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The Art of Ancient Egypt
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_ HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS _
- CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS -
Half-title page: Detail from the interior of the outer coffin of the
steward and chief of physicians Seni (see fig. 89).
Front cover and frontispiece: Amenemopet, priest of Amun, makes an offering to the
god Osiris. Painting on Amenemopet’s wooden coffin from Thebes,
late Twenty-first or early Twenty-second Dynasty, c. 950-900 Bc.
London, British Museum.
Back cover: Colossal quartrite head of Amenhotep III (see fig. 135)
© 1997 The Trustees of the British Museum
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robins, Gay.
The art of ancient Egypt / Gay Robins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-04660-9 (cloth)
ISBN 0-674-00376-4 (pbk.)
1. Art, Egyptian. 2. Art, Ancient-Egypt. I. Title.
N5350.R63 1997
D973 2-de2 = 97-19458
Printed in Slovenia
Designed and typeset by Andrew Shoolbred
Contents Acknowledgements
Foreword
Chronology
1 Understanding Ancient Egyptian Art
2 Origins
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
3 The First Flowering
THE OLD KINGDOM (I)
4 A Golden Age 58
THE OLD KINGDOM (II)
5 Diversity in Disunity 80
THE FIRST INTERMEDIATE PERIOD
6 Return to the Heights 90
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM (I)
7 Change and Collapse 110
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM (II)
8 A New Momentum 122
THE NEW KINGDOM (I): AHMOSE TO AMENHOTEP III
9 The Great Heresy 149
THE NEW KINGDOM (II): THE AMARNA PERIOD AND ITS AFTERMATH
10 The Glories of Empire 166
THE NEW KINGDOM (II)
11 Fragmentation and New Directions 195
THE THIRD INTERMEDIATE PERIOD
12 Looking to the Past 210
THE LATE PERIOD (I)
13 The Final Flowering 21
THE LATE PERIOD (II) AND PTOLEMAIC PERIOD
14 Epilogue 222
Abbreviations and Bibliography 256
Further Reading 265
Illustration Acknowledgements 267
Index 269
Acknowledgements
owe thanks to all those who have helped and encouraged me in researching and
writing this book. The project was supported in part by the University Research
Committee of Emory University and by a sabbatical leave that gave me the time to write
my initial draft of the manuscript. I am extremely grateful to J ohn Baines and Richard
Parkinson for taking the time to read the manuscript and making many valuable
suggestions. I would also like to thank Vivian Davies for all his encouragement while
I was working on the book; Jim Romano for allowing me to read his paper ‘Sixth Dynasty
Royal Sculpture’ before publication; Andrea McDowell for her helpful advice on texts
concerning artistic practice from Deir el-Medina; Lorelei Corcoran for answering my
query about bound prisoners on the footcases of Ptolemaic mummies; Carol Andrews,
Stephen Quirke, Richard Parkinson and John Taylor for useful discussions and help in
selecting illustrations; Tony Brandon, John Hayman and Jim Putnam for showing me
objects in storage at the British Museum; and my editor Teresa Francis for her patience
and help during the long period of incubation. As always, my husband Charles Shute
made the whole project possible by taking care of the daily chores of life as well as
reading and rereading the manuscript innumerable times and providing many
discerning comments and helpful suggestions for its improvement.
Foreword
he purpose of this book is to provide an accessible and up-to-date introduction to
ancient Egyptian art for a wide audience, both general and scholarly. If such a book is
to encompass the whole span of ancient Egyptian civilisation, it must necessarily make
many choices about what to include and what to leave out, lest it become a multivolume
work. An obvious strategy is to treat only briefly aspects of Egyptian art that are addressed
elsewhere and to concentrate on those that are not so readily accessible. I have therefore
focused rather little on stylistic analysis and development, topics which have been treated
by others.' Instead, one of my major aims is to explore why art was so important to the
ancient Egyptians and why they invested such a large amount of their resources in its
production. In examining this question I consider the original contexts for which different
artistic genres were designed, and study how they functioned within and in relation to the
social structure of ancient Egypt and its religious system. I discuss how the fact that only
men held bureaucratic office affected matters of patronage and the way men and women
were represented together. I also briefly incorporate the results of my research on the
artist’s squared grid system and on the far from constant proportions of the human figure.
Any treatment of the great monuments of ancient Egypt — temples, tombs, statuary —
has such an overwhelming amount of material to draw upon that other art forms are often
mentioned only briefly or even left out of consideration altogether owing to constraints of
space. I decided, therefore, to include genres, such as coffins and funerary and votive
stelae, that are not widely covered in existing books on Egyptian art. By contrast, the
attention I have given to statuary takes into account the fact that its privileged treatment
in many books will enable readers who so wish to obtain further information elsewhere.’
Performance and other ephemeral arts are not considered in any detail, in the main
because of lack of evidence.
I have, however, sought to give the final millennium of ancient Egyptian art a proper
treatment in relation to the first two millennia. This span of a thousand years that
ends with the conquest of Egypt by Rome in 30Bc is often treated cursorily in a belief that
it was ap uncreative, stagnant and decaying period. I hope to demonstrate that such a view
is unwarranted. I have chosen to end the book with the Ptolemies, even though traditional
temple decoration and funerary arts continued to be produced after the Roman conquest,
because it was at this point that Egypt ceased to have a resident king and was administered
merely as part of the Roman empire.
The book is arranged chronologically. Each chapter is organised around two focal
points, first the monuments and art forms associated with the king, and then those relating
to the ruling elite group, because the king and the elite were the patrons who determined
the nature of artistic production. I hope that this stratagem will help readers to follow the
different themes that are found in art during the three thousand years of ancient Egypt's
history, and the ways in which they developed and changed in different periods.
1 Eg. Aldred 1980; Smith 1981 (new edition pending).
2 Aldred 1980; Smith 1981. See also e.g. Evers 1929; Bothmer 1960; Habachi 1985; Russmann 1989; Fay 1996.
Chronology
After J. Baines and J. Malek, -Atlas of Ancient Egypt, Oxford, 1980, 36-7.
All dates are Bc. Those before 664 are approximate.
5000-2920 Predynastic Period 2419-2416 Raneferef
5000-4000 Badarian 2416-2392 Neuserra
4000-3600 Naqada I 2396-2388 Menkauhor
2388-2356 Djedkara
3600-3100 Naqada I
3100-2920 Naqada UI 2356-2323 Wenis
Scorpion; Narmer
2323-2150 Sixth Dynasty
2323-2291 Teti
2920-2649 Early Dynastic Period 2289-2255 Pepy 1
2920-2770 First Dynasty 2255-2246 Merenra
Aha; Djer; Wadj; Den; Anedjib; 2246-2152 Pepy 1
Semerkhet; Qaa
2150-2134 Seventh-Highth Dynasties
2770-2649 Second Dynasty Numerous ephemeral kings
Hetepsekhemwy; Raneb; Ninetjer;
Peribsen; Khasekhem(wy)
2134-2040 First Intermediate Period
2134-2040 Ninth-Tenth Dynasties (ruling from
2649-2134 Old Kingdom Herakleopolis)
2649-2575 Third Dynasty
Five kings including 2134-2040 Eleventh Dynasty (ruling from Thebes)
2630-2611 Netjerykhet (Djoser) 2134-2118 Sehertawy Inyotef 1
2118-2069 Wahankh Inyotef 1
2575-2465 Fourth Dynasty 2069-2061 Nakhtnebtepnefer Inyotef
2575-2551 Sneferu 2061-2010 Nebhepetra Montuhotep
2551-2528 Khufu
2528-2520 Radjedef
2520-2494 Khafra 2040-1640 Middle Kingdom
2490-2472 Menkaura 2040-1991 Eleventh Dynasty (ruling all Egypt)
2472-2467 Shepseskaf 2061-2010 Nebhepetra Montuhotep
2010-1998 Sankhkara Montuhotep
2465-2323 Fifth Dynasty 1998-1991 Nebtawyra Montuhotep
2465-2458 Userkaf
2458-2446 Sahura 1991-1783 Twelfth Dynasty
2446-2426 Neferirkara 1991-1962 Amenemhat I
2426-2419 Shepseskara 1971-1926 Senwosret I
