Ancient Egypt

Part 1Pre-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, 3000-2920 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

2575-2134 BCE

Mastaba Plan – Precursor to PyramidsStatue 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.2630-2611 BCE, Saqqara, EgyptFirst 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. 2500 BCE, Giza, EgyptMonumental 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 2600-2550BCEKhafre 2575-2525 BCEMenkaure 2551-2472

Pyramid Plan

Necropolis at Giza

Great Sphinx, c.2500 BCE, living rock, Gizageneralized 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. 2500 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. 2400 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. 2400 BCE, painted limestone, Tomb of Ti, SaqqaraTi 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)