THE BELIEF IN AFTER-LIFE EGYPTIAN ART

Two important factors have dominated and shaped Egyptian civilization, the river Nile, the “river of life” with its regular floods that have made the soil fertile, and the Egyptians’ intense interest in and fear of death.The idea that only by preserving the body from decay life could continue led to the embalming of the body (or mummification) of the Pharaoh in the belief that he would become Osiris united with the sun-god Re in the land of the Blessed. And this belief, in its turn, led to the building of the Pyramids.

ANCIENT EGYPT ca.3100 BC- ca. 2040 BCThe pyramids probably developed from the previous stone flat-topped tombs called “mastabas”. The very first pyramid in fact, the pyramid of king Zoser ( ca.2650 BC), is made of six single storey “mastabas” piled one on top of the lower and larger one. The funerary monument was designed by the first architect we know by name, Imhotep. It has a stepped form, is 197 feet (62 metres) high and is part of a complex enclosed by a wall. The complex included courtyards, columned halls, temples, chapels and store rooms. As in earlier mastaba tombs, the burial chambers of the Step Pyramid are underground, hidden in a labyrinth of tunnels, probably to discourage tomb robbers.

Zoser’s Pyramid, Saqqara

The most famous pyramids were built at Giza bout 2600-2500 BC at the time of the 4th Dynasty by the Pharaohs Cheops (Khufu), Chephren (Khafra) and Mycerinus,

after whom they are called. They were surrounded by a necropolis of the tombs of nobles guarded by the Great Sphinx of Giza. It represents a lion with the head of king Chephren (Khafra) and shows heavy signs of erosion by the desert sand and the wind.

The Great Sphinx, Giza Necropolis

All three pyramids were raided inside and outside, so all the treasures (jewels, goods, clothes, vases) deposited in the burial chambers were lost and the covering of white limestone was almost entirely taken away.

Giza: Pyramids

The largest of the three is the Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu): it is 450 feet high, made of more than two million blocks of stone, each about 2.5 tons heavy. The granite blocks were originally covered with white limestone. The entrance to the Great Pyramid is on the north side, about 59 feet (18 metres) above ground level. A descending corridor penetrates the rocky soil, and ends in an unfinished underground chamber. From the corridor branches an ascending passageway that leads to the Queen’s Chamber and to a great inclined gallery that is 151 feet (46 metres) long. The King’s Chamber is situated at the end of this gallery and is entirely lined and roofed with granite. Above the King’s Chamber are five compartments separated by massive horizontal granite slabs.

GlossaryShaped: formed; floods: inundations; the Blessed: the Sanctified; burial chambers: tombs; limestone: chalk rock (calcare); granite: grey hard stone (granito); slabs: flat pieces of stone shaft: (here) air passage;

Cheops-Pyramid1. Entrance 2. Entrance cut by grave robbers 3. Subterranean chamber 4. Grand Gallery 5. King's chamber, ante-chambers, granite slabs 6. Queen's chamber 7. Shaft 8. Limestone blocking the air shaft A= Air shafts

Exercise 1 Reading Comprehension

Answer the following questions.a. Which important factors have dominated Egyptian civilization?b. Why did the Egyptian embalm the body of the Pharaoh?c. Who built the first pyramid and when?d. What does it look like?e. Where and when were the three most famous pyramids built?f. What guards the Giza necropolis?g. What material are the Giza Pyramids made of?h. Which is the largest of the three pyramids?i. Where are the burial chambers located?j. What did raiders do to the Pyramids?

MUMMIES

The mummy was placed in one or more cases before it was entombed. Tutankhamon’s mummy (1336-1327 BC), for example, was first placed in a coffin made of gold and weighing 110 kilograms. The second coffin was made of gilded wood and decorated with red glass and blue ceramic. The outside coffin too was wooden, covered with gold leaves and decorated.The deceased was surrounded by all the objects he had used in his lifetime and which showed his rank like chairs, clothes, assorted tools, weapons, sceptres, seals, jewels and small models of slaves and animals. So he would continue after death the occupations of this life. The objects were made of various materials: wood, ivory, silver, gold, bronze, glass, pottery and semi-precious stones. They are important documents of the art and culture of the period.There were besides the canopic jars containing the internal organs, and vases with wine, oils, and preserved food to be used by the soul or “ka” in the after- life.

