Sculpture in Ancient Egypt | Historical facts about the decorative arts and the art of drawing in the ancient Egyptian civilization, the most important architects and sculptors in the history of ancient Egypt art, and more Ancient Egypt History.
the facts and history of the development of prominent stereoscopic and pharaonic sculpture, discover the secrets of the construction of the Sphinx and all the sculptures of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs and more about the culture of the Pharaonic civilization.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt in the Old Kingdom:
Stereoscopic Sculpture in Ancient Egypt:
A seated statue of the King Khasekhemwy “Egyptian Pharaohs kings” from Second Dynasty of Egypt, one of the oldest Egyptian Antiquities.
The king is depicted wearing the crown of Upper Egypt sitting on his throne with his left hand clenched on his chest while his right-hand rests on his knee, and the pedestal is adorned with inscriptions depicting the defeated enemies of Lower Egypt. The king’s face shows the prestige and majesty of the king.
There are statues from the First Dynasty of Egypt era including that of a man in robe with the concealment of male organs that will become common in the coming times, and a statue of a woman with clenched hands. From the Second Dynasty is a clearly marked statue of a woman who puts her left hand on her right breast.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt:
Obelisks of Pharaohs
Why did the Egyptians build obelisks?
The Obelisks of the Pharaohs are towers or a stone column with a thin thickness, and this column comes on four sides with a head resembling a small pyramid.
Obelisks of the Pharaohs were used in the past to inscribe Hieroglyphic writings “Ancient Egyptian Language” and religious drawings on them as in Ancient Egyptian religion, were also known in other civilizations, including the Abyssinian civilization, the Greek-Roman era, the Byzantines, as well as the Assyrian civilization.
Who was the king in whose era the obelisks were built?
King Ramses II, the most famous Egyptian Pharaohs kings from the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt in The New Kingdom period in ancient Egypt.
What is the most famous Obelisks of Pharaohs?
Obelisks were used to put them in temples. One of the oldest Egyptian Temples obelisks is an obelisk made of red granite “Ancient Egyptian Metallurgy“, belonging to King Senusret I from Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt during Middle Kingdom.
The obelisk is located in the Heliopolis district of Cairo, specifically in the Matareya area. The obelisk is 20.7 meters long and weighs nearly 120 tons.
What was the purpose of Egyptian obelisks?
Obelisks are part of the Sculpture in Ancient Egypt and Architecture in ancient Egypt, and they were important because they were used for more than one purpose.
In the past, obelisks were made from the granite quarries that existed in Aswan, in addition to other materials.
How many Obelisks of Pharaohs out Egypt?
The number of Obelisks of Pharaohs outside Egypt = 28 Pharaonic obelisks and they were placed in public squares around the world.
What is the truth about obelisks?
- The idea of obelisks moved from Egypt to Rome.
- The tallest obelisk and the largest Egyptian is the Lateran obelisk. The obelisk is located in San Giovanni Square in Rome, the capital of Italy.
- Lateran obelisk with a length of 32.18 meters and a weight of 413 tons. Some events occurred that affected the length and weight of the obelisk. It is now four meters shorter and weighs approximately 300 tons.
- There are so far about 75 obelisks dating back to the civilization of the pharaohs, and there is an incomplete obelisk found so far in the pharaonic quarry in Aswan.
- The incomplete obelisk is very huge, it weighs 1170 tons and its length reaches 41 meters.
- There are currently obelisks belonging to Pharaonic Egypt and located in Paris, Rome and London.
What is the Obelisks of Pharaohs in Egyptian mythology?
- Obelisks of Pharaohs of the Pharaohs are considered a sacred stone for the ancient Egyptians, so important writings such as religious or legal texts were written on them.
- The obelisk in the past was a symbol of the sun God Ra “The Egyptian Gods” and was in the old days of King Akhenaton era. It was said that the obelisk is a petrified ray of the sun’s disk.
- There are currently two obelisks in Luxor and one in the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir El Bahari, Building by Queen Hatshepsut.
- At Cairo International Airport there is the Ramses II Obelisk, and there is the obelisk of King Ramses II in Tahrir Square.
- The obelisk of King Senusret I is located in Heliopolis in the city of Cairo.
- Among the obelisks in Fayoum is also the obelisk of King Senusret I.
- There are also two obelisks in Sa El-Hagar “Sais” in Basyoun, Gharbia in Delta and two obelisks in the New Administrative Capital, as well as an obelisk of King Ramses II in New Alamein.
- The obelisk of King Ramses II is in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
What is the most famous obelisks in the world?
- Obelisks of Pharaohs Since they were the famous Pharaonic architecture, those obelisks were imitated even in European countries.
- There is an obelisk in Buckinghamshire called the Obelisk of General Wolf, which was built in 1754 AD.
- There is also another obelisk found in the Canary Islands called the Candelaria obelisk.
- In the District of Columbia there is also a monument in Washington that was built in 1848 to 1888.
- The obelisk of the Martyrs of Bogata is located in Colombia and is 17 meters high. The obelisk was opened in 1880 AD.
- There is also an obelisk honoring the liberal General Jose Maria in Spain, which was built in 1842 AD.
Where are Obelisks of Pharaohs in the world?
- Italy contains about 8 Egyptian obelisks, these obelisks moved during the Roman occupation of Egypt
- England also contains Egyptian obelisks such as Cleopatra’s Obelisk “Cleopatra’s Needle” on the Thames in London.
- There is another Obelisk of Cleopatra located in Central Park in New York City.
- Muhammad Ali Pasha gave many gifts to France, including pharaonic obelisks, the most famous of which was the obelisk of Ramses II, which was located in the Luxor Temple “Luxor Obelisks“.
