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Gods of Egypt were of nature.

Pharaohs were generated from the gods and one day they would return to them.
Mortal life was devoted to preparations for the afterlife.
Structures (homes, public buildings) were made from simple materials like palm

trunks and mud-bricks. They didnt last long.

Tombs and temples were made from stone and were constructed for immortality.
Egyptian art centered on four concepts: order, stability, perpetuity, and obsession
with immortality.

Egypt enjoyed a remarkable continuity and stability for roughly 3000 years.
Egypts natural borders: the Libyan Desert in the west, the Arabian Desert in the

east.
The borders protected and isolated Egypt.
The Nile Valley nourished the people.
Neolithic Period: the Nile Valley was inhabited by two ethic groups. A group from
Africa occupied Upper (southern) Egypt and a group from Asia occupied Lower

(northern) Egypt.
Upper and Lower refer to the flow of the Nile.
A king from Upper Egypt united the two separate principalities and established the

first unified nation.

The unification began a line of dynasties.

Period

Predynastic

Dynasty

Years of Influence

ca. 5400 - 3100 BCE

Sample Work

Tomb Painting from Hierakonpolis

Period

Old Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

New Kingdom

Dynasty

Years of Influence

Sample Work

I - XIII

ca. 3100 - 2125 BCE

Pyramids at Giza

XI - XVII

ca. 2125 - 1650 BCE

Rock-cut Tomb of Amenemhet

XVIII - XX

ca. 1650 - 1069 BCE

Treasures of Tutankhamen

Hieroglyphics

The Egyptians developed their own system of writing: hieroglyphics.

They didnt discard or simplify the picture forms as the language developed.
The Rosetta Stone: discovered in 1799 by a group of French scholars, who
accompanied Napoleon during his invasion of Egypt. Contained a text praising an

Egyptian king in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic, and Greek.

Egyptian kings and gods were linked.
Used as documentation and record keeping.

Predynastic Art

Different from the art of Dynastic Egypt.

Tomb painting from Hierakonpolis (ca. 3500 3200 BCE), a city in Upper Egypt.

Random composition: cargo-laden boats, warriors, hunters, animals.

Resembles the murals of Catal Huyuk.
Stone palettes: carved on both sides with low reliefs and on one side a carved out
depression. Used to prepare makeup (initially for sun protection).

Palette of Narmer (ca. 3000 BCE)

Different from the tomb painting from Hierakonpolis.

Order dominates the composition: it records the unification of Upper and Lower

Egypt. Features King Narmer (Upper Egypt).

Back of the palette: King Narmer in hierarchical scale, wearing the crown of Upper
Egypt and slaying his enemy. His attendant follows behind with his sandals. Before
the king, we find the god Horus, a human-headed falcon who protects the pharaohs.
Horus holds a symbolic representation of Lower Egypt. Narmers name is written on
top, between two cows heads, which represent the goddess Hathor, the divine

mother of the pharaohs. In the lower part of the palette, Narmers enemies lie dead.
Front of the palette: two cats with entwined necks, representing the united Kingdom
of Upper and Lower Egypt. The depression formed held the eye makeup. Above the
cats, we find King Narmer, wearing the crown of Lower Egypt, in hierarchical scale,
and marching with his troops. The king and the dead enemies are seen from two
different point of views: the king from eye-level and the dead from above (aerial
perspective). This provides clarity and economy of limited space. The lowest part of
the palette, shows King Narmer as a bull in hierarchical scale, knocking down the

walls of an enemy city.

King portrayed as a god-like figure.
The palette contains order and stability.
Egyptian figure representation: composite view with weight evenly divided between
the legs and the back leg advanced.

Egyptian Old Kingdom Architecture

Egyptian society: order and stability.

Egyptian mindset: preoccupation with the afterlife.
A person had an alter ego or life force called the ka, which continued on after the

living body passed away.

