Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4:l (1.994), pp.

67 _9a

on the status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

j?t

,,

,t; .l , kt
p;

Iohn Bainei

'r\!

ff:[1113-:,11',T*y,11

^Wf)ffrcn
No term in the ancient Egyptia.n language
neatly wifh Western usages of
-corresponds
'art', Attd Egyp,tologists.haye often arguei that
thire is no suih thing
':igyptian

as
Art,.
Yet aesthetically orga-nized structures and artefacts constitute the ilaloriti-of
asidence
f,?ry.EFVp-t, a legacy nyt:d m.ainly- for a small dlite. The genres of these materials, alt of
wh.ich had functions additional to ihe purgly aesthetic, arisimilar to
those of many other
caltures. Thty constitute a repository o7 iiailizational aalues, related to ihe syitem
of
hieroglyphic writing, that utas mainiained and transmitted across period.s. Ciiitization
and artistic style are almost identified utith each other. Funerary maierial
constitutes one
central context for artistic forms; others are temples and such
ioorty-preseraed.locations
as palaces.-The importance attachd to artistic actioities in Egypt,
iigh-cultural innoiaiment in them, and idiosyncratic darclopments can be illuiiiated
irom many periods.
Egyptian art is-a typicglly inward-Iookin'g. and almost self-sustaining product
iy i prot'essional Troup. It is no less 'art'
the
utide
range
of
ond"purposes
ii fulfiited.
for
functiont

Tn" aufirrition and evaluation

of works of art and of

art as a phenomenon continue to vex archaeologists,
among others. \rVhat is inhritively seen as art looms

In studying many societies, especially those approached through the material record, it is desirabie
to seek clarity
final agreement is beyond reach
in these matters- of the definition, and siill more of the
status, of art. Ancient Egypt offers a paradigm examplq both because artistic phenomeni are so-salient in

large in the material and textual record of recent

millennia and responds ill to analyses that ignore
either its 6lite character or its symbolic and aesthetic
meanings. Theoldest, Palaeolithic contexts in which
such meanings are at issue have been discussed in
this journal by Bednarik (1992), Chase & Dibbte (lggl),
and Davidson (1992). Their discussion focuses on
artefacts derived from what can only be non<omplex societies; while their symbolismis crucial, their
social divisiveness and social status are not.In addition to questions of symbolism, issues of definition
and status are insistent for many complex societies,
in part because art may be embedded in those societies in ways that many see as different from those of
the contemporary world. These contrasts do not affect the prominence of artistic phenomena
- however defined
in the record; so far as ancient
and

its preserved record and because of the pattern of

modern discussion.r The background witirin Egyptology is well illustrated by the opening of tne Rrit
paper in Stud,im zur altiigyptischen Kunstgachichte,
which derives from a conference on Egyptian art
history in 1987 (the author encapsulates a viiw rather
than subscribes to it):
Strictly speaking, there can be no ,art history'

Egyptian works of art, in the common understanding of a category of things distinct from other artefacts . . . ( Junge 7990,1; trans. |ohn Baines)

- can be compared, they often appear

modern contexts
more prominent than analogous phenomena in contemporary societies.

Egyptologists, especially the linguists among them,

r+ indiEenous

have observed that there was

67

\-f &;-^

that is, academic documentation and interpretation

of 'works of art' and study of the development of

their motifs, forms, and siyles
in our field, because, according to the general-view, there are no

]ohn Baines

c>@

ylt

@Ql|fi

-n,

J.J

fr.

z//,y'//,
lln,l

{i
II

a[ tr{

lln;ry
u

il

v==lh

ilil^ r"A

fl3./ftl EamilNg=
u.t:*rilru+J
fi.S

FTt

Figure l..Scenes of sculptors, painters,

anil carpenters
making a bed and s,moothing wood, in
the i";; i

Pepy'ankh'Heny the Btack at

Egyptian.cat3ory of 'art,, the nearest

approach to
the. word &rnr, whicrr I's'normaily
g:tle
l:-.l..1lltX
rendered 'craft, (see also n.-5 here).
Thus, the urgriment.luls, not only can works of art not
be identified
dlstr:rct group, but the Egyptians had
no notion
::.a
orart'. lhe statement just quoted can be contrasted
,Artists
with an article on
and artisans in pt ur"oni.
Egypt', which uses a differe"t
unI mode of
reasoning to assert thah
"pp.ou.f,

Theoretical context and

not the place

Intr
i:
ro dehne art.

dfinition

Totl - perhaps all - societies exhibit ph"no*"nu

'arf. This is despite problems of eual.ruUon

or extremely diverse character that

can be interpreted

ana
11
olsputes over what is and is not ,art,.
Contrary to the
first sentence of E.H. Co*Uricf,isie""*""aii,
Sr"fy
ot' Art (1972,4), I woutd argue
thatihere-is ,such

u.iirt, *t o
"r,aand giving a
j_*hniques of working with,
H::::"_d
pleaslng form to,

a
thing as art,. Although soile ,noa"in
atti_
tuoes may suggest otheniise, art is a "riiical
social more
than an individual phenomenon, and works
of art
primary si gnificance and inter preta tion in
T^11,lgi..
tnerr originating society, as against the
secondary
aesthetic response of a modern"vi"r",
tvt,i.t, Rorumarie Drenkhahn evokes in her acute formulation.
Both the art historian and the i.onoio*rineed to
seek a definition or a frame of referencE
ihat is ori

such materiils as wood] stone,

metal, ivory, glass, leather, faience, and
clav. . . .