- The obelisk of Ramses II was moved in 1833 AD from Luxor to Alexandria, and the weight of the obelisk was approximately 250 tons.
- In Turkey there is now the obelisk of King Thutmose III and is currently located in Istanbul, which was transferred during the reign of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I.
- There is now a group of obelisks in Rome, including King Amenhotep II, which is approximately 25.5 meters long and comes in black and bronze on top.
- Obelisks of Pharaohs “King Ramses II” is found in Flaminio and is approximately 24 meters long. There is also an obelisk belonging to King Psamtik I from Twenty-Sixth Dynasty of Egypt during Late Period “Black Pharaohs“, with a length of 21.79 meters.
- There is also another obelisk found in Rome and it dates back to Ramses II, but its length is 14.53 meters.
- The Obelisk of Ibris, also in Rome, is 12.69 meters long.
Where is the oldest obelisk in the world?
One of the oldest obelisks known in history is the Obelisk of Hammurabi and it is called “The Code of Hammurabi” and it is present in Iraq.
The Obelisk of Hammurabi contains the laws and legislations of the ancient Iraqi civilization, so it was called the Code of Hammurabi.
His first most important model is the palette of King Narmer “Narmer Palette“, engraved on two sides, at the top of the first face there are two heads of the God Hathor “The Egyptian Gods” in the shape of a cow’s head, between them the name of the king in Hieroglyphics “The ancient Egyptian Pharaonic language” and the palette is divided into registers.
In the first register, the king is depicted wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, holding with his left hand the head of a kneeling captive, and carrying the club with which he is about to drop on the head of his enemy.
He stands in front of the king, the falcon Hor or God Horus, on six Papyrus plants, holding a rope passing from the nose of a human head coming out of the same land where the plants grow and behind the king appears the king’s disciple, while the last register below shows two naked men trying to escape and behind them the shape of a fortress.
The Second side of the Palette:
It consists of four registers, the first shows the king wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt followed by the holder of his sandals in a procession of victory and in front of him the campaign of brigades as he looks at the bodies of enemies lying on the ground and beheaded.
The third register is composed of two men holding two lions with long necks hugging each other. In the fourth register below is a bull representing the king, throwing someone to the ground and breaking into one of the walls of a fort.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. Another important example of sculpture is a tombstone in the Pharaonic Tombs of King Djet (The Serpent King) with an inscription depicting the god Horus standing on a building depicting the façade of the Royal Palace.
A symbol of the king’s name is the image of a snake standing above the palace wall as a metaphor to protect the falcon god.
A round open stone dish (black soapstone) with a prominent sculpture of two dogs attacking a deer It was found in the Tomb of Hamaka in Saqqara.
The prominent sculpture of the falcon depicting Horus and the snake king of the first dynasty a stone sculpture. In addition to the editions of cylindrical seals that spread at that time and expressed extreme precision in the inscription.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt – Old Kingdom:
stereoscopic Sculpture in Ancient Egypt:
Sculpture was more artistically embodied in the types of stone, diorite and basalt and exploded with high sense and expressive features.
One of the statues of the Pharaohs is the collection of statues of the King Menkaure from Fourth Dynasty of Egypt during Old Kingdom with his wife Queen Meresankh III “Female Pharaohs“, and he represented the king standing with his arms resting on his thighs, his hands are closed and the thumb is visible, and his wife stands apart surrounded by one of his arms and this statue represents perfection in the expression of the beauty of masculinity and femininity while retaining its personal majesty, as expressed by one of the ideal deputies of the former State.
There is no doubt that the benefit is significant. This statue shows the artist’s ability to show the transparency and beauty of the Queen’s clothes as well as the simplicity and integrity of the under linings.
Prominent Sculpture in Ancient Egypt:
The prominent sculpture developed on the hard and clearly fragile surfaces, so that it was engraved on the walls of the inner Egyptian Tombs, the daily life of the owner of the tomb, because he believed that it could be transformed into real images appreciated in his other life, and these scenes were either engraved on stone, or painted on a clay surface covered with plaster and then wood on the colorful scenes.
The inscriptions are of two types: prominent, in which parts of the subject are carved so that the shapes stand out above the level of the wall and are deep and only dig into the specific lines of the forms as the details are carved. These lines are deeper than the surface of the wall.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. The inscriptions on the walls of the royal tombs are characterized by Ancient Egyptian religion themes, and the Tomb of King Djoser from Third Dynasty of Egypt provides a model where the king wears the crown of Upper Egypt and performs certain religious rituals, and although these inscriptions have a simple appearance from the background, their thin lines indicate a clear study of the king’s body, the details of which are clearly visible.
One of the most important tombs with beautiful inscriptions is that of the Tomb of Ty and that of the minister and Tomb of Ptahhotep of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt in Sakkara, whose inscriptions are characterized by a variety of themes, the vitality of the landscape and the beauty of the lines, and this cemetery is the best example, where his inscriptions tell images of his life. One of them appears standing in his boat in a constant and motionless position.
His men guard another boat hunting the hippopotamus, and the design of the scene demonstrates great skill and artistic ability, with the artist using the papyrus plant growing in the water as the background to the image and recording the different types of birds standing on the plant’s flowers. The artist’s interest in recording events is noted at the time of events; we see two animals attacking the nests of birds, and the decorative character is shown in the transparent waters where fish and hippos appear in zigzag lines.
Sculpture in ancient Egypt | Facts and history of the development of prominent stereoscopic and pharaonic sculpture
Sculpture in ancient Egypt in the Middle Kingdom:
Middle Kingdom sculpture: the weakness of sculpture in this period was not widespread and its models include:
- The statue of King Mentuhotep II from Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt During Middle Kingdom wearing the red crown.