Glossarycases: containers; coffin: box where a dead person is placed; deceased: dead person; rank: social class; tools: instruments used for doing one’s job; weapons: anything used to fight; seals: metal objects used to stamp a document; pottery: clay ; canopic jars: vases containing the deceased’s

organs

Exercise 2 ListeningListen to the following description of how mummies were made, and complete the text with the missing words.

Mummification was a process that lasted about 1………….. days. The priest who embalmed the 2 ………………….. wore the mask of a jackal,

representing Anubis, the 3 …………… of the Dead.First the body was 4 ……………… and purified, then the brain and the 5 ……………… were removed. Only the heart remained. After 6 ……………… the body with linen and resin, the body was placed in a 7 ………………. of salt called natron ( hydrous sodium carbonate, NA2CO310H2O) that absorbed all the 8 ………………... After 40-50 days the filling was 9. ………………… and replaced with a paste of resin and fat.Finally the body was enveloped in 10 ……………… of linen, covered in a 11 …………………. called shroud and placed in a stone coffin called 12 ………………. .Only at this point the 13………………… was ready for its journey to the afterlife.

CANOPIC JARS

The canopic jars were vases that contained the internal organs of the deceased. The Egyptians believed that the deceased’s organs were necessary to be reborn in the after-life The canopic jars were four and made of different materials (pottery, limestone, aragonite, alabaster, blue or

green glazed porcelain). By the late Eighteenth dynasty (1550 BC) their lids came to represent one of the four sons of Horus, the god of the sky, each of them protecting a particular organ.The jakal-headed god Duamutef protected the stomach; the falcon-headed god Qebehsenuef guarded the intestines; the baboon-headed god Hapi protected the lungs and the human-headed god Imseti guarded the liver. The brain was not

preserved and the heart was left in the body to be weighed in the Hall of Two Truths and judged. If the heart was lighter than the feather of Truth, Horus led the deceased to Osiris and the land of the Dead. If the heart was heavier, then the deceased was devoured by the demon Ammut.

Painted papyrus, from The Book of the Dead, Hunefer’s tomb, ca. 1285 BC

the deceased the weighing of the heart Horus Osiris Anubis, God Ammut of the Dead

Glossarylids: stoppers; glazed: with a shiny transparent surface (smaltata) Exercise 3 WritingUsing your own words write a short composition (about 100 words).Explain what the canopic jars were, the material they were made of, the shape of their lids and the organs they contained. Then explain what happened to the deceased’s heart and why.

WALL PAINTING

In some cases the tombs were also richly decorated with scenes representing the activities and hobbies (e.g. fishing, hunting in the marshes) of the deceased. This fresco from Nebamun’s tomb in Thebes (1350 BC) shows the man hunting birds from a boat on the Nile, using a kind of boomerang. It is possible to detect papyrus plants along the bank, a great variety of birds, a cat-like animal catching a bird, and fishes in the water.

Nebamun is accompanied by his wife (to the right) and by his daughter (sitting in the boat). According to convention Nebamun is bigger than his wife and daughter and like them, like the birds and the fishes is drawn in profile. Only the top half of the human figures is seen from the front, arms and legs are seen sideways. Both feet are seen from the toe, so apparently the man has two right feet. The clothes, jewels, hairstyle of the

hunter and his family show his high social rank.

Hunting scene, Nebamun’s tomb, Thebes

GlossaryMarshes: low land covered with water; fresco: wall painting

Exercise 4 SpeakingIn pairs ask and answer questions about the Nebamun’s fresco.You: Ask what the fresco is about.Partner: Say it is about a hunting scene in the Nile marshes.You: Ask where the fresco was located.Partner: Say it was located in Nebamun’s tombs in Thebes. You: Ask why Nebamun is bigger than the two female figures.Partner: Say it was a convention. The most important person was represented bigger than his wife or children.You: Ask why the figures seem contorted.Partner: Say it depends on the fact that the figures are represented partly in profile and partly from the front.You: Ask what social rank the hunter and his family were.Partner: Say that from their clothes, jewels and hairstyle they are of a high social rank.