l::"y
3?" people assume automatically
,art,.
p_reces belong to the category

rn press)

Stn Oy*rty. (After

BlachnanIgS3, pl.iS.)

for a detailed discussion of how

What is relevant here is the widespread
perception that art is a virtual ;;;;;;l;
noiu""u.,r"
:l:.Ionu is.an artist or a connoisseur, but because

The majorityof what is preserved from

ancient Egypt
consists of the products of artisans

of

Uyi

thai these
(Drenkhahn,

initial aims here

to suggest ways of
. . - My the
-are
bridging
gap between these
two siitements and
to consider how a definition of the
status and charac_
ter of art can profitably be related lo
ii, *.i"f
Ine tlrst quotation is an extreme formutation
"ontext.
of a
view most favoured by linguists, in part
U".uu* of
with arguments about ihe word tvnt;it
ls unllkety to command wide acceptance.
The formu_
Iation is, however, valuable becjuse ii
exemptifles
the problems of reconciling largely ptritoioeical
evi
the chiefly arte"ractrir fJri, ior?i.,* pori_
*:.-"
1],n
tron summarized
in the second quotation, ana witfr
approaches that focus on art as a'social
insiitution.

ented
.towards the patrons, creators and consumers
or art rn_ the producing society and to
the institution
of art which they create and sustain.

ll::l-".flln

ruuTs hardlypossible to arrive at a rigorous

_ la
^_, generally
and
acceptable definition of art; approaches
such as rhat of Wollheim (19g0) relate to
biff"r"r,t
issues from those I address here. But
ttris aifficutty
does not imply that the phenomer,on oi"it
Jo", not
exist, any more than the great difficulty
linguists ex_
perience in defining the ,word, means
if,"t i"o.a, al
68

(l

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

not exist. As in much humanistic study, there is an

unavoidable circularity in processes of identification

paradigmatic exceptions in Classical and Western so_

cieties where a premium is placed on the artist and
on high-value mobile works of art. At a lower level,
such pheno.mena as the material acquired in the contemporary world for its local or touristic interest also
form exceptions. For many traditions, the fact that

and circumscription.
An initial weakness in the Egyptological view
cited earlier relates to the linguistic argument de-

rived from the word hmt.If a word for rsJf'- 61,6s i5

more often proposed, 'craft'_- is identified and its
meaning analyzed, this may not be revealing for the
question of which phenomena in the ancient society
should be called 'art'. Instead, it may principally provide a foil for discussion of the modern term ,art,,
whose meaning itself changes. While familiar Western meanings have parallels in the Ctassical'world,
they hardly date farther back than the Renaissance or
even the nineteenth century. Such probler4s of fit
between concepts and usages of different periods
maybe best met by adoptinga middle ground.
To object to seeing Egyptian art as 'art' because
the etymology or 'true' meaning of Egyptian lont is
'craft' is in any case incorrect. Etymology is not a
good a guide to usage and meaning, and moreover
there are parallels, not least in Western tradition, for
an evolution from ideas of 'craft' to more value-laden
ones of 'art'. In the reverse direction, the word lrrf
has usages parallel to those of Westem 'art', as when
the skills of a doctor or lector priest are termed his
hmt (e.g. Erman & Crapow lg2i,U),like theWestern
'physician's art'; but since in such cases only the high
prestige of the contexts leads one to render'art' rather
than 'craft', this alternative throws the burden of interpretation away from particular genres and back
on social factors. These analogies do not in themselves imply that the Egyptian word orconcept had a
spread of meaning comparable to those of 'ar( in
modern times, but theyleave the question open. With-

out wishing to pursue this issue further, I suggest

that it is legitimate to use the extraneous category of
'art' to.explore ancient material, provided that the
term's fragility in any context is kept in mind and an
institutionally based understanding is sought. Models of actors' perspectives on the institution of art
should include the positions of both patrons and
executants. It is possible to approach these perspectives through extant works and their social context,
as well as through descriptive texts or the analysis of
ancient terminology
The second Egyptological objection to employ-

ing the concept of art, presented by Friedrich funge

in the first quotation aboVe, is that works of art did
not form a single category or perform a single function (l return to this issue on p.76). The same, however, applies in essence to many or most forms of
artistic production, although there are distractingly

works have definite and various functions and can

be analyzed in terms of those functions is not seen as
detracting from their status as 'works of art, or

as

lessening the desirability of analyzing them in artistic as well as functional terms. In any case, rather few
categories of artefact have only one function. Architecture is esscntially functional, while remaining the
premier art form for many societies.
Although it is impossible to define art to general satisfaction, some indication of what is meant
here is needed. I suggest that ancient Egyptian works
of art are products, created for any purpose, that
exhibit a surplus of order and aesthetic organization
which goeS beyond the narrowly functional. Such a
definition is not intended to be evaluative of quality,
as against ordering and aesthetic intent, and ithardiy
addresses genre or the cultural significance of works
of art. It can, however, incorporate rituals and performing arts. In essence it is close to the characteriza-