- The head of the statue of King Senusret III from Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, whose human features seem to carry a worried, frightened, and sad nature and does not suggest prestige as were the statues of the ancient kings of the Old Kingdom.
- Wooden statues: The statue of the girl with a basket on her head is considered a switch from the official statues and an appearance of the popular character instead of the royal character.
- Colorful pottery statues: like a statue of a hippopotamus.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt in the New Kingdom:
Modern stereoscopic sculpture:
Life-size statues (human size) and huge statues appeared, and these sculptures were made in several stages:
Open stage:
Egyptian art opened up to the art of Lebanon and Anatolia, which led to the interest of the sculpture as well as faces with other organs such as hands and legs and the appearance of expression on the face, and a softness in general lines such as the statue of King Thutmose III from Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt During The New Kingdom made of the Schist stone found in Karnak Temple, this statue is a great work of art due to the artist’s ability to express a semi-calm smile appearing on the face. Although the artist expressed the king’s youth in a beautiful image with strong lines, the king’s face does not have the character of prestige and grandeur known in the statues of the Old Kingdom.
Realistic stage – Sculpture in Ancient Egypt:
The art of Tell el-Amarna, where the sculptor moved away from the ancient traditions of carving statues of kings and preferred to represent them in their nature and the best example of this is the collection of statues of King Akhenaton, and this is the first time that shows unknown statues characterized by the lengthening of the face and the large head for the skinny neck.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. The full freedom to express the truth is also reflected in the fullness of the abdomen, and this change is a new event in the royal statues, unlike what was followed in the statues of the Old Kingdom, which were characterized by power and prestige as well as the expression of physical perfection, and it seems that the king encouraged artists to this development, where he recorded in one of the inscriptions he was visiting the sculptor’s studio.
The other model of the head of King Akhenaton wife Queen Nefertiti is a stone head without a crown, with subtle features and softness in the lines, and her head with a vibrant and feminine crown.
Conservative Stage – Sculpture in Ancient Egypt:
Returning to earlier traditions after the elimination of the religious revolution of Akhenaten and the return to the cult of God Amun in Thebes, beautiful expressive faces also appeared, reflected in the sculptures of King Tutankhamun, in which the artist expressed the youth of the king It was discovered through in Valley of the Kings, Luxor, who died young, as evidenced by the king’s statue at the The Egyptian Museum “Museums in Cairo” in Tahrir Square.
The school of architecture is also influenced as in the facial expressions of King Ramses II and the manufacture of this statue is indicated by an accomplished artist who has gained the hard stone a superior nature this statue is characterized by beauty in proportions and lines.
Huge statues:
It appeared in Egyptian Temples,Egypt Archaeological Sites and was intended to be consistent with the enormous architecture with which it is associated to suit the size of Mortuary Temples built at that time, for example The Colossi of Memnon located in the plain of Thebes “the Greeks named the Memnon statues”.
The Romans thought it represented the Son of God Isis, the goddess of the moon), and one of them is said to have emitted strange sounds every morning, possibly depicting King Amenhotep III, who was carved to put them in front of the entrance to the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III (which has now disappeared) and each is about 20 m high.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. The size of the statues of Temple of Abu Simbel in Aswan from shoulder to elbow is 15.5 feet, that is, the size of the statue of Memnon itself, although the length of the shoulders of these statues is 25 feet, 5 feet higher than the statues of Memnon, and the size of the ear is 3.5 feet. It is the same size as the ear of the huge broken statue of Ramses in the The Temple of Ramesseum. Opinions were divided as to the rich value of the statues.
Ancient criticism was, of course, under the general influence of the quality of the work, insofar as it excluded criticism of details. The estimates that evaluated the quality of the statues were larger than today. Some critics have not hesitated to talk about the horror and atrocity of Abu Simbel’s statues, saying that this means judging the huge statues with extreme cruelty and contempt, forgetting two truths about their composition.
Prominent modern sculpture:
The walls of New Kingdom temples are usually decorated with prominent inscriptions representing various themes, the most important of which are battles and war victories, as in the inscriptions of The Funerary Temple Of King Thutmose III on the walls of his temple at Karnak, where we see him holding the heads of his Asian enemies with one hand while he is smiting their heads with his weapon he was holding in the other hand.
An inscription shows members of King Akhenaten’s family in natural sessions, depicting the king’s daughter Akhenaten “Queen Ankhesenamun” sitting on the floor eating a duck that may simply not conform to traditional royal dignity. Here we observe the artist’s openness and freedom in the lines expressing the girl’s body.
Important inscriptions include images of war “The army in ancient Egypt” and battles fought by the pharaohs, such as the Battle of Kadesh fought by King Ramses II, which was engraved on a hall in a mural in Luxor in the form of lines cut by scenes of the king, his vehicle and views of soldiers and prisoners.
There are some of the prominent wall inscriptions of the sculpture on the walls of Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir El Bahari.
A row of soldiers carrying shields and spears appeared. It is also engraved on the walls of the Temple of Seti I in Abydos, which indicates the presence of the divine boat and a group of gods.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt at the end of the era:
Late stereoscopic sculpture:
Many statues from the Saite era have not been found, and some examples include a basalt statue noting that the Saite style of sculpture was dominated by the way Old Kingdom art was imitated, but the artist of that time did not reach the precision of this stage and more than the use of basalt stone, which helped show blocks and surfaces in polished statues.
Interest in accurately recording facial features in the statue of a basalt priest, inspired by the cube stone mass, was common in Old Kingdom statues.
The prominent sculpture had no distinctive character but was a tradition of the inscriptions of the Ancient Empire.
