Egyptian Art in the Days of the Pharaohs, 3100-320 B.C.

256 Pages·1980·34.919 MB·English

by  Cyril Aldred

Cyril Aldred
Egyptian
art

son
hi l/acJiec
I
CyrilAldred
wasamongthefirsttograduatein
the History ofArtatthenewlyfounded Courtauld Institute
ofArt,London,in 1936,anditisasanarthistorianthathehas
studied Egyptology ever since. From 1961 to 1974 he was
Keeper ofthe Department ofArt and Archaeology at the
RoyalScottishMuseum,Edinburgh,andhehasalsoservedas
Associate Curator ofthe DepartmentofEgyptian Art at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His many
publications include Egypt to the End of the Old Kingdom
(1965), Akhenaten, Pharaoh ofEgypt (1968), Akhenaten and
Nefertiti (1973), Jewels of the Pharaohs (2nd edn, 1978),
Tutankhamun, Craftsmanshipin GoldintheReignofthe
King(1979) and TheEgyptians(rev. edn, 1984).
WORLD OF ART
Thisfamousseries
providesthewidestavailable
rangeofillustratedbooksonartinallitsaspects.
Ifyouwouldliketoreceiveacompletelist
oftitlesinprintpleasewriteto:
THAMESANDHUDSON
30BloomsburyStreet,Londonwcib 3QP
IntheUnited Statespleasewriteto:
THAMESANDHUDSONINC.
500FifthAvenue,NewYork,NewYork loiio
«sa^.5:"''
Egyptian
art
in the Days of the Pharaohs
BC
JI00-J20
CYRIL ALDRED
199 illustrations, 20 in color
THAMES AND HUDSON
Frontispiece: GildedandpaintedwoodenstatueofKingTutankhamun
asthegodHorusvanquishingtheforcesofevil, fromhistombinthe
ValleyoftheKings,c. 1330bc.
Any copy ofthis book issued by the publisher as a paperback
is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any
form ofbinding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition including these
words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.
©
1980 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London
Published in the USA in 1985 by Thames and Hudson Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York loiio
Reprinted 1986
Library ofCongress Catalog Card Number 84-51309
All Rights Reserved. No part ofthis publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or
any other information storage and retrieval system, without
prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed and bound in Spain by Artes Graficas Toledo S.A.
D.L. TO-1884-85
Contents
Introduction
Chronology and the Dating of Egyptian
Works of Art 7
1 The Character of Egyptian Art ii
2 Artists, their Materials and Methods 19
3 The Archaic Period 31
Dynasties l-ll
4 Imhotep and the Monuments of Djoser 45
Dynasty
III
5 The Pyramid Age
59
Dynasty IV
6 The Pyramid Age 78
Dynasties V-VI ReliefSculpture
7 The Pyramid Age 91
Dynasties V-VI Statuary
8 The First Intermediate Period 106
Dynasties Vll-X
9 The Middle Kingdom 113
Dynasties XI-XIII
10 The Second Intermediate Period; the Character
of the New Kingdom 139
Dynasties XIV-XX
11 The Early New Kingdom 147
Dynasty XVIII
12 The New Kingdom: Ramesside Period 187
Dynasties XIX-XX
13 The Character of Late Egyptian Art and
the Tanite Period 203
Dynasty XXI
14 The Libyan Period 206
Dynasties XXII-XXIV
15 The Kushite Period 215
Dynasty XXV
16 The Saite Period 225
Dynasty XXVI
17 The Late Period 233
Dynasties XXVII-XXX
Epilogue 240
Select Bibliography 241
List of Illustrations 242
Index and Glossary 248
INTRODUCTION
Chronology and the Dating of
Egyptian Works of Art
Manetho, the learned High Priest in HehopoHs who was com-
missioned by Ptolemy I in the third century bc to write a history of
Egypt, divided into thirty-one dynasties the entire chronicle of
events, from theunificationofUpperand LowerEgyptunderMenes,
the first pharaoh, to the conquest ofAlexander the Great in 332 bc.
Although Manetho's work has not survived, his list ofkingsand their
years ofrule have been extensively preserved in the writings ofearly
Christian chronographers. Modern historians still make selective use
of these, and accept the numbering of Manetho's dynasties, which
seems to follow very ancient practice. They also often render the
names of the pharaohs in his Greek versions, where they exist, a
system which is followed in this book.
Surviving records, in which the ancient Egyptians noted certain
celestial phenomena as occurring on specific days in their calendars,
haveenabled correspondences to be madew4th the modern calendar;
but even so, the chronology of ancient Egypt before the first
millennium bc is still not settled, particularly for the remoter and
more troubled periods. The system adopted in this book follows that
proposedby the OrientalInstituteofthe UniversityofChicago, with
some modifications in the dating ofthe Eighteenth Dynasty.
The thirty-one dynasties of Manetho have been further grouped
by modern historians into larger time-spans, coinciding with periods
when a distinct cultural pattern prevailed, separated by obscure
interludes of political upheaval. In the following pages they are
defined as follows:
Dynasty Period Approximate DateBC
I-II
Dynasty Period ApproximateDatebc
XXV