tion of Drenkhahn cited earlier. It is also probably

compatible with the usage of lmt,bvt it focuses on
the product rather than the skills which went into its
making. The definition is partial in taking this focus
and in appearing to neglect the social instihrtions
that made, utilized, and valued the products. An
awareness of this social dimension is indeed necessary for a full definition, but it cannot easily be incorporated into a brief formulation.
This definition should be contrasted with two
offered by Egyptologists. Both of these focus on rep
resentation. |unge (1990, 15-19) proposes that one
thing which makes Egyptian representational work
into 'art' is that its practitioners were not engaged in a
craft pursuit but in rendering an almost Platonic 'idea'.
Although representational works tend to derive from
one another more than to copy nature, and Junge's
approach does not effectively address this aspecl it
does render some iustice to the conceptual nature of
representation. Yet representation has such a nature
in many or most artistic traditions and it is difficult to
see in what way Junge's position would bring ancient
Egyptian and Westem art under a single rubric.2
Roland Tefnin (7997b,76-8), who concentrates on
two-dimensional works, takes a still more restrictive
view, seeing as most strongly'art' those works which
exploit and make play with normal representational
conventions to achieve unusual effects.
69

]ohn Baines

their.use by patrons or to the commonality of purpose and style between architecture, representational

art, and decorative arts. Furthermore, play with representational forms is also characteristic of strongly
decorative traditions that arevery different from that
of Egypt, and it is not uniquely high-cultural. Thus
these definitions describe aspects of Egyptian art that
can be paialleled

in haditions and societies of many

types. The centrality of style to high-cultural traditions is nonetheless vital. A civilization and a style
'are nearly coextensive. A style is a crucial vehicle of
discourse and of the maintenance of a sociery's identity; devdlopment of and rupture with styles are matters of great importance. lThis role of style, which is

easily perceived in Egypt, is less dominant in many

later traditions.
Social contexts and divisions

Art and exclusion

If the majority of the preserved Egyptian record has a
deliberate aesthetic organization, and definitions of

art can accommodate that point, it is desirable to

establish an interpretive framework that will incorporate this aesthetic character, and to set it within the

ancient society and its values.

The record focuses on monumental tomb complexes and temples. The materials used in both were
generally more durable than those used in structures
designed for the living. Tombs were sited where possible in the desert and thus have a disproportionate
chance of survival. Although this bias in the sources
is not accidental and says something about what mattered to the 6litg tombs and temples do not exhaust

the contexts in which art might be located. Other

important but largely lost loci include palaces (e.g.
O'Connor 1993) and the houses and estates of the
6lite;3 fortresses, too, are highly patterned and not
narrowly functional (cf. Trigger 1993, 75-7).I{herever static art was set up, mobile art was probably
present and, at least in relation to Egyptian influence
abroad (e.g. Teissier 1988), was evidently most im-

portanq yet it is very largely lost.

Characteristically Egyptian artistic culture of the

Figure 2.
for d,
L"ate

Colossal statue of

Ashmolun Mus eum

Min from Koptos. Ox-

89 4.1.0 5e. Limestone.

fourth millennium. (Courtesy of the Visitors of
1,

the AshmoteanMuseum.)

These definitions respond to the elaborate and

high-cultural character of traditions in complex societies, but they do not relate representationai works to

Dynastic Period (from c. 3000) transformed its prehistoric precursors, and the new art and culture were
available only to the 6lite (Baines 1989b). Not only
was the transformed 6lite art specialized in its techniques, style and iconography, it was also a typical
art of a professional group. Its mode of execution, its
choice of materials (which required great expenditure of resources and technical specialization) and its
complex and complete integration of writing removed
70

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

it from the purview of all but the 6lite, who could

commission works or receive them as largesse and
could in principle read what was written on them.
(The workt' potential for imparting status could have
been independent of whether patrons comprehended
them aesthetically or iconographically.)
What cannot be established, and indeed seems
unlikely, is that the life and even the death of those
outside the 6lite
most people
included
- that is, of formed.
much that was aesthetically
As in- most complex societiet art was mainly of and for the lite, and
it excluded the rest of society, who hardly had access
to its products. So far as the non-lite subscribed to
dlite-values, tlcy were deprived of the potential to
exploit artistic firrms, partly by wealth and partly by
genre. In respect of genre, enduring artefacts that
might have been typical of the non-dlite seem to have
been largely eliminated from the acknowledged repertory or to have been devalued in importance. The
daily activities of the non-6lite are unlikely to have
included much that was artistic, except among those
lvho made artistic products or served the 6lite.
Whether there were distinctive artistic activities and
traditions outside the 6lite can hardly be known. While
the non-lite could have possessed artistic forms in
perishable materials that leave no record, and have
used them in settlements that are inaccessible to archaeology, the prestige attaching to 6lite-controlled
materials and contexts makes it improbable that the
6litc would havc valued such things highly. A comparable phenomenon that does seem to have occurred
is that a few activities relating to certain areas of
human activity, such as fertility, lay outside standard
high-cultural forms. Fertility figurines do not conform to general representational conventions, yet their
use appears to have been common to all accessible
slrata of society (Pinch 1993, 798-234\.
This issue can be formulated in terms of how
far one can speak of 'two cultures' or of a counterculhrre. fan Assmann (e.g. 1991, 16-31) has proposed