Art in Ancient Egypt | the facts and history of the personality and characteristics of the ancient Egyptian artist at the time of the pharaohs and what are the rules of art painting in the Pharaohs civilization and the most important architects and sculptors throughout Pharaonic history and more.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian art is no different from the rest of the ancient arts in the pattern of its first appearance, where all archaeological evidence proves that it was practiced with practical motifs first and not with aesthetic or artistic motifs, and certainly we do not know the exact moment when the aesthetic tendency of the ancient Egyptian artist and his practice of art appeared as a form of aesthetic pleasure.
All our traces indicate that art was in the beginning either a religious craft required by the temple or palace, or a domestic craft by those who practiced it for utilitarian practical purposes, and in both cases aesthetic interest was subordinated to craftsmanship in both ways.
Art in Ancient Egypt:
Together, the priests, High Priest of Amun and kings asked the artist to represent them in a dignified and classy way, encouraged the artist to remain conservative in his vision of things, and forced him to serve their conservative goals. Together, they did everything in their power to prevent innovation in art: to prevent any form of reform; they feared any change in the existing system and declared that the traditional rules of the art of holiness and infallibility had a kind of religious beliefs and traditional types of worship.
Priests allowed kings to be counted gods, in order to attract them to their own power, and on the other hand, kings allowed the construction of temples for gods and priests to increase their own fame. Both sides wanted to benefit from each other’s influence, and both wanted to benefit from the artist in the struggle to preserve royal and priestly power.
The characteristic of the Egyptian artist:
Under these circumstances, it was impossible to create the aesthetic impulse of art that we currently enjoy, part of the gains from the freedom of the individual and the contemporary community, and art workshops were like craft workshops in which the entities of creators blended in favor of the utilitarian goals of others” in such circumstances was the creation of independent art.
He creates pure aesthetic patterns, and for pure aesthetic purposes, no less impossible than in prehistoric times Predynastic Period and Naqada III. Works of art, such as carved reliefs or wall sculptures, were not created for their themes and beauty. The artist was not in charge of the sculpture to place his statues in the avant-garde of the temples and on the market, as in the classical periods of the Old or Renaissance, but most of them were erected in the dark depths of the temple and at the bottom of the Pharaonic Tombs.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. The Egyptian artist created his rich personality with a personal wonder that does not resemble what appeared in the art of the ancient oriental world in particular, and does not resemble Greek art, which took on typical proportions in its own way, Egyptian art gave the proportions its importance but shaved it to the breathtaking symbolic and magical level and its art became indicates a rare and strange ambiguity, and perhaps the Egyptian religion was behind it all and we do not exclude the magic that settles in its depths and displaces it.
Art in Ancient Egypt – The Rules of Egyptian Painting: Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
As for the rules of Egyptian painting, she stops looking at first glance; it is based on the desire to record the object in its best shape: a lateral image of the head, but frontal to the eye, the shoulders of the front and a lateral image of the body. The artist mastered the expression of movement, removing the unobservable shoulder, as evidenced by some images of the tomb in the Theban necropolis or the tombs in the Saite necropolis, but avoids as much as possible its representation of all that is reality.
He rejects the illusion. Plato certainly referred to the Egyptian artist and his rules when he criticized the art of his time based on the exterior. It is a creative process, in every sense of the word. A statue should “come into the world” so that it truly becomes the physical pillar where the Ka and the Ba meet. The secrets that artists boast of being aware of are not only technical, but also religious.
They are aware of the steps to be taken in the Golden House to transform the carved stone into “living images”. These statues can therefore be buried: the second statue of King Mentuhotep I was found in the door of the horse, buried in a shroud of linen. Thus, an artist from the Middle Kingdom wrote the following text on a stone tablet kept in the Louvre Museum: I know the secret of divine words and the rules of ritual movements.
The combination of symbolic inspiration and the artist’s inner desire to paint always produces a deep and beautiful blend of art together, and the spiritual sacred aspect of it can be overlooked as its hidden monetization” ancient Egyptian arts are symbolic expressive arts, have rich connotations and tend in their entirety to the expressive symbolism of the reality of Pharaonic thought even at the beginning of their ancient history.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. Egyptian artists expressed originality and contemporary in their time, which gave their rich heritage a cultural feature that stunned modern scholars. Like the columns of the temples, they were symbolically expressive. In the form of papyrus or The Pharaonic Lotus Flower, it was a reference to the ponds and swamps of the Nile.
These botanical columns suggested a special atmosphere to the king as he passed by boat in his majestic procession from inside the temple of his court. Ancient artists clearly demonstrated the religious arts and recorded them through their concept of the other world after death.
Despite the disappearance of the artist’s personality behind these political (court), religious (temple) and practical (house) motives, there have been a few names in the history of ancient Egyptian art, including:
Art in ancient Egypt and the most important architects and sculptors in the history of ancient Egyptian art:
Architect Ineni: Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
The royal Architect Ineni “Anena“ is the chief architect and great architect of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, responsible for the construction projects with the pharaohs Amenophis I, King Thutmose I, King Thutmose II, Queen Hatshepsut and King Thutmose III.
He had many titles, including the observer of the Silos, the observer of the king’s buildings, the supervisor of the workers in Treasury bonds and possibly also supervised the construction of the Tomb of Amenhotep I | KV39 and temple of Amenophis I, and was responsible for the expansion of the temple of Karnak.
Thutmose I commissioned several construction projects during his reign, including the first carved tomb in the Valley of the Kings, numerous playgrounds and statues, the completion of the expansion of the treasure initiated by Amenophis I, and the great hypostyle hall built in Karnak to commemorate the victory of Thutmose I after his death.
Enini retained his place in Hatshepsut’s time, despite the emergence of a new architect, Senenmut, a confidant of Hatshepsut, but he carried out important work, including the construction of his funerary temple in the site of Deir El-Bahari.
