Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology,
University College London
A Special Exhibition Catalogue Review by Stan Parchin
Trope, Betsy Teasley, Stephen Quirke and Peter Lacovara, et al.
Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology, University College London (exh. cat.).
Atlanta, GA: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2005.
ISBN No. 1-928917-06-2
Softcover, $49.95 (US)
Books dealing with both ancient Egyptian art and its scientific study rarely strike a balance in their treatment of the two topics. From an art historian's perspective, Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London excels in its even coverage of both subjects. This highly readable catalogue for the special exhibition of the same name describes in 205 pages more than 160 works of art and artifacts from a renowned British collection. The show's United States tour began in April 2005 at Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, Georgia and continues through June 2009. The objects are explained in 12 richly illustrated chapters that deal with various aspects of ancient Egyptian art and material culture: chronology; sculpture; archaeology; sites; weights and measures; daily life; writing; arts and crafts; ceramics; funerary works; tools and weapons; and faience and glass objects.
First and foremost, Excavating Egypt... is the story of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, founded through bequest in 1892 by writer Amelia Edwards (1831-1892) at University College London. It was named after Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), a professor of Egyptian Archaeology. Edwards' numerous trips to the land of the pharaohs were described in her popular A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1877); the book introduced British readers to Egypt, its people and ancient monuments. Shocked by the overwhelming neglect of many archaeological sites there, she helped to create the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882, its purpose having been the study of ancient Egypt's works of art and architecture. Edwards donated her collection of Egyptian art and artifacts to the university museum and its collection grew immensely as a result of Petrie's numerous systematic excavations.
Petrie in the Museum at
University College, after 1921
© Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
The catalogue's fourth and largest chapter, Sites, deals with nine areas of Egypt where Petrie conducted well-documented digs during his career. Some of his most important work occurred at Amarna, the Middle Egyptian capital city of Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 B.C.), the New Kingdom monotheistic "heretic pharaoh" of the Eighteenth Dynasty and father of the boy-king Tutankhamun (r. 1332-1322 B.C.). The remote virgin location where Akhenaten established his seat of power enabled him to depart from many of Egyptian art's standard conventions and visualize his new solar religion in two- and three-dimensional sculpture.
Among the most significant objects recovered from Amarna is a Balustrade Depicting the Royal Family (ca. 1352-1344 B.C.). This piece of a calcite railing, most likely carved for a ramp in the king's Great Palace, depicts from right to left Akhenaten, his queen Nefertiti and Meretaten, the couple's eldest of six daughters. They are arranged in hieratic scale, the most important person being the tallest figure. The royal parents and princess proceed ritualistically on a ground line inclined slightly upward. The king and queen offer four vessels of libations to the Aten, Akhenaten's deity whose disk projects rays of sunlight ending in hands. The three figures' physiognomies appear deformed with their elongated arms and legs, bulbous hips and fleshy thighs, the characteristic exaggerated style of sculpture from the early years of the pharaoh's reign.
Balustrade Depicting the Royal Family
Egyptian, Dynasty 18, early reign of
Akhenaten (ca. 1352-1344 B.C.)
Tell el-Amarna, from the Great Palace
Calcite ("Egyptian alabaster")
H. 53.7 cm, W. 52.4 cm, D. 13.6 cm
UC 401
© Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
Another revealing fragmentary sculpture from Amarna is the beautiful Torso of a Princess (ca. 1344-1336 B.C.). This pre-adolescent child, her bodily proportions not yet those of a woman, is depicted naked. Most likely part of a larger complex composition that included the princess' parents and several of her siblings, the graceful emergence of her delicate torso from the block of stone to which it is engaged allowed the actual sun's rays to bathe the precious work, imitating the motif of the balustrade described above. Children in ancient Egypt were symbolic of rebirth. In Akhenaten's revolutionary religion, they represented the nature of creation. Therefore the king's sculptors paid unusual attention to his female progeny (and wife Nefertiti as well) while executing the pharaoh's sculptural programme at Amarna.
Torso of a Princess
Egyptian, Dynasty 18, later reign of
Akhenaten (ca. 1344-1336 B.C.)
Tell el-Amarna
Quartzite
H. 13.6 cm, W. 7.6 cm, D. 12.3 cm
UC 002
© Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
Petrie and his successors also excavated at Saqqara, where the Step Pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser (r. 2686-2613 B.C.) from the Old Kingdom's Third Dynasty was designed by Imhotep, his chief administrator. The site, a necropolis or elaborate cemetery, yielded a Late Period Anubis Shrine (ca. 664-525 B.C.) dedicated to the traditional god of mummification (embalming). Anubis is represented by a long-eared jackal; dogs were sacred to his cult. Jackals were frequently seen roaming the Egyptians' burial grounds. Hence, the canine deity came to be regarded as the protector of the dead. The priests who performed funerary rituals frequently wore Anubis masks during such rites. Here the slender limestone statue of the god who assisted in one's transition to the afterlife is seen reclining on top of a shrine. A similar wooden example was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Anubis Shrine
Egyptian, Dynasty 26 (664-525 B.C.)
Saqqara
Limestone
H. 49.5 cm, W. 15.5 cm, L. 46.5 cm
UC 30565
© Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London makes for a wonderful addition to the library of anybody interested in Egyptian art and archaeology. Although the book lacks a glossary, bibliography and index, its five authors have included a map of Egypt, a chronology of its ancient history, plenty of footnotes and Internet resources for the reader to pursue. From beginning to end, the volume is extremely enjoyable and should occupy a special place in one's collection of recent publications on ancient Egyptian art and culture.
For further reading:
Arnold, Dorothea, Lyn Green and James Allen.
The Royal Women of Amarna:
Images of Beauty in Ancient Egypt (exh. cat.).
New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996.
Freed, Rita E., Yvonne J. Markowitz and Sue H. D'Auria (eds.), et al.
Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten,
Nefertiti, Tutankhamen (exh. cat.).
Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1999.
Silverman, David P., Josef W. Wegner and Jennifer Houser Wegner.
Akhenaten and Tutankhamun: Revolution
and Restoration (exh. cat.).
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, 2006.
"Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London" is on view from February 17 through July 22, 2007 at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (Telephone: 413-538-2245; Website). The remainder of the exhibition's tour schedule is: Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe (August 24, 2007-January 6, 2008); Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC (January 24-June 8, 2008); Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, FL (June 28-November 2, 2008); and University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, KY (March 14-June 14, 2009).
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From your Guide: Stan Parchin, Senior Correspondent for Museums and Special Exhibitions, is a specialist in ancient, late-medieval and Renaissance art and history, and a regular contributor to About Art History. You may read all of his Special Exhibition and Catalogue Reviews here.