Assmann focuses were even more socially exclusive

than he implies, since they prescribed the correct

cultural forms and materials as constituting societal
values and Surrounded central cultural practices with
a barrier of expertise. The only chance those outside
the 6lite had to participate iq artistic culture was by
'imitating the forms of their betters in materials and

styles that were not appreciated. This barrier separating high culture from the rest was modelled through
a system of decorum that circumscribed the content
of representational art and focused ultimately on the

world of the gods.{

Thus the 6lite appropriated. resources and restricted materially and symbolically what was available to others. Deprivation by poverty is typical of
complex societies, but probably less characteristic of
non<omplex ones where wealth, which tends to take
the form of people as much as of things, often imposes on its possessor the obligation to exploit and
disburse it for general consumption. In this siise, the
phenomena considered by Assmann typify complex
societies, which also exploit powerful means of,creating value and social definition through style.
This specialization of artistic culture and aesthetic deprivation of the non-lite can be seen in
various contexts. The basic living quarters in planned
settlements attached to major constructions of the
Old, Middleand New Kingdoms (e.g. Hdlscher'1934,
pl. 2;'1957, 13-15) have an almost industrial uniformity in layout and style (for implications, see
Kemp 1989, 1 1 1-80; Richards'1992, 3746). Ceramics
of most periods, which were used by everyone, had
few aesthetic pretensions and were very seldom deco-

rated. The 6lite could look to containers in metal,

stone and Egyptian faience (which may have been a
rather more widely distributed luxury ware), whereas
mass-produced pottery is virtually all that survives
from other people. The highly uniform ceramics suggest provision or organi2ation by the centre or a
strongly hegemonic non.high sr11ure. This drab uniformity removed the aesthetic potential of a vital
and universal material. The aesthetic devaluation of

that there were 'two cultures' in Egypt, the monumental, religious and aesthetic on the one hand and
the everyday on the other, and that these are characterized by the use of stone, or of mud brick and
perishable materials, respectively. He further suggests that this distinction is part of the Egyptian orientation towards permanence and towards the next
world, and is thus especially characteristic of Egyp
tian civilization. Yet such privileging of particular
forms and materials occurs in many Jocieties and is
not confined to complex ones; a selective privileging
of architectural genres also has parallels in other civilizations. I suggest rather that the institutions on which

ceramics, as is generally found, for example, in Meso-

potamia, contrasts with their contemporaneous development in the rather less complex and centralized
polities of Nubia and Sudan, where they remained
aesthetically significant (see e.g. Bourriau 1,987,97112).

This evidence addresses the non-lite only to a

limited extent. Any aesthetic life the agricultural population outside national and regional centres may have

enjoyed, perhaps largely in ephemeral media, is

almost unknown. The evidence of pottery points
7"1

|ohn Baines

Pfiq,
[.'6
r
L' ; f

F,ii

[iil:t'
r":J'i.'1

-ii {-j

t,

i
t

Figure 3. Statue

base

of Diosei from

Saqqara; theinscriittion on
ramiil complex at Saqqat
the entranc.e colonnaile of the Step Pyramid
et al' 1935, pl' 58')
Firth
Dyiasty. Rephotographed

the reft names the,chief sculptor Imhotep'

ri^otoi"'.-sia

towards their participation in universal forms' but

ttuiafy towardi u"""st to the moreaesthetic manifestatioris of those forms (for a valuable range of mate,iut, *u Pinch 1993)' So far as they Partook in central
ior*r, their limited access to the apProPriate materireals and arenas constituted a cultural dePriv-ation'
inforcing the exclusive positionof the small6lite group
who could ParticiPate more fullY'

Artistic genra and executants

on
Thus, tie inevitable concentration of studies of art
if
the
only
meaning
full
its
has
works
6lite
."",tuf
exclusivity of those works and their problematic relaiio" *i*,ine remainder of society areborne in mind'

conespecially where the legitimizing role of art is

on
quoted
passage
the
tes
iin
cot
Drenkhahn
."lt
n. 70"a.
bv notinq the vast amount invested in 'artistiC
arts as well as the
iroauctlon -'i*luding demrative
ior" g"r,r", - from the beginning of Egyptian hisiory Jt *utas. The proportion of resources dedicated
to lhis purPose seemtto have increased for several
cenruries in the early third millennium' The majority

fall into tire widely familiar categories of

paintarchitecture, xulpture in the round, relief' and
ing, those whictr-have just been alluded to as 'core
also an order of
I
l""irut;. rrt" order of these is, think, range o{ maThe
ielative significance in the culture'
joig""t"tiun be varied and supplemented.for differ-

oi

*ottt

ent"periods and contexts' Supplements include stone

uusi prodn.tion, both figured and pf3in' in late

(late fourthPredynastic and Early Dynastic times

irom

early third millennium; el-Khouli 1978);5 metal vessels, which succeeded stone ones and became extremely important (e.g. Schiifer 1903; Insley Green
1987); and jewellery G.g. Aldred 7977a; Wilkinson
from
1971); The latter two raise the problems, familiar
precious
other
and
metals
other ancient cultures, of
materials and how far their almost complete loss

distorts the archaeological and artistic record'

Decorative arts extend the role and functions of
art to areas that cannot easily be assessed but were
clearly important. The use of much-recycled precious
*ut"ii"lt again lessens the number of obiects preserved, in cimparison with such genres as statuary
and stone uares. Ducotative arts are pervasive in the
frrrr"rury record (e.g. D'Auria et al' 1988; Brovarski ef
al.798i), encompaJsing all but the most basic grave
few seem to have been
loods - of wtricfr relitively
are generally untombs
while non-Elite
teposited
was a genSr3l
there
Jul-r.ptut"nted. Furtherrnore,
(for example. in
gods
the
of
life
the
of
aestheiicization
(cf'
ttreir cult images), of royalty, ind.of the 6lite