The architect Senenmut: Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
He came from a modest family, and during the reign of Hatshepsut he became the most important architect in the royal court, he was also an artist, with a deep love affair with Hatshepsut, he received more than 80 titles during his reign as an official and director of labor at the royal court and was an observer of the buildings of the god Amun.
Sculptor Djehoutimess (Thotmosis):
The royal sculptor of Tell el-Amarna, he was one of the sculptors of Pharaoh Akhenaten, and when the archaeological mission to King Akhenaton was revised, a sculpture workshop was found where the name of this sculptor was found, who is said to have carved the famous colorful bust of Queen Nefertiti, and would have carved most of the statues of Tell el-Amarna.
The sculptor Bak:
Bak or (Buck), the name means “servant” in ancient Egyptian) and was the chief royal sculptor during the reign of King Akhenaton.
Ancient Egyptian decoration | Pharaonic decoration and style in interior design and the religious and social furniture industry.
The facts of the development of Egyptian religious theater in the Pharaonic civilization of Egypt, discover the history of the art of decoration by the Pharaohs and the secrets of the Pharaonic civilization.
The wood of tamarisk, sycamore, acacia and fig tree, were used in the manufacture of ancient Egyptian furniture and decorations, and all these woods were available in Egypt, as well as imported precious wood such as cedar and ebony.
The carpentry and decoration tools were made of stone and metal, but the most important furniture among the Egyptians were beds, leg support, chests, and chairs, and in general we can classify decoration and furniture as follows:
Ancient Egyptian decoration – religious furniture among the pharaohs:
Furniture that was used in temples and Funerary Equipment found in Pharaonic Tombs and pyramids.
Temple furniture: The temple usually contains chairs, wall furniture, and statues of gods and kings. There is furniture that includes chests, beds, etc to know more about Trade in Ancient Egypt.
Funerary furniture: Includes beds, headrests, mats, chests, an offering table, coffins, wooden toys, wheels, Pharaonic Ushabti Statues boxes, canonic boxes (for the interior organs of Mummy), Alabaster Canopic Jar, boats and wooden coffins (to transport the deceased to the other world!) And there are the golden royal compartments of kings.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt – social furniture:
Worldly furniture varies according to the social rank of the individual; Pharaonic palaces were unmatched in their unique furniture and rare decorations, and perhaps the furniture of King Tutankhamun, who needs a complete book to describe, it represents an amazing example of pharaonic furniture with its chests, beds, chairs, coffins, and chariots. The traditional furniture of Egyptian houses had a modest but enduring art in decoration.
The Pharaonic Civilization did not know the tables, but they used straw trays installed on a pottery holder to put the food press, they also made wooden tripods for water pots, wine and beer, and the ancient Egyptians used boxes of wood chips glued to each other, which guaranteed them a long life.
Ancient Egyptian clothing and personal items were kept in chests or baskets of reeds, and the boxes were initially made of superimposed wooden planks, then became in the Old Kingdom wooden frames filled with wooden planks and have a cylindrical or triangular cover, and the most important feature of ancient Egyptian furniture was lightness and ease of transport.
The most important vocabulary of social furniture is (beds, head rests, chairs, tables, boxes, wheels, wooden supports, doors, stair windows, etc.). The patterns of chairs and beds were made in the form of animal motifs and there were round and three-legged seats, some of which were foldable.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. The older chairs were made of stone, cube-shaped, then erected their wooden patterns, and their seats were made of smooth, flat flint stone, and later they became a little concave. The files and hand rests appeared late.
The decorations of the furniture were mainly made according to religious data.
The development of ancient Egyptian decorative art in the Pharaonic civilization:
The art of Egyptian decoration began modestly in the pre-dynastic era, but reached its first peak during the era of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, that began to decline until the advent of the New Kingdom with the eighteenth dynasty, where its second peak, which extended to the Saîte era, began and then descended again until the Hellenistic period came with a special Egyptian-Greek decoration, and Egyptian decorations responded to post-death beliefs.
The tombs and pyramids (which were decorated with white plaster over the entire area of the outer pyramid) were decorated to know more about The Secrets of Pyramid Construction, and the decorations were characterized by their attractive colors, simplicity, consistency, balance, and high aesthetic composition.
Decorations appeared in the fields of craftsmanship and rich in form. wide. There is architecture, wood, textile, metal, stone, ceramics, pottery, etc., and decoration was the basis of the art of embroidery on dresses and textiles to know more about Architecture in ancient Egypt.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. feature decorative models with shapes representing the disc of the sun, spreading its wings to the right and left, so that the place can be protected and maintained. The Egyptian punishment was used as a symbol of research, because in the belief of the ancient Egyptians, he was born in a round pile of compost, and the chick flies immediately after his coing out of his celestial ball.
The lotus flower was also widely used (symbolizing the fertility of the earth) by the ancient Egyptians in many of their decorations, which is seen amidst its round leaves scattered above the surface of the water, and on the banks of the Nile River.
Because it was the most widespread and beautiful flower known at the time, it was marked in religious rituals and introduced into many cornices and decorative ribbons. The Egyptians also used chrysanthemum and papyrus, grapes and imagination, in many different decorative motifs and on column capitals.
Types of Egyptian decoration by type of units:
- Sacred decoration
- Botanical decoration
- Animal decoration
- Human decoration
- Natural decoration
- Symbolic decoration
- Geometric decoration
- Clerical decoration
Egyptian religious theater in the Pharaonic era: Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
We will first confirm our general idea about the possibility of a theater before the fifth century BC among the Greeks, especially in Eastern civilizations, and say that there is no such theater at all, because theater is a worldly art that was born from the rituals of religious drama and temple and became artistically and aesthetically intentional and its audience is no longer believers who perform rituals. religious, but it is intended for the public who wants pleasure and spiritual rather than religious aesthetic purification.
