The Art of Ancient Egypt

1. The Art of Ancient Egypt AVI 1O

2. What do you knowabout this civilization? They believed in over 2000 gods and goddesses The Pharaoh or King was considered a god Farming was an important part of their life They believed in the afterlife -In death, they believed the spirit or Ka would leave the body and reunite with it in the afterlife -The body was embalmed and mummified -A burial place contained anything and everything needed in the afterlife

5. Figure Rules: Head, arms, legs and feet in side view (profile) Shoulders and eye in front view Result? Figure looks twisted, distorted, unnatural and flat – YET all parts of the body seem to be at the same distance from the viewer’s eye Paintings were meant to serve as substitutes for the body in the afterlife Colours used: brown, black, white, red, blue, yellow & green

8. Mycerinus and His Queen Slate Sculpture c. 2470 BC

9. Mycerinus was also known as Menkaure • The sculpture was made of slate, a grayish black material that was hard and long lasting • His wife has her arms placed around his waist, a gesture indicating she is presenting him. It is seen as a loving gesture between the king and queen.

10. They are standing in a ­frontal pose, which makes the sculpture appear very stylized and block like. The arms are rigid, the faces stare straight ahead and each foot is slightly forward. • The sculpture is cut from a single block of slate. The artist would have first drawn the couple on all 4 sides and then began carving into the center. • There are no ­open spaces piercing the block; the arms and legs are attached, or engaged to adjoining surfaces.

11. Queen NefertitiPainted limestonec. 1360 BC

12. Queen Nefertiti was the stepmother of King Tut • She was the royal wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and during his reign, she was perhaps the most powerful woman in the world • The portrait is delicate and sensitive and shows a marvelous knowledge of the structure of the human head • Her neck was elongated to show elegance • The artists took molds from human faces and bodies to study the structure and create carvings of anatomical perfection • The sculpture was left abandoned in the artist’s studio after the death of the king

13. The Pyramids • The pyramids in Egypt were built as a final resting place for the body of the Pharaoh . • There are a number of reasons to explain why they chose to use the pyramid shape: • From early burial mounds • Symbol of the sun’s rays • Seen as a stairway to heaven • The early pyramids had stepped sides so that the dead king could climb to heaven to join the other gods.

15. The Great Pyramids at GizaLimestonec. 2530 – 2470 BC

16. The largest of the 3 pyramids, built for the Pharaoh Cheops was made out of 2,300,000 blocks of solid limestone, each weighing 2.5 tons. • Chefren and Mycerinus were believed to be buried in the other two temples • Until 1887, when the Eiffel Tower was built, the Great Pyramid was the tallest structure in the world (at 147 metres).

17. The pyramids were royal tombs and were therefore likely to be robbed. To stop the robbers, the pyramid builders hid the entrances but even still, even known pyramid had been looted by 1000 BC • It was believed that after a burial, a pharaoh’s spirit would need regular supplies of food and drink.

18. Pyramid Design

19. The Great SphinxLimestonec. 2500 BC240 ft long

20. It is the largest freestanding sculpture­ to survive from ancient times. • It is made out of rock that was too poor in quality for construction. • It has the body of a lion and the head of King Chefren, but drifting sands have buried it up to the neck for most of its history. • Its nose is missing and this is believed to have been the work of the Muslims because their religion forbid images of a god.

23. Golden Funeral Mask of King Tutankhamen Golden Cast Sculpture Discovered in 1922 Dated to c. 1320 BC

24. King Tut’s tomb was found in the 1920s by Howard Carter. • King Tut never had a pyramid because he died so suddenly. • Tut died when he was about 18, having ruled for nine years, and so is often called the Boy King. • Tut's death is something of a mystery; x-rays taken in 1968 seemed to indicate that he may have been killed by a blow to his head, but more recent analysis suggested he may have died after breaking a leg, possibly from infection to the wound.

25. King Tut was found in the burial chamber, wearing the intact funeral mask in a mummy case that was 300 lbs of solid gold and inlaid with hundreds of gemstones. • Tut’s tomb had been robbed twice early on, but had been resealed and covered by debris during the construction of Ramsess IV’s tomb, and so remained forgotten until Carter’s discovery in 1922

26. Tutankahmen The Boy King

27. Canopic Jars

28. The Egyptians became experts at preserving bodies by embalming them, as they believed that the dead would need to use their bodies in the next life. • The brains were hooked out through the nose and the other organs were removed and placed in special jars. Only the heart was left so that it could be weighed in the next life.

29. The special jars used to store the body’s organs were called canopic jars. These were covered funerary vases and were commonly made of limestone, pottery, wood or bronze. • Each organ was kept in its own jar (liver, lungs, stomach, and intestine) • The human-headed jar contained the liver, the baboon jar contained the lungs, the Jackal-headed jar contained the stomach, and the Intestines were stored in the falcon-headed jar