7:2H34),which extended through such

.ut"goti"t as iewellery and furniture.to clothing
(*d* value lould be extremely high)' cosmetics'
o.rf,r*es, and performing arts' All these other artis["-".ti"itiut wili have accinruated the division of the
of
ruling group from others, except insofar.as some
and
them'
tfre oltirs nnde works of art, performed
i" *"tupttotical and literal ways danced attendanceof
on the fbrtunate, An acknowledged characteristic
to
Egyptian artistic culture, wh-ich encourages one

Assmann

72

199

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

view it

as a whole, is its consistency of style from the

Iargest work of architecture to the smallest piece of
decorative art (e.9. Schiifer 7986,9--68). The consist-

ency of art forms is part of the hegemony of 6lite

culture and may not have furthered general social
integration.
Decorative arts also affect modern perceptions
of ancient artists. Drenkhahn (1976; in press) argues,
against Junker (1959), that the pattern of representations of artists and,/or artisans (between whom it
may not be advisable to distinguish), especially in
non-royal tombs of the third millennium, shows that
they were of similar status whether they wEre making beds and boxes or statues, and hence that neither
the Western-style 'Artis( nor his aesthetically concerned patron existed. While some representations
may favour such a conclusion, caution is necessary.
The argument could as well also be reversed, so that
the cabinet maker would be an 'artist'almost as much
as the sculptor in wood near whom he was shown in
a tomb scene (e.g. Fig. 1). While this interpretation
addresscs a frequent commonaliqr of technique and
personnel among those who worked in the same media, it does not take into account questions of the
dcsign of major projects, of iconography, or of the
gcneral significance of artistic production and the
amount of resources it absorbed.
A distinction can also be observed between
sculptors and other craftsmen shown in these scenes:
only the xulptors are frequently captioned with titles and personal names, and these raise their status
in relation to the others (rnaterial presented by EatonKrauss 1984, SS 43, 4,53, 5H, Cat. 43*4). On a

minimal reading, the sculptor who created the

simulacrum through which the tomb owner was to

exist in the next world had a more personal relationship with the tomb owner and hence a higher status
than the cabinet maker enpyed. I think it likely that
this point extends further, and that the former/s activity was seen as more broadly significant than the
latter's. But this does notimply that the cabinet maker
or jeweller was undervalued, because their professions were part of the same 6lite high-cultural com-

Figure 4.

plex as the sculptorrs and shared his underlying

aesthetic. Their products too could exhibit the highest levels of technical and artistic skill and should be

there exists a single type of 'the artist', or still less

accorded a commensurate value.5

What the approach of Drenkhahn valuably highlights is that artists were not the free agents driven by
ideas'of originality and progress familiar from modern stereotypes. Those typically Western stereotypes
are far from universal, and their absence in Egypt
does not mean that there were no 'artists', or that

Reserae head. Boston Museum of Fine Arts

74.718, from Giza (MF A negatioe C4362). Limwtone. 4th
Dynasty. (Courtesy Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)

that there was no originality or innovation. Clear

evidence exists fora positive role for innovation, even
though textual support from among those who created or supervized works of art is sparse (but see e.g.
Dziobek 7992,52-4). Apart from these difficulties of
comparison, the evidence from non-royal tombs covers only a limited number of genres of artistic activity. The creation of major and large-scale.stone
73

John Baines

sculpture is seldom represented and the design and

decoration of temples and other major monuments

proach such as Drenkhahn,s risks becomin g reductive.

If intelpretation sticks closely to the preseried record,

insufficient allowance may be made for the contexi
and for the improbability that evidence would sur_
vive for other possibly relevant contexts. The charac-

not at all. For a variety of reasons, the preserved

scens are not suitable contexts for showing the most

prestigious artistic activities, and so canrrot provide

evidence for the status of those activities and their
executants. Nor can the role of the ultimate patron,
the king. be seen in this material, which derives prin_
cipally from the 6lite; few suitable royal contexts are
preserved, and in any case restrictions of decorum
make-it unlikely that these things were widely de-

ter of .discourse in the ancient society may

be

underestimated. It is difficult to identify discourse

directly comparable to that of Western artists and
commentators on art, and it can too readily be as_
sumed that such things did not exist, rather ihan the

more likely possibility that

picted.

thiy were not written

down or that they took different forms from those of

In its admirable aim to avoid imposing Occi_

dental categories on the ancient mateiials, an aF

some other cultures.