We knew these ideas in more than one place and discussed our idea of Sumerian (religious) theatre despite the existence of theatrical instructions, a choir and an actor in the texts of this theatre.
So we prefer to name the religious theater, which is not a theater like what we know when the Greeks play our present, but rather a religious drama played in the temple or as part of religious ceremonies and rituals during religious Festivals in Ancient Egypt, including the New Year’s eve, which means that all Eastern civilizations, as well as the Western Aegean and Cretan civilizations up to the fifth century BC in Athens, did not produce theater, but can even produce religious dramas that are part of religion and not of the world.
This applies to what is called the “ancient Egyptian theater, or Pharaonic theater,” and extremists exaggerate it, and it is nothing more than a religious ritual that is part of religion, not a stand-alone art. Thus, the term “religious theater” is conditional and different from “theatrical art,” which is worldly theater in the first place.
To prove our point of view, we say that no constructed theater or trace of theatrical buildings was found, while such buildings appeared in the Greek theater. There is also no profession or profession of actor in the professions in ancient Egypt.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. As for the texts that some consider to be theatrical texts, they are first of all religious texts, which can be produced by both modern and theatrical readings, but frankly they are either The legends of creation in the Pharaonic civilization or religious rituals that are particularly associated with Isis and God Osiris, and we will decide to deal with this.
In fact, it was Egyptology researchers who promoted this idea, inspired many of it, and made them try to prove it by force, including these scientists.
Ancient Egyptian decoration and theories of Egyptology researchers:
- Georges Benedet: Secretary of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum in France in 1900.
- Scheffer: A German scholar (1904) considered the secrets of Osiris as theatrical texts and collected them from the reign of Sesostris III.
- Kurt Ziete: In the Ramesseum Medical Papyri, he discovered a text that he considered a theatrical text of a religious drama in 1928.
- James Henry Breasted: In his book Dawn of Conscience, he refers to the existence of an ancient Egyptian theater.
- Selim Hassan: He passionately defended the existence of an ancient Egyptian theater and included theatrical texts in his book on Pharaonic literature.
- Drioton: The most vocal defender of the idea of an ancient Egyptian investigation in his book “The Ancient Egyptian Theater”, where he tried to refute opposing views.
- Sheldon Chipsey: Defended the existence of an Egyptian theater in his book (The History of Theatre in 3,000 Years).
- Ferman: An Englishman directed the play “Victory of Horus” and directed it for his college.
- Louis Awad: He tried to prove the existence of an old Egyptian theater through his books and articles.
- Idris Nicole: He was an oscillator between doubt and certainty in his book The World Play, but he supported the influence of the Greeks on the rituals of ancient Egypt.
- M.D. Barak: Published in 1933 a text in Abydos in which theatrical dialogues.
Those who rejected the idea of an ancient Egyptian theater were:
- Vidman: The German Egyptologist who opposed Georges Benedet.
- Abdel-Mooti Sharawi: In his articles on “Theater in Pharaonic Egypt,” researcher Fathi Sayed, Fathi provided us with valuable information about the above supporters and opponents about the existence of ancient Egyptian theater.
Drioton, a fervent follower of the existence of an ancient Egyptian theater, drew up a list of a series of Egyptian texts that he considered theatrical texts and gave them names from the contents of the rest of them:
- The birth of Horus and his reification (since the dead of the coffins “Book of Amduat“)
- The Global Defeat of Apophis (from The Book of the Dead)
- Underground Battle against Apophis (Rhind Mathematical Papyrus)
- Isis and her seven scorpions (painting by Miternikh)
- Poplar bitten by a scorpion (painting by Miternikh)
- The Return of Seth (Papyrus 3126 at the Louvre)
- Test Courier Time (Appendix A)
- Horus’ victory over the hippopotamus.
- Battle of Horus and his victory over the hippopotamus
- The coronation of King Senusret I.
- half of the scenes.
- Scene from Horus’ veiled religious play.
Other texts mentioned by other researchers are:
Texts from the pain of Osiris:
French Egyptologist and archaeologist Dr. Étienne Marie Felix Drioton concludes that the evidence we found led us to the fact that Egypt witnessed two types of theatrical performances that took two different paths that could not be confused:
Ritual concerts, religious dramas, and if religious concerts that had no drama other than performance, religious plays were something else, it was a piece that was faithful to the meaning we know today, all imitating the events of the past or as they think, because it depends on people, movements, and dialogue.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. There are no symbols intended to provoke certain inspirations, so it was a theatrical performance, not a ritual performance, and what we know today about ritual concerts, that is, religious pieces.
Such conclusions lead us to emphasize the existence of an ancient Egyptian religious theater ranging from religious and dramatic rituals, both of which in both cases fall under the religious system;
As for the actors, we do not believe at all that there are specialized representation teams or attached in such roles, but it is modest priests and temple servants who take turns the occasion.
Hence the role of the development of ancient Egyptian pharaonic decoration.
The Temple of Edfu:
Dating back to the early 18th dynasty, we never believe that he speaks of an actor in the strict sense, but it may have been a slave or servant of his master who played roles that helped him spend time or travel, and what he said (exceptional case in his field) cannot be considered an indication of the presence of an actor at that time.
Ritual ceremonies were organized by priests in temples and some priests were trained to learn religious dance “Holy of Holies“, which was held around the shrine and was dominated by performance, gestures, and ritual movements.
The religious pieces were also representations of certain myths or mythical rituals in the temple performed by some priests and respected by the people as a ritual representation of what was happening in the sacred (legendary) era.
