ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE

20120216-Amenhotep III Colossal.jpg
Amenhotep III Colossal The ancient Egyptian made sculptures of varying sizes from a variety of materials. They made huge colossuses of rulers and small figurines (shabtis) that were placed in tombs that represented workers that would accompany the deceased to the afterlife. Some tombs had several hundred shabtis, plus an overseer for every ten workers

The number of works of sculpture belonging to the New Kingdom is enormous both in terms of size and numbers. The colossi, which were erected in front of the temples, were of immense reached 16.8 meters (55 feet) in height. Huge numbers of statues with were placed sanctuaries and outside temples. A temple at Karnak built by Amenhotep III contained several hundred life-size statues of the lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet.

Sculptors didn’t place their names on their works. So we have no idea who made them. Scholars and many viewers can distinguish between works made good workshops and those made by bad ones.

Reliefs show activities such as hunting, farming and battles. One of the world's oldest known metal statues is a 4,000-year-old cast of Pharaoh Pepi I. One of the most evocative Egyptian sculptures features a yew-wood head of the Queen Mother of Tiye, made during the reign of Akenaten. The pout and slanting eyes show pride, disdain and weariness. Massive sculptures like the Sphinx and the Colossi of Memnon are some of the best known art works Egypt.

Websites on Ancient Egypt: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Discovering Egypt discoveringegypt.com; BBC History: Egyptians bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians ; Ancient History Encyclopedia on Egypt ancient.eu/egypt; Digital Egypt for Universities. Scholarly treatment with broad coverage and cross references (internal and external). Artifacts used extensively to illustrate topics. ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt ; British Museum: Ancient Egypt ancientegypt.co.uk; Egypt’s Golden Empire pbs.org/empires/egypt; Metropolitan Museum of Art www.metmuseum.org ; Oriental Institute Ancient Egypt (Egypt and Sudan) Projects ; Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre in Paris louvre.fr/en/departments/egyptian-antiquities; KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt kmtjournal.com; Egypt Exploration Society ees.ac.uk ; Amarna Project amarnaproject.com; Abzu: Guide to Resources for the Study of the Ancient Near East etana.org; Egyptology Resources fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

Ancient Egyptian Sculpture Materials

Large sculptures were usually carved from sandstone. Small and mid-size sculptures were made from a variety of materials including painted wood, limestone, Egyptian alabaster (not a true alabaster but a form of calcite), mottled rose granite, black basalt, roseate quartzite, graywacker (a smooth greenish grey rock), clay, schist, ceramic, bronze and other materials. Some of the most beautiful small Egyptian sculptures are made of anorthosite gneiss, which glows in the sunlight and emits a deep-blue color. Limestone and wood statues were painted and had inlaid eyes made of stone and rock crystal.

Sculptures made of copper, bronze and other metals were cast using the lost wax method which worked as follows: 1) A form was made of wax molded around a pieces of clay. 2) The form was enclosed in a clay mold with pins used to stabilize the form. 3) The mold was fired in a kiln. The mold hardened into a ceramic and the wax burns and melted leaving behind a cavity in the shape of the original form. 4) Metal was poured into the cavity of the mold. The metal sculpture was removed by breaking the clay when it was sufficiently cool.

It is not an accident that by far the best statues which we possess are executed in wood and limestone. It must have been long and wearisome task to work granite and diorite, zapping the artist’s spirit.

The ancient Egyptians often covered temple walls with plaster and carved into it - an easier method than carving into stone but one that does not stand the test of time. One exception is the Amada temple, one of the oldest in Nubia dating back 3,400 years to the 18th Dynasty's Thutmosis III. It hosts a particularly fine collection of plaster carvings that posed a challenge to the French engineers who had to save them in the 1960s from the Aswan dam. Afraid the carvings would be damaged if the temple were disassembled like the others, the French carefully chipped it out of its rock base and slid it along on rails for 1.5 miles at a rate of about 100 feet a day.

Ancient Egyptian Sculpture, Form and Expression

Akhenaten The sculptures of the pharaohs and their queens reveal little emotion. Sometimes cows are shown displaying more affection towards their loved ones than humans do.

