illustrate and dignify, became the means both to organize and celebrate human relationships – with one another, with authority, with divinity, with the mere fact of life and Creation and the meaning of things. Those who do not believe in higher authorities or life after death are obliged to dig through such matters to unearth what is left when the art is stripped of its baggage, but they will find no indication that an ancient Egyptian artist ever did so. Our modern interpretation of early history is so bound up with evolution we may casually assume ancient artists were striving to do what artists do today, and their refusal to adopt modern conceptions of the individual or the moment (or iron technology or alphabetic writing) betrays their intellectual inferiority. No doubt we expect progress in the past because we are in a hurry to get to ourselves. In other words, if we assume that what we mean by art is its natural meaning, and that art in antiquity is bound to be steps on the way to how we do things, then we can also dismiss the possibility we might have somewhere taken a misjudged turn or two. (It does not follow that we have, but to think in such terms may allow a different point of view.)
On the other hand, should we simply admit that the artists of ancient Egypt were utterly conventional and unwilling to embrace change? Ironically, part of the appeal of pharaonic Egypt is the implication that it stands at the threshold of civilization. Its very essence seems to be a giant leap along the road of progress – the vanguard of social, technological and economic innovation in late prehistory and early history. In Egypt we find many of the earliest towns, the grandest monuments, the oldest books and so on. The suggestion that such a nation conveniently insisted ‘this far and no further’ shortly after the dawn of written history seems convenient, to say the least. After all, on a writing board in the British Museum, Khakheperrasonb, a Middle Kingdom priest in Heliopolis, pointedly begins his philosophical teaching with the lament, ‘If only I had an unknown song and some discovered words; a new way of speaking which was not here before; free from what gets repeated or one word from the opinions former generations spoke’. Better perhaps to forego our expectations and appreciate that art itself in ancient Egypt was ordinarily intended to be about sacred things, things that do not change – because the whole vastness of time and Creation cannot be even an infinitesimal fraction of eternity. To the ancients we walk in the glory of god-given meaning, though the patterns and shapes we discern in our lives and in the world around seem distorted and obscure. G. K. Chesterton’s shrewd sleuth Father Brown suggested this is because ‘we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry’, whose design only makes sense when looked at from somewhere else. For 3,000 years, the ancient Egyptians too affirmed that art may offer a glimpse of the view from that somewhere else – or in the words of Ankhtyfy, ‘a gateway to the far side of the sky’.
270 A 19th-century watercolour showing the second Sun-court of the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu as discovered. The monolithic sandstone columns with Corinthian capitals, mostly seen fallen, supported the central span of the roof of the ‘Holy Church of Djeme’ when the site was abruptly abandoned in the 8th century (see p. 198).
Note on chronology
The dates for Egypt are generally considered to be among the most secure in the ancient world – accurate to within two centuries as far back as c. 3000 BC, accurate to within two decades during the 2nd millennium BC (i.e. 2000–1000 BC), and generally exact from 664 BC. The Egyptians’ own records did not use an absolute dating system, but instead dated events to a specific year in the reign of a specific king (regnal dating). However, a few surviving examples of the Egyptians’ own king-lists occasionally state reign lengths in years and months, and summarize the key events of each reign, especially religious festivals. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing around 430 BC, claims that the Egyptians were respected among all nations for having the most accurate records of the past. Of course, we are now able to check this information against archaeological data and other written evidence.
A comprehensive history of Egypt written by the native priest Manetho for the pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC) – a foreigner, born on the isle of Cos – has not survived, but the gist of it may be deduced from excerpts provided by later historians. Manetho’s account established the thirty-one dynasties that still structure our modern chronology of pharaonic Egypt. In his history a ‘dynasty’ typically corresponds to an era when one family held the throne of Egypt in a single line of succession, but evidently this was not always the case. Consequently modern historians have grouped the dynasties into broader eras based on ‘kingdoms’, when there was essentially only one king throughout Egypt. Hence we have the Old, Middle and New ‘Kingdoms’, separated by ‘Intermediate Periods’, when the rule of the country may be divided. As a final point, there no longer seems any sense in maintaining the conventional distinction between the Old Kingdom pharaohs (3rd to 6th Dynasties) and the kings who, we now know, simply ruled before them during the ‘Early Dynastic Period’ (1st and 2nd Dynasties).
Unexpectedly, perhaps, an arcane method known as ‘Sothic dating’ – based on the discrepancy between (a) when a specific observation of the star Sirius (Egyptian name Sothis) ought to occur and (b) ancient records of when it actually did occur – has become the established method for dating the 2nd millennium BC in Egypt. Calculations of this discrepancy have produced dates that are widely accepted among scholars, at least in the sense of narrowing dates down to a handful of options which are roughly in agreement. Nonetheless, different books may give different dates for the same event, suggesting that Ramesses II became king in 1301, 1290 or 1279 BC, and so on. Dates before the 12th Dynasty, which essentially means dates for the 3rd millennium BC (i.e. 3000–2000 BC), have to be extrapolated by dead reckoning, so there is much less consensus about these very early dates and they are stated in the following list using round figures. Consequently Narmer might have become the first king of Egypt as early as 3200 BC or as late as 2900 BC according to different books. For this reason, most Egyptologists prefer to discuss pharaonic history by reference to kings’ reigns or to dynasties rather than by using calendar years, which may be so uncertain.
Eventually we are able to obtain absolute dates for ancient Egypt by means of synchronisms with other nations who did have absolute dating systems. The earliest such secure date is 664/663 BC, when the armies of Ashurbanipal of Assyria sacked and nearly razed the mighty Egyptian heartland of Thebes, an event which in turn corresponds to the beginning of the 26th Dynasty and the Late Period. In August 30 BC, Egypt formally lost its independence and became established under the jurisdiction of the Roman emperors, which is how it remained (officially under Byzantine government from AD 395) until the nation surrendered to the armies of the Arab Rashidun Caliphate in November AD 641. Throughout the first two centuries of Roman rule, the emperors were usually represented in Egyptian art as though they were pharaohs. However, following edicts of Galerius and Constantine the Great (AD 306–337), Christianity was formally tolerated by the Roman empire and the pharaonic art of Egypt was abandoned in favour of Christian art traditions (see Chapter 15). Hence the list of kings of Egypt given here includes the Roman emperors down to Constantine, whose reign basically corresponds to the end of the period covered by this book.