The ka needed some sort of body and this is why the Egyptians preserved the corpse
through mummification. The Egyptians put all the goods of life in the tomb with the

deceased to ensure that a persons ka would be able to enjoy them in the next life.
Earliest Egyptian tombs: walled graves, in which a person would be buried along

with their possessions, placed on the west side of the city to face the setting sun.
Grave sites evolved into Mastabas, which evolved into pyramids.

Mastaba

Rectangular stone or brick structure with sloping slides and a shaft connecting the

tomb to the outside.

Chambers were added to put the possessions of the deceased.
The chapel had a small chamber, serdad, with a statue of the deceased.
Interior walls were decorated with painted reliefs and drawings to provide

entertainment for the deceased in the afterlife.

Mastabas grew larger.

Imhotep

Connection between the mastaba and the great pyramids is the step pyramid of King
Djoser (ca. 2750 BCE), a pharaoh of the Third Dynasty. Oldest example of Egyptian

architecture.
Holds the basic plan of a mastaba.
Earliest work in history with a named artist, Imhotep, a royal diplomat and priest.
Imhotep built six mastabas of constant height, but of diminishing size, one upon

another.
Resembles a Mesopotamian ziggurat but the function was different because
intended to protect the tomb and possessions of the dead king.

Step Pyramids

The step pyramid was part of a larger complex.

Area enclosed by a 35-foot wall.
Within the walls were many buildings arranged around several courts.
Quite a few were sham structures.
The interior columns are drummed and fluted.
Remains of the North Palace: unfluted columns with a head, or capital and bud or
bell capital.

Columns in the North Palace are engaged, meaning that they are attached to the
wall.

Great Pyramids

Greatest achievement of Old Kingdom architecture are the pyramids at Giza built by

three kings of the Fourth Dynasty.

The largest and oldest of the three pyramids was built by Khufu. Stands 480 feet
high. Covers about 13 acres at the base. Used at least two million blocks, each

weighing two-and-a-half tons.

When first constructed they were covered in limestone. Only a portion remains at
the top of Khafres pyramid. Capped with a top block, pyramidion, which was

covered with a thin sheet of gold to reflect the sun rays.

The pyramids are perfectly oriented to the cardinal points of the compass.
The pyramids of Khufu and Khafre are on the same diagonal axis.
All of them face east towards the rising sun and the sun god, Ra.
The structures represent the characteristics of ancient Egyptian art: order
(perfection of form), stability (the power of the kings), perpetuity (built to last), and
an obsession with immortality (built for the afterlife).

Great Sphinx

A sphinx is a lion with a mans head.

Carved in situ (in place) from a massive desert stone.
The earliest colossus (very large statue) and the largest to be preserved.
A symbol of royal power.

Egyptian Old Kingdom

First royal portrait: of King Djoser (ca. 2750 BCE) during Old Kingdom.
From serdad chamber in the step pyramid of King Djoser.
The sculpture originally had rock crystal eyes and was painted, but robbers took

everything away.
King wears a small kilt, black wig, royal headdress, false ceremonial beard.
Composition is frontal, compact, serene.

Imhotep signed his name at the base of the statue.

The statue of Khafre was recovered almost completely undamaged.
Composition is similar to the sculpture of King Djoser and presents the same

elements.
Menkaure and Khamerernebty, king and queen, represent similar characteristics as

the previous two sculptures.

In another sculpture, Menkaure is presented wearing a crown and kilt of Upper
Egypt and very close to Khamerernebty, wanting to underline the intimacy between

the two.
The wooden ka-Aper statue of a minor official. In stiff stance (left foot extended).
As societal status declines, the realism of portraiture increases.
Seated scribe, low position in the Egyptian court hierarchy, so the portraits are
almost real.