There is also the problem that writing about art
is never easy
few oi the greatest writinls of most
cultures are treatises
on art. Visual art is beit compre_

hended by viewing ir and by doing it. Societies with

a restricted range of written genrei and subject matt:r rnay not develop a tradition of discursive writing

ar! and for Egypt it is hard to see where suct

texts might belong. The character of Egyptian dis_
course about art was probably differentEom that of
the modern West, but such discourse could still have
had a comparable role or function, both among the
about

6lite and among the executants who created the r^iorks

which sustained the traditions and whose workshop

continuiry and regroupings will have affected devei_
lpment profoundly. In addition to specific evidence
for such discourse (*" p.Z7), I would allow more
broadly for its presence.
The role of art in historical developments
Discussion in society and social uses of art
One difficu-lty for scholars who approach Egyptian
art from a theoretical and actor-orilnted pers-pective
has been the rarity of texts with evidence for att!
tudes to art or pointers to its intrinsic significance,
coupled with clear evidence for non-artistic functions of works of art. This lack of explicit statements
is, howevet part of the difference between ancient

Near Eastern and modern Western styles of discourse:

the former do not feature substantial amounts of midrange theoretical discussion. Neither the lack of texts
nor the presence of a function provides grounds for
arguing that narrowly artistic concerns did not affect
the production of the ancient works. Buildings, sculptures, reliefs, and paintings had specific non-artistic
tunctions, such as to act as temples or tombs, to be
objects of veneration or m"rn, oip"rr,rasion, or to be
vehicles through which a deceased person,s identity
would receive offerings. Such a line of reasoning

Figure 5. The Two Dog Palette from the main deposit at Hierakonpolb. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum
E.3924. Schist. I-ate Predynasticl Dynasty 0. (Cour-

tay of theVisitors of the-Ashmolein Mrbeum)

would also be reductive: words are a problematii

74

t!t

it
li!
I

Egyptian Art
On the Status and Purposes of Ancient

medium, yet the argument has tended

to run thit since in surviving records

oeople seldom formulated a topic in
luotat, the topic did not exist or must

have had a culturally idiosyncratic mean-

ing. In any case, the large gaps in the

written record make it unwise to argue
I r, i r,,'.ilr:r,r,: Frt rt hr:rrrrore, insistence on
a single function ignores uscs of works
that ire different in kind but have a sig
nificance of their own, such as being the
locus of display or competition within a
group and a mark of division between
ex-[tottps. Multifunctionality is to be
pected.
-

It is, moreover, possible to Point to

significant Egyptian discourse about
w6rks of art thit focuses on their general

positive and symbolic qualities, as against their narrow functionality' Maya

Irttiltet (1990) has collected passages describing works of architecture, including thJ graffiti of later visitors, which
sh6w aniesthetic appreciation that also
assimilates them to ideal and quasicosmological canons that have close Parallels in integral features of the buildings'
decoration and inscription. These statements do not form a sophisticated criti-

flr"ff:|:Tf,.t::

tI"::J

at Hierakonpotb'
main
;'",'""ii:l 1,y: 5.rhe scorpio.nMuseuin Bhz'
[r1m
0' (Courtesy
Dynasty
Limestone'

would be expected of eulogies

;1il,h" dening of mod-ern

ma_ce-he1l

accomPa-

buildings

the

deposit

O"xfora, Ashmolean
o1'theVisitors of the Ashmolun Museum')

or of"ttte captiot s to picture postcards of them. Moreover, a few texts point towards more
1970), and tr,"
found meanings (e.g.
the past
of
uses
artistic
attested complex

A;;;"^

pro- T: :ft""..Souped under'the'term 'connoisseurship"

ti"u- whileartisti-ct'raditionsshouldnotsimplybelumped
("'g;;i;;; t-"^,.tT^::"d there is no reason for assuming that

1'989a;Leahy1988rch.5;Leahy1992)musthavein-connoisseurshipisauniversal.method;thisintuitive
the
approach poin'ts to an issue that is essentially
volved much discussion (see also pp. 89-90 i;i'
works
Egyptian
Drenkhahn'
by
raised
thJone

;e;e 'i'" ut
respond to
,h"i of sculpture and relief (and architecture)
"";;;JL*s- traditional modes of art-historical analysis - more
'radical' ones have hardly been tried on them sion.Theonlytext thatpresentsanartist's.skiil;
,hi"gt whether or not their status and functions were differobscure that it appears deliberately to allude ;;

Some of the most important works and contexls

subject to restriction, oi r.r,o*r"oge and

would have made them unsuitable for p.rUfi"

*itto,,t

8-9)'

revealins

tte-iuu,tu reio; see

BJ;i;;1; :*:jprtl",X;:ffi:"J*:il:ffi:l?ilt::|;'ll
genres
the cross-cultural comparability of
rreticians

*n,"Jfnl""T,*:",:.ft;:"*?"J"ll?litr;;";
;ith truiitionuf
ignored by Egyptologists worting

ment from

again

r,igiiiglt, *,u ,educti.,enlss- or al.v'f;g th'

siatns of;art'-on grounds of function'

Thispoint

methods,andUyrn"r,y"nr**rr-nr"rrr'u,ors.fn"seJofargument
ars categori

,u, un^tlru';fi;;i;;;; *"irtt-i,. ftt"

centralgenresaccordingtomethodggenerallysimilar to those used for numerous "th", *r;;Jr:il;t

by reversing the

i" ry ".:Tllified
about function and asking why the Egyp-

tians used maior works-of art for'utilitarian'purs""t a'formulation emphasizes that thqse

f"r"r.

75

John Baines

Figure 7. Three stone uases, prsoenance unknown. Bertin, Agyptisch* Museum 732L3, 12778, 12779.
Grrywacke.'l. st Dynasty. ( Cour tesy Agyp tbcha Museum Berlin.)
purposes are symbolic, not narrowly instrumental. It
is hardly meaningful to ask whether the rituals performed upon a cult statue were directly causative,
but the food placed before it was taken away and
ultimately consumed by the priests, who must have
known that the material nutrition it contained was
available to them. The same point can be made about
the supposed 'magical' and recreative,function of
statues (e.g. Russmann 1989,3), or in another sense of
buildings. These works underwent an 'opening of
the mouth' ceremony in order to render them functionally effective (e.g. Blackman & Fairman 1946).
However the actors may have comprehended this
ritual, it need not have been completely different in
kind from the consecration of a church, which makes
it fit for its ceremoniesbut does not affect its status as
a multifunctional and polysemous work of art that is
comparable in this respect with the Egyptian one.
Thus, it seems justifiable to see Egyptian art as a
phenomenon analogous inmany ways with theart of
other traditions. The centrality of the production of
aesthetic objects to many periods of Egyptian history, notably some materially rich times that exhibit
. major cultural or political tensions, makes it worth
reviewing the role of works of art in the discourse of
the ancient 6lite.'The importance of sculpture and
rare materials as early as the fourth millennium can
be illustrated by such objects as a statuette of lapis

lazuli from Afghanistan found at Hierakonpolis

(Porada 1980; this could have been made in the Near
East or in Egypt). The colossal statues of Min from
Koptos (Fig. 2), which date to the late fourth millen-

nium and were originally about four metres high,

were probably set up outside a temple and thus suggest indirectly the presence of an imposing artistic
and architectural context (e.g. Williams 1988; Dreyer,

in press).
Among periods within Egyptian dynastic civilization that exemplify these issues are the formative

time of Dynasties G-l (c. 315G-2900 ac), which can be

contrasted with the 3rd-4th Dynasties and their development of pyramids and aisociated works of art
and architecture (c. 2650-2500 sc); the 12th Dynasty
with its highly distinctive sculpture (c.t940-1i10vci;
and the century or so from the time of Amenhotep III
to that of Sety I (late 18th-early 19th Dynasty, c.
14C0-7275 Bc). Late Period artistic modes (715-A3Z
Bc), although generally less extravagant than earlier
ones, display complex and significant relations with
earlier traditions. The great temples of the GraecoRoman Period (320 uc{. eo 200) surviving in southern Upper Egypt document a vast expenditure of
resources by culturally alien rulers on monuments of
the traditional culture deep in the provinces. These
periods, which I pass quickly in review in the following sections, can illustrate various aspects of the role
of art in society.

Dynastia 0-7 and the 4th Dynasty

a) Defining styles and artists
The Egyptian state coalesced during the earliest of
these periods. Around the time of political unification, there was a great transformation in artistic styles
and content, leading to an iconographic definition of
the Egyptian cosmos which set the pattern for later
periods. During the 1st Dynasty, large numbers of
votive offerings were deposited in temples. Many
were in precious materials also used for royal funerary
equipment (materials such as gold are naturally seldom preserved). This production of 6lite objects must
be very imperfectly represented by what survives,
many others being deposited in lost locations. The

architectural context which would have conveyed

vital meaning to people beyond the small numbers

with access to temple sanctuaries can hardly be reconstructed for this period (Friedman, n.d., has presented a late Predynastic case) and is much better
known for mortuary complexes (e.g. OConnor 1989;
76

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

Figure 8.Iuory
cylinder with

Dreyer 1990) than for temples (but see O'Connor

7992r.

relief decoration

What is most significant for art here is the largely

iconographic formulation of ideology and cosmology (e.g. Baines 1989b). Although the hieroglyphic

from the'Main

Deposit' in the
temple complex

sclipt was integral to pictorial compositions, it did

notiecord continuous language uhtil centuries later,

at Hierakonpolb.

so that crucial meanings were conveyed through rep

resentational and architectural modes. While wecan-

Oxford,
Ashmolean
MuseumE.1.64.

not identify specific artists who created the works

which embodied the new conventions, it seems inconceivable that an enterprise of such cultural im.
portance as the definition of a style for the civilization

Lst Dynasty(?)

(Courtesy of the

Visitors of the
Ashmolean
Museum.)

lnd the encoding of its values was not under central

direction. At the core of the new system was the
politically dominant figure of the king.
More can be said about artists and their Position in the first pyramid age of the 3rd-4th Dynasties'
but some issues are disputed. The royal pyramid
complexes exhibit comprehensive planning as works
of art and, on a minimal evaluation based on levels of
craftsmanship, display standards of execution going
far beyond the 'functional'. Techniques and styles
evolved quite rapidly over a century or so and moSt
complexes show major alterations in design. In the
case of the 3rd Dynasty Step Pyramid complex of
Djoser (c. 2650 Bc), we have the name of the likely
designer or chief architect in the inscription on the
front of a royal statue plinth found in the entrance,
which names the 'chief sculptor/ Imhotep (Fig. 3;

see also e.g.Iunker 1959,76-9).lt

is irrelevant here whether Imhotep carved the statue
or rather supervised its production. What is relevant
is that he had a quite exceptional status, as is shown

Wildung 1,977,5-9;

by the fact that non-royal individuals are never

oiherwise named on royal statues. In exercising this
privilege he placed next to his name the title of chief

sculptoi and not that for an administrative office.

Imhotep later became a culture hero, and may have
been held among other things to have overseen a
and thus of artistic
reform of Egyptian writing
in the time of Dioser (see Wildung
conventions
79n,88=9 for an opposite view).
Although evidence for those who directed work
on 4th Oynasty pyramids is not so direct as with
Imhotep, it can hardly be doubted that those undertakings, which will have involved much of the PoPulation in.one way or another, were controlled by
leading members of the 6lite. Some of these, who
were the sons of kings, are known by name; their
tombs at Giza were among the principal non:royal
monuments of the necropolis arranged to east and
west of the Great Pyramid.T

The projects for the pyramids display other artistic charicteristics, of which I cite one. Between the
Step Pyramid (e.g. Smith 1981,53-5'l) and the mid
4th Dynasty pyramid of Khephren atCiza, architec-

tural vocabulary and style moved from adaptations

in stone of earlier plant-based forms to a near-complete geometrical lbstraction that a modern critic
*ight-*" as exploiting the 'natu_ral' properties of the
stoi'tes. The new style lasted only two or three generations, being replaced in the 5th Dynasty by a more
representational bne (e.g. Smith 1981, 95-100,129gS). fhis double stylistiCtransformation cannot well
be interpreted only as a consequence of changes in
religion and symbolism, even if they played a dominant part; it must have included an aesthetic comPonent.i Such a development towards and away from

John Baines

One of the principal objections to seeing Egyptian creations as 'art' has been the fact that many
works were invisible in their final positions. Since
they were not viewed, it is implied, they could not be
intended to be'art'. The'reserve heads'of this period
(Fig. 4), separate.near-life-sized xulptures appirently

lacking a context of installation and coming from the

bottoms of tomb shafts, were subject to some ritual
mutilation before they were deposited (Tefnin 1991a),
while some of the 'slab stelae' forming the cult focus
of lite tombs.were walled up to make thern invisible
and
are remarkably well preserved (e.g.
- 1981,henbe
Smith
84 figs. 76-7; Reisner 7942,64-5). This
walling-up is only the mbst striking of many invisible contexts in which sculpture and reliefs were
placed.

To deny the status of 'art' to these works is to

rely too much on a single criterion. The context of

Figure 9.Limestonc statue of Kra'sekhan t'rom Hierukonpolis. O xfor d Ashmolean Museum E.5'1"7. ( Cour t esy of the
Visitors ot' the AshmolwnMuseum.)

austerity and abstraction has parallels, not least in

the Modern Movement with its epigone the Postmodern; it seems to be a natural way in which a
tradition can develop and then move on again by
returning to and developing older forms.
b) Access to works of art
The 4th Dynasty poses strongly the issue of access, and
hence of audience. This applies even to vast pyramid
complexes, but I review it in relation to statuary and
relief. It too is relevant to many cultures.

pafron and executant exists for such objects whether

they are seen or not, and even whether they are to be
conserved or destroyed. Moreover, while the uses to
which these works were put often differed from those
of modern times, they do not seem to have affected
their appearance greatly. Apart from the mutilation
of the reserve heads, two- and three-dimensional
forms of obiects destined to be seen are similar or
identical to those which were to be invisible. This
situation can be compared, almost at random, with
the vast amount of sculptural and pictorial decoration in large medieval churches and iathedrals, much
of it virtually invisible when completed and incorporating inscriptions that only the keenest-sighted
among the literate few could read.e Invisibility also
had i;ttle effect on the formation of traditions or on
interactions of later periods with earlier works.
The issue of access also concerns the palettes
(Fig. 5) and mace-heads (Fig. 5) which embody tfre
evolving state's ideology and cosmology and were
dedicated in temples iust before the 1st Dmasty. These
include works of the highest quality and technical
mastery, whose relative merits can be suggested by a
comparison
media
with the rather earlier
- across
and far cruder
wall painting- in Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, which probably itself belonged to a ruler
(Quibell & Green 1902, pls. 75-9; *e e.g. Williams &
Logan 1987). The style and the technique of the palettes and mace-heads are devised for their dimensions, context and materials, and could not easily
have had larger and more public counterparts, so
that the pieces must be evaluated as the votive objects they appear to have been and not in relation to
putative monumental propaganda pieces of which
they might be small-scale representatives.

i':

:;:.

i"'
;..,
F-

i.-

ii.:

bi
Hii

Sn
F*t

Fd

ffi
78

FI
!.3J

iti:

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

Two implications of these

finds could no doubt be paralleled elsewhere. First, the au-

dience of the gods, to whom

were dedicated votive offerings in addition to temple construction and decoration, was
as integral to the obiects' meaning as was a human audience.

Second, the group

was close

of artists
to the ruling and

commissioning 6lite, and the

forms were developed.between patrons and artists. Pro-

duction for the gods paid due

respect to them, as well as enhancing the status of the donor, who was principally the
king. For the executant, the aim
to produce works of high qualify could appty indifferently to
pieces that were large or small
and destined to be visible or
invisible, and might be exacted
by the parron or donor in either case. Motivation towards
excellence must, however, ul-

timately be internal to the

executant and can originate
withinhim.ro
The patron's and artist's
search for quality does not ex-

plicate sufficiently the meaning of the works. The Narmer

Palette crowns a development

Figure 7o. Hud of Senwosret III, prwenance unknown. Cambridgg, Fitzwilliam

in which royal dominance, re- Miseum E.37.1930. Pink granite.l.2th Dynasty. (Courtesy of the Syndics of the
lations between the king and Fitzwilliam Museum.)
the gods, and the structure of
cosmos and society were incorporated iconograph- is that, despite their quite rapid evolution and cenically with the utmost sophistication (e.g. Baines tripetal role in the emergