Ancient Egypt Part 1 Pre-Dynastic and Old Kingdom

Key Ideas Complex funerary practices involving building mastabas and pyramids Figures hold unyielding stances and facial expressions Unrealistic posing of human figures – frontal shoulders and eyes, profile heads and hips/legs Divine pharaohs

Egyptian Canon (convention) of Proportion Fist is one box wide/high Heel to hairline – 18 blocks up Knee at 5 blocks up Head in profile, while eye is frontal Shoulders/torso frontal Hips/legs in profile Arch and big toe for both feet RIGID!!!

Hieroglyphics Rosetta Stone allowed us to translate hieroglyphics

Pre-Dynastic Egypt to Early Dynastic 5500 – 3100 BCE

Narmer Palette, BCE, slate. King Narmar depicted as the unifier of Upper and Lower Egypt; king is largest figure (hierarchy of scale); god Hathor (cow with a woman’s head) repeated four times at top; narrative – king asserts rule over lower and upper Egypt; palette used to grind/mix eye make-up to lessen glare from sun; hawk on back symbolizes Horus – god of Egypt

Old Kingdom BCE

Mastaba Plan – Precursor to Pyramids Statue of the deceased holds the Ka and is placed in the serdab (room where Ka resides, not in burial chamber)

Stepped Pyramid of King Djoser (Zoser), c BCE, Saqqara, Egypt First recorded name of an architect/artist – Imhotep; stone; staircase to heaven and sun god, Ra; appears to look like stack of mestabas; solid stone; 204’ high; outer buildings are sham buildings, some with engaged columns; monumental scale; necropolis complex

Stepped Pyramid Groundplan

Great Pyramids, c BCE, Giza, Egypt Monumental tomb for pharaohs; limestone with deceased in burial chamber inside; mostly solid limestone except for passages and chambers (including false chambers); oriented to compass points Khufu BCE Khafre BCE Menkaure

Pyramid Plan

Necropolis at Giza

Great Sphinx, c.2500 BCE, living rock, Giza generalized features, but may be Khafre; body of lion, head of pharaoh or a god; carved from one giant rock in situ; may be protecting pyramids behind it; originally painted brightly

Khafre, c BCE, diorite. Falcon god, Horus, behind Khafre, symbolizing he is divinely appointed; rigid adherence to Egyptian canon of proportions; symbols of united Egypt at base (lotus and papyrus); idealized features; permanence; no negative space

Seated Scribe, c BCE, limestone, Saqqara. Created for a tomb to hold the Ka; conventional image of a scribe-not a pharaoh; contrasts with idealized figures of pharaohs; flabby folds of skin from sedentary life of a scribe

Ti Watching the Hippopotamus Hunt, c BCE, painted limestone, Tomb of Ti, Saqqara Ti was a government official; river seen from above; hippos and fish seen in profile; stylized oars; hierarchy of scale; boat glides through papyrus; success in hunt is fight against evil (hippos were seen as pests )