Ritual drama may have tended to move towards dramatic spectacle, as some of the painted paintings embodied such types, but it is not certain that this was done under the title of theater, and the choir may have appeared in Egyptian rituals but did not go beyond its religious status.
Priests played the role of choir and choirmaster, and became an inherited religious profession, and one of the manifestations of the choir in religious ceremonies was that priests (leaders) wore clothes specially prepared for feasts characterized in their conception that they were bright colors and many inscriptions.
In addition to the name of the role that the owner wears his costume on the left shoulder, in addition to the fact that the ancient Egyptian knew the masks and used them in many musical performances in which the choir was used.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. Then the pharaonic theatrical performances quickly faded from those collective lyrical paragraphs that the choir sang, while the drama took on another, more tragic form, when the choir songs tended to gradually detach themselves from the dramatic act.
The Art of Painting In Ancient Egypt | the facts of the development of the art of mural paintings and Pharaonic Tombs, discovered the secrets of fine arts through the history of pharaonic civilization and more artistic culture among the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs.
The Art of Painting In Ancient Egypt
The Art of Painting In Ancient Egypt:
Former Empire:
The drawing at this stage appeared on the stones and cylindrical seals
The Old Kingdom:
The artist sometimes used colors to illustrate his prominent inscriptions. He also used them at an uncle’s house for frescoes on a plaster dish covering the walls, and the most famous example of the latter is the image (the six geese) that was found in Tomb of Nefermaat – mastaba 16 in Meydum exhibited at the Egyptian Museum and this painting accurately attests to the artist’s choice of the natural colors of these birds.
There is a painting (The Noble Tyi) looking at the hippopotamus hunt, a colorful wall inscription in the tomb of the nobleman in Saqqara from ancient times around 2400 BC. And there are also drawings of the Tomb of Kagemni in Giza depicting the life of the peasants.
Another example is that of the noble cemetery (Tyi), where a colorful painting shows an Egyptian peasant advancing a group of calves, and there are inscriptions in the upper part of the painting.
The Art of Painting In Ancient Egypt dating from the Middle Kingdom:
Although the frescoes are few, they are precise, and some of them highlight the depth and the most important paintings in the tombs of the rulers of Beni Hasan Tombs in Al Minya, the most important of which are:
Painting of birds and acacia: Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
Where the artist’s prowess in the simulation of the medical announcement and note that he distributed different birds on the branches of the tree with thin leaves in coordination of a beautiful boy, and he also recorded the distinctive features of these birds very precisely, the gift appears in its natural colors standing among a group of birds.
There is a plate of (deer) feeding by two servants: we observe the artist’s progress in understanding the rules of perspective; instead of drawing objects on a single floor line, he paints the animal on the left side on a floor line a few heights from the right group to highlight the depth.
There are paintings depicting the Hyksos and some sports The Games of the Pharaohs.
Painting in Ancient Egypt in the New Kingdom:
The representation spread widely, and this era is the pinnacle of this art, and frescoes have replaced the prominent inscriptions (prominent sculpture) colored in the decorations of the tombs, the best of which is found in the tombs of the nobles and not in the royal tombs; for example, there is a painting of the Tomb of Ipuky and Nebamon – TT181 in Tombs of El Khokha, Tombs of The Nobles in Luxor “Thebes” | The Pharaonic Tombs from Thebes for hunting birds with a curved cane.
It is an amazing painting showing a prince in the middle of an orchard hunting birds with a stick, and highlights the artist’s prowess in drawing species of flying birds, standing, and fallen, although the prince’s pause shows the body as in front of me while the pause is lateral… It’s not without all the old Egyptian photography.
The Frescoes (plaster paintings) are found in Tombs of Sheikh Abdel Gorna that depict the food engraved on the walls of the tombs for pleasure after his death, and show the ingenuity of this painting in its ability to depict the transparent dress covering the body of the woman who delivers food and drink to the dead. The same goes for the image of a young man with a deer on his neck, a traditional image that ancient Near Eastern art traditionally painted.
The paintings of noble girls Tomb of Userhet | KV45 show the details of the eyes, hairstyles and dresses, typical images of ancient Egyptian art that still emphasize the lateral image and avoid the frontal or stereoscopic image.
There is a representation on the cover of a box showing the hunt of a prince or king, and this painting is characterized by the artist’s ability to record the lions in spectacular movement and vitality as they attack and escape the king’s horse, whose features are incarnated, thus indicating the king’s power and ability to defeat lions.
The other example is a colorful mural found in one of the tombs of the princes of the dynasty (18) of the New Kingdom, which depicts a group of musicians and dancers, as well as women in fancy clothes with many folds enjoying dance scenes and listening to singing.
Pharaonic Cartridges | Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
It is a Pharaonic Cartridges designed to express the name of the pharaoh in Hieroglyphics, and because the pharaoh has five names, the cartouche was limited to drawing and writing two of his names, the penultimate name preceded by the words “Son of Ra” and the surname that is (King of Upper and Lower Egypt). The most famous of the most famous maps are the cartridges of King Ramses II, King Ramses III, King Ramesses IV,King Ramesses VII and King Ramses VI, as in the form The Ramesside Period.
The Art of Painting In Ancient Egypt at the end of the era: Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
This art experienced decadence at that time and artists tended to reproduce old images without new creativity, and there is no sign of creativity or innovation in the memory of this stage of frescoes or images of pottery and stone.
In general, Egyptian murals were made on the walls of temples to maximize the idea of God, and on the walls of palaces, to document the activities of the kings of life and religion and thought created a special system to distribute the objectivity of scenes to the spaces of architecture, the absence of funerary buildings were drawings with themes of life such as work. in the fields, adventures in the desert and parties in the role in the atmosphere of music, dance and singing, and performed on the walls of outdoor cemeteries.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. Subjects with religious connotations, such as scenes of worship in front of the gods and funeral processions, occupied the deep interior spaces of the tombs.