Egyptian Middle Kingdom and Old Kingdom

2150 BCE: people went against the pharaohs rule.

Civil unrest for a century.
Mentuhotep I (king from Upper Egypt) united the nation: Middle Kingdom Period

(Dynasties XI-XIV).
Power depended on military might.
Control passed to the Hyksos, shepherd kings, a group of Asiatic rulers.
Horse and wheel introduced.
1550 BCE, Ahmose I (first king of Dynasty XVIII), rose to power: New Kingdom

Period.
New Kingdom Period: five centuries.
Brought enormous architecture projects.
Mortuary temples: for the pharaohs.
Pylon temples: for the gods.
Structures located in and around the new capital of Thebes in Upper Egypt.
First mortuary temple: of Queen Hatshepsut (Dynasty XVIII).
Queen Hatshepsut: first great female leader.
Her temple served as the first pictorial tribute to a female in the history of art.
Her chief counsel, Senmut, designed the temple with three colonnaded terraces

connected by ramps.
Colonnade: a row of columns supporting a ceiling.
Terraces held gardens and were decorated with painted low reliefs praising the

queen.
Egyptian characteristics of order and sense.
Lines of the temple harmonize/blend in with the mountain.

Interior courts, temples, chapels are laid out in a symmetrical plan, emphasizing the
Egyptian characteristics.

Egyptian Temples

Pylon temples: for gods. Pylon large stone structure with sloping walls.
Egyptian characteristics.
Pylon followed by a courtyard, then a hypostyle hall, a second hall and the

sanctuary.
Pylon decorated with reliefs featuring a god and the pharaoh who sponsored the

building of the temple.

Obelisks: tall, thin, four-sided shaft of tapering stone that rises to a pyramidal point.
Statues of the pharaohs and obelisks were placed in front.
First courtyard open and lined with colonnades.
Hypostyle hall: covered with columns.
Roof: stone slabs resting on lintels.
Lintels supported by impost blocks resting on the columns.
Center section of the roof raised to create a clerestory.
Second hall was kept quiet and dark. Served as a passageway to the most sacred part

of the temple. Decorated with scenes of gods and pharaohs interacting.

The Temple of Amon-Ra at Karnak, near Thebes (ca. 1250 BCE).
Columns of central portion of hypostyle hall: over sixty feet high. Capitals: over

twenty feet in diameter.

Columns of the central portion have bell (kylix capitals); columns along the side

have bud capitals.

Characteristics of New Kingdom sculpture and painting similar to the Old Kingdom

except for Amarna period.

Blocked statues: appeared in Middle and New Kingdom art. Simplicity.
Senmut (translation: mothers brother) with Princess Nefrua (ca. 1450 BCE). Focus:
faces. Simplicity.

Amarna Period

Amenhotep IV came to thorne (ca. 1353 BCE).

He abandoned the worship of the traditional Egyptian gods.
Worship of Aton, believed to be the only god (associated with the sun).
The pharaoh shut down all other temples, disinherited priests, removed the name
Amon-Ra from all inscriptions.

Changed name to Akhenaton in honor of his god.

Moved the capital to Tell el-Amarna.
The art of the Amarna Period reflected the revolution.
The statue of Akhenaton (ca. 1350 BCE): effeminate portrayal of the king, elongated

neck, small arms, oddly shaped body.

Shocking for the Egyptians because first representation of the pharaoh in a
naturalistic way, not idealistic.

Akhenaton and Nefertiti

The relief shows Akhenaton, Nefertiti and the royal princesses basking under the

rays f Aton (represented as a sun disk).

Characteristics of the Amarna Period.
Emotions: uncharacteristic of the rigid order and stability typical of the Old and
New Kingdom.

Tutankhamen

Tutankhamen became king at eight years old and died ten years later.
Tomb intact. Found gold, precious stones, etc.
Mummy placed in the innermost of three coffins (ca. 1323 BCE), weighing over

200 pounds. Made up of many precious stones.

The funeral mask: the most famous piece. Made of gold, precious stones and blue

stripes made of glass paste.

Amarnian influence.
Tutankhamen wears the ceremonial beard, the vulture of Upper Egypt, the serpent

of Lower Egypt.
Egyptian power and influence faded away.
Invasions. Ashurbanipal sacked Thebes in 664 BCE.
Came under control of Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans.
Despite the occupations, Egyptian art remained.
For three thousand years Egypts prosperity endured.
Artistic influence reflected in Greek art.