But not all Egyptian sculpture were cold and expressionless. The famous seated sculpture of Heminuni, a prince and vizier in charge of building the Great Pyramid in the Forth Dynasty of Old Kingdom (2475-2465 B.C.), shows a fat man with dropping breasts and an indifferent look on his face. A famous sculpture from this period, of the Iai-ib and Khuaut, shows a wife affectionately putting her around her husband, her body visible under her thin tunic.

Egyptian sculpture took a great leap forward in the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Cedar sculptures from this period feature expressive eyes, thin waists and muscular legs and other elements that show a familiarity with human form. Perhaps the most famous illustration of this is wood statue of Queen Ankh-nes-meryre II with a miniature version her fully-grown son, Pepi II, sitting on her lap.

Sculptors kept a standardized stock of body parts such as hands so they could make sculptures on demand. A standardized white stone foot was 15.2 centimeters long, 5.3 centimeters wide and 7.7 centimeters high from heel to ankle. The instep was smoother and gently sloping; the ankle bone was a shallow protuberance; the toes were tapered with round-edge nails. There was a standardized upper leg and skirt and even a standardized face. Large sculpture could be extrapolated from the models using grids .

Stiffness and Standardization of Ancient Egyptian Sculpture

Egyptian sculptures tended by made within strict parameters. Each part of the body had to be a certain size and proportion with important features such as the shoulders and face oriented towards the viewer. The best works are often the ones that show expression and form within the strict parameters.

The art of sculpture in Egypt was, broadly speaking, required to produce two classes of works of art — portrait statues for the worship of the deceased, and statues of gods, kings, and sacred animals, for the decoration of the temples. In both cases therefore the figures in question had to be in solemn, formal positions, and as there is not much variation in these positions, the Egyptian sculptor from the outset had a very narrow scope. Even within this sphere his freedom of action was much limited, for from the time of the first artistic attempts, there existed hard and fast conceptions about the right way to sculpture a standing or a seated figure — conceptions which concerned even the smallest details, and were considered as the standard. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

Amongst the oldest statues therefore, we rarely find more than two types. The first represented the figure seated stiffly on a solid square scat; the eyes look straight forward, the hands are placed on the knees, the right one closed, the left spread out flat. In the other position also the figure is standing in the stiffest attitude; the left foot is advanced," the arms hang straight down by the sides with the fists clenched, or the hands may hold the short and the long sceptre. From technical reasons the Egyptians rarely ventured to sculpture their statues quite free; ''' seated figures are generally made to lean against a slab, and standing ones always have a pillar at the back as a prop. In the same way they did not dare quite to separate the arms and legs from the body, but left connecting pieces which were painted black between the body and the pillar behind. A little piece was also left in the hollow of the loosely-closed hand — this has often erroneously been supposed to be a short stick. Women and children however stand with their feet together; this was probably considered the more modest position. The wooden statues are almost the only exceptions; they are made quite free, and their arms and legs are not joined together.

The treatment of the detail was as strictly determined as that of the whole. Almost every part of the body had its conventional style of reproduction, which does not at all always seem to us to be the best. The calves of the legs were indicated by a succession of smooth surfaces which give their form very imperfectly; the collar-bone, which was rarely omitted even in the most hasty work, is generally in the wrong place, the fingers of an outstretched hand always resemble four smooth little sticks, and there is no indication whatever of the joints. These forms were as deeply engrained in the heart of the Egyptian artist as the conventional forms in drawing; in the statues the hand and the calf of the leg had to be thus carved, and thus only, and the slightest deviation would have been felt to be wrong.

Portraits in Ancient Egyptian Art

Dimitri Laboury of the University of Liège in Belgium wrote: “Ancient Egyptian art’s concern with individualized human representation has generated much debate among Egyptologists about the very existence of portraiture in Pharaonic society. The issue has often—if not always—been thought of in terms of opposition between portrait and ideal image, being a major topic in the broader question of realism and formal relation to reality in ancient Egyptian art. [Source: Dimitri Laboury, University of Liège, Belgium, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

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Ramses II Memphis Colossal statue “The ideal image comprises many important and problematic issues of ancient Egyptian art history and of the history of the discipline. “Portrait” means a depiction, in any kind of medium, of a specific individual, i.e., an individualized representation of a recognizable person. As opposed to “ideal (or type) image,” portrait implies a pictorial individualization and relates to the notion of realism as an accurate and faithful rendering of objective reality, which stands in contrast to idealization. Even if it is traditionally accepted and used as a fundamental concept in art history as a whole, this key-opposition between realism and idealization (or idealism) is far from being unproblematic from a theoretical point of view.”

“As Sally-Ann Ashton and Donald Spanel have noted, portraiture in ancient Egyptian art “was limited almost exclusively to sculpture”; three- dimensional portraits allow more detailed and subtle rendering, and this is probably why they appear to have influenced two- dimensional representations, and not the reverse; in quantity, as well as in quality, royal iconography is much better documented than private portraiture and often impacted the latter; and finally, as the portrait of an individual and at the same time of an institution—the very central one in ancient Egyptian civilization.”

Thus, “Portraiture in ancient Egyptian art can be defined as a vectorial combination, a tension, or a dialectic between an analogical reference to visual perception of outer or phenomenological reality and a consciously managed departure from this perceptual reality, in order to create meaning or extra- meaning, beyond the simple reproduction of visual appearances and sometimes, if necessary, despite them. As such, portraiture is nothing but the application of the very essence of the ancient Egyptian image system to the individualized human representation.”

Expedition to Get Stone for a Monumental Pharaoh Statue

Towards the close of the New Kingdom under the reign of Ramses IV — a king who, though he has left but few monuments, seems to have planned the most magnificent ones — we again hear of an expedition to Hammamat which was carried out in grand style, In the first place the king commissioned three of his most trusted attendants, “Ramses-'aSaheb, the scribe of the house of life," and “Har'e, the scribe of the temple," and Ra'-user-ma't-Nakhtu, the priest of the gods Min, Horus, and Isis of Coptos," to seek for the best blocks on the mountain of Bechen such as in Hammamat. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

This commission, the last member of which was a native of Coptos, and evidently owed his appointment to his intimate knowledge of the desert, gave in their reports as follows: “They are wholly good, there are wonderful great monuments. " Thereupon the king gave command to Ramses-Nakhtu, the high-priest of Amun, “to fetch them to Egypt. " The conduct of this expedition was entrusted to this personage, because he was officially the “superintendent of the works “of Amun, and the monuments in question were intended for that god. The men under his command were chiefly military officers, for according to the ideas of those times, work of this kind devolved on the army. No fewer than 110 officers of each rank were ordered out on this expedition. With them were associated more than fifty civil officials and ecclesiastics, and as distinguished members, two of the king's vassals — without whom at this period nothing seems to have been done — and further, the governor of Thebes, and the superintendents of oxen and high priests of various temples, etc.

The technical work was given into the hands of 130 stone-masons, 2 painters, and 4 engravers, who worked under three chiefs of the stone-masons, and “Nechtamon, the superintendent of the artists. " The work of transport was carried out by 5000 common soldiers, 200 officers of the troop of the fishers of the court," 800 men of the barbarian mercenaries, and 2000 bondservants of the temples. Altogether the expedition consisted of 8368 souls. It is interesting to hear how the commissariat for such a number of men was managed. Ten waggons, each drawn by 6 pair of oxen, and laden with bread, meat, and cakes, “hastened from Egypt to the mountain Bechen "; the offerings for the gods of the desert however, for Min, Horus, and Isis of Coptos, were procured from the “city such as probably from Luxor.

Transporting the Stones for a Monumental Pharaoh Statue

Siwa Dakrur quarry

From the above accounts the reader will understand how the Egyptians were able to move even the weightiest of their monuments. The weights concerned were immense. The statue of Ramses II. in the Ramcsscum weighed, according to one reckoning, more than a million kilogrammes such as more than 20,000 hundredweight, and in conscciucnce it has been conjectured that the architects of the Pharaohs possessed highly-developed mechanical appliances to facilitate the transport of such enormous masses. Nothing of the kind has been found to corroborate this view, and no Egyptologist now doubts that all these marvels were worked by one power alone — by the reckless expenditure of human labor.

Great things can be accomplished with the most primitive means by those who have no compunction in working hundreds and thousands of workmen to exhaustion, unconcerned as to how many fall by fatigue. To us modern Europeans, who are accustomed, at any rate in time of peace, to consider each human life as priceless, such conduct appears most criminal; to the eastern mind however, there seems nothing particularly wicked in it. Even in recent times the Egyptian fellahin were employed by the system of forced labor on the canal-works, and their strength was used as mercilessly as if they had been cattle. For instance, when the Suez canal was begun, Said Pasha had 25,000 peasants at his disposal for the undertaking, and in five years they dug the Sweet-water canal. The Mahmudijeh canal was taken in hand in the same cheap way: 250,000 peasants worked at it during a whole year, and it is computed that not fewer than 20,000 were sacrificed to the undertaking. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

The Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom had no scruple in making use of their own subjects for work: the later rulers, who always had captives taken in war at their disposal, naturally employed the latter for the same purpose. For instance, under Ramses II. we find foreigners of the people of 'Apury dragging stones for the royal buildings at Memphis; and Ramses IV. employed, as the abovementioned inscription relates, 800 men of the same people for the transport of his blocks from Hammamat. When blocks of moderate size had to be conveyed along comparatively good roads, oxen were harnessed into the sledge, as is seen in the accompanying illustration taken from the stone quarries of Tura; as a rule however, as far as we can judge from the statements of the Ii!gyptian texts, men were employed for this heavy work. A famous picture of the time of the Middle Kingdom shows us plainly the manner of procedure. "

Moving a Six-Meter-High Alabaster Statue

An alabaster statue 13 cubits high (about 6 meters, 20 feet), representing Dhuthotep, a prince of the Nome of the Hare, had to be conveyed to his tomb or to the temple of his town. As we see, it is fastened by a very strong rope to an immense sledge; sticks are thrust through this rope to prevent it from slipping off, and pieces of leather are placed underneath to protect the statue from being chafed by the rope.

No fewer than 172 men are harnessed by four long ropes to this enormous load; they are so arranged that two should always grasp the rope at the same point; the further end of each rope is borne by a man on his shoulder. The overseer stands on the knee of the colossus, and gives commands to his workmen by clapping his hands and calling out to them; another stands on the base sprinkling water on the road, a third offers incense before the image of his lord. Accompanying the statue are men carrying the necessary water and a great plank, together with overseers with their sticks. At the end of the procession come the relatives of the lord, who escort him on his way. On the other hand, groups of people come to meet the procession, carrying green branches; each ten men have a leader and are dressed alike — these are the subjects of the prince, who come to greet the image of their chief. The arrival of such a great statue was in no way an everyday matter; for this town at any rate it was quite unprecedented, and not one of the past governors who had ruled over them either under the later princes, or under the ancient judges and district-chiefs, had ever “conceived such a thing in his heart. "

Dhuthotep describes in a spirited way the difficulties of the undertaking: “As the way by which the statue was brought was exceedingly difficult, and as it was a most arduous work for the men to draw the precious block along the way because of the difficult rocky ground of sandstone, I therefore ordered numbers of boys and young men, as well as the companies of masons and stone-cutters, to come and prepare a way for it. . . . The people who possessed strength called out: We come in order to bring it along '; my heart rejoiced; all the inhabitants of the town shouted for joy. It was an extraordinarily great sight. " Thus all vied with each other to help their beloved chief, even the old men and the children, every one in his zeal redoubled his efforts, “they were strong, one man put forth the strength of a thousand. " The citizens of the town came to meet the procession and to praise Dhuthotep; his children followed him in festive garments; the people of the nome adored him. Thus amidst universal rejoicings they reached at last the boundaries of the town.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated August 2024