In fact, ancient Egyptian frescoes, in terms of content, are divided into three kinds:
- Scenes from everyday life.
- Scenes of funeral rituals held for the dead before burial.
- Scenes from the other world after death and its gods and details.
The scenes in the tombs are arranged according to a general rule so that they seem to relate to everyday life in the large hall that extends to the right and left of the entrance, while compared to funerary and religious rituals, it appears in the longitudinal room linked to the axis of the cemetery, which usually ends with the compartment engraved in the west wall, where the statue of the deceased is placed and the scene of the marsh, fishing and bird hunting is a key element in the decoration of the tombs.
The Art of Painting In Ancient Egypt and micro-arts (applied):
Former Empire:
In the tombs of the first dynasty, bracelets of gold, turquoise and lapis lazuli were found, including a bracelet bearing decorations in the form of a palace façade surmounted by the god Horus that belonged to the wife of the Zen king.
From the tomb of King Djer, the fifth king of the first dynasty, a piece of ivory with inscriptions depicting him falling with a baton was found on the head of a prisoner.
One of the beautiful gold coins attributed to this time was found in King Djer Hemaka tomb, two hunting dogs attacking deer and a small ivory statue of a king found in Abydos decorated with clamshell units.
The other example is in the form of accompaniment, a collection of pots, copper dishes and a table of offerings found at the Edi cemetery in the Abydos area dating from 2300 BC.
It was then installed in the body of the vessel in the manner of precision known in copper workshops, the same method as in the early dynasties and had ample evidence and was found in the tombs of Abydos and the Mastabas and Tombs at Saqqara.
Sculpture in Ancient Egypt. The other example is the attached P-shape, four of the bracelets found wrapped around the linen-wrapped arm at the Tomb of King Djer in Abydos, three of which are made of beaded pieces of blue-green turquoise, dark blue lapis lazuli and purple gemstone.
The fourth bracelet is a type of ceramic sheet in the form of the façade of the royal palace (serekh), each representing a falcon representing the god Horus.
In porcelain, the oldest color known at the time as porcelain was red and black, but this was preceded by the manufacture of bowls and pots in a single color.
The uncut porcelain was decorated in red with designs symbolizing human beings, deer, ostriches, canals, mountains, and water.
Painting in Ancient Egypt in the Old Kingdom:
The art of industries flourished, with pots and alabaster objects found in their forms, and the necklace engraved on the neck of Princess Nefert demonstrates the artist’s precision and ability to inlay metal artworks, harmonious colored stones and the largest collection of the draftsman found in the Tomb of Queen Hetepheres I, Queen Hetepheres I the king’s mother King Khufu, including gold pots and silver horses dotted with turquoise and lapis lazuli.
A golden falcon head from the Sixth Dynasty has also been found. However, the arts declined at the end of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt, where political unrest took place.
The Middle Kingdom: Sculpture in Ancient Egypt
Theart of the Middle Kingdom era was characterized by a unique collection of gold ornaments inlaid with precious stones, found in Dahshur and Lahoon, and for the precision of its manufacture, beauty and high formulation, some researchers have stated that it far exceeded the ornaments of King Tutankhamun. Some of the most beautiful discoveries include:
- Crown Queen Khenemetneferhedjet I Weret.
- Necklace of King Eta.
- Gold necklaces and vests found in the tomb of King Sesostris.
Painting in Ancient Egypt in the New Kingdom:
Wealth had an impact on beautiful works of art, as evidenced by the pieces found by prospectors in the tombs of the New Kingdom. The collection of objects found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun is as good as the study of this type of art, as the cemetery was found intact by Ancient Egyptian Grave Robbers, unlike other royal tombs.
- The throne represents the king sitting alone and the queen perfumed him.
- The king’s mask and the golden coffin were decorated with colored stones.
- Alabaster pots in the shape of a lotus flower.
- The wooden box decorated with scenes of seven-lane hunting and desert animals on one side and the king’s wars with Asians and Nubians on the other.
- A Kohle spoon carved in the form of a floating duck is carried by a swimmer on her hand.
The arts were the smallest of the greatest arts in Egypt, because the intelligence and ancestors who built Luxor Temple , Karnak and the pyramids, which filled the structures with stone statues, also went to beautify the houses from the inside and decorate the bodies and create all the pleasures and blessings of life, The women made the linen and trimmed fabric that adorns the walls, and the colorful pillows delicate in their weaving are of a finesse barely believed by the mind, and the designs they created moved to Syria and are still scattered there these days.
King Tutankhamun treasures revealed the strange luxury of ancient Egyptian furniture, the luxury of every piece and every part of a piece of exquisite refinement, including its silver chairs, shiny gold, luxury fineness and fine industry.
Jewelry boxes, perfume boxes, and finely crafted vases matched only with Chinese vases, and their tables carried precious silver, gold, bronze, crystal cups, and sparkling pots that were polished and leafy until the light almost came out through its stone walls.
There are many small formations such as statues, rings, and earrings.
One of the most common colors was green and blue, called “Tehnet”, a turquoise tradition, and was associated with an important goddess, Hathor, sometimes known as “The Lady of Turquoise”.
Painting in ancient Egypt at the end of the era:
Some rich industries appeared in the form of metal pots indicating a beautiful simplicity in their lines, and bronze mascots were found for some animals such as cats.
The traces of this period are characterized by coffins with the bodies of bulls found in the Serapium of Sakkara, which illustrates the worship and appreciation of the people of this period for the calf (Hapi) and they believed that the God (Ptah) had reincarnation.
References Sculpture in Ancient Egypt: The Book of Egyptian Civilization, Egypt
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