MIDDLE and LATE EGYPT ca. 2400 BC- ca. 300 AD

Around 2040 BC, the capital of Egypt was moved south from Memphis to Thebes (now Luxor). A new necropolis was created on the Theban Hills known as The Valley of the Kings. Massive temple complexes were also built along the banks of the Nile using sandstone and granite from nearby quarries. Among them the Temple of Amon built at Karnak by thirty generations of Pharaohs, between 1530-323 BC. It was dedicated to the king of the Egyptian gods, Amon-Ra. Its 16 rows of immense columns are all completely covered with reliefs and inscriptions and have capitals representing papyrus buds.

The Temples of Abu Simbel were commissioned by Ramses II in ca 1527 BC as a lasting monument to himself and his Queen Nefertari, to commemorate his victory at the battle of Kadesh. They were first explored in 1817 by the Egyptologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni.

The Great Temple is rock-cut and has an imposing rock façade guarded

by four colossal statues over 20 metres high. Originally it was on the bank of the Nile, but when the Aswan High Dam was built (1960), the temple was removed piece by piece to the present location not be submerged by the waters.

Glossary

quarries: places from which stones are excavated; dam: wall built across a river (to create an artificial lake)

Exercise 5 Reading comprehensionRead the text and say whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F) and correct the false ones.

T Fa. The baboons were considered sacred watchers of the Night. b. The temple is made of a long series of halls and rooms. c. The sacred shrine is inside the cliff and contains four seated statues. d. Once every year the rays of the moon shine down the temple-cave. e. They illuminate the seated statues of the gods. f. UNESCO and the Egyptian Government sponsored a project to save the temples from

submersion. g. The two temples were disassembled and rebuilt in the middle of the desert. h. The new location is 200 feet above the original site.

TEXTOver the four statues guarding the façade is a row of baboons in a cornice. They were considered sacred Watchers of the Dawn who helped the sun-god Ra to defeat the darkness of night.The actual interior of the temple is inside the cliff. It consists of a long series of halls and rooms leading to the vestibule and to the sacred shrine. Here can be seen the seated statues of Amun-Ra and the deified Ramses II.The temple is precisely oriented so that twice every year, on 22 February and 22 October, the first rays of the morning sun shine down the temple-cave. They illuminate the back wall of the sacred shrine and the four statues of the gods seated there. With the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, the temples risked submersion under the rising waters of the reservoir (Lake Nassar). Between 1964 and 1966, a project sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Egyptian government disassembled both temples and reconstructed them on top of the cliff, 200 feet above the original site.

GlossaryShrine: sacred chamber; reservoir: artificial lake; disassembled: cut into blocks; SCULPTURES

Temples and tombs were decorated with relief sculptures and statues that reproduced the likeness of the deceased. Busts of painted limestone and statuettes of wood, clay, ivory, bronze had the function of recording the deceased’s name and of providing

an eternal home for his/ her “ ka”. Both the standing and seated figures had the same pose: the face looked straight in front, into eternity; the body was rigid and vertical with all the planes intersecting at right angles; the left foot slightly in front of the right.Sculptures of the Late period became monumental, the clothes became richer, the jewels more elaborate and the faces idealized.

Mycerinus and his Queen, ca. 2470 BC, Giza

The formality of the pose is reduced by the queen’s arms around her husband in a gesture of affection. Their clothes are very simple and they are wearing no jewels. Only their left feet in front and their head-dresses show their social rank .The statue, 139 cm high, is carved in slate; it was probably painted over, but no trace of colour remains.

Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten (1352-1336 BC).It is 48 cm. high and made of limestone covered with painted stucco. The face is almost intact, the pupil of her right eye is made of quartz, while her left eye is blank. She is wearing her characteristic blue crown with a golden diadem band. The cobra which decorated it is missing and also her ears are damaged. Her long, serpentine neck is decorated with a large coloured collar. Nefertiti , 1345 BC

Glossarylikeness: features; straight: directly slate: dark rock used for blackboards (lavagna)

BOXFashion: head- dresses and clothes (reading to be used for ex. 6

Films: Hollywood colossals (e.g. Cleopatra: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton etc. Sinuhe l’Egiziano (Edmund Purdom…..

Exercise 6 Speaking +WritingWith a partner discuss the characteristics of the two statues above. Then write down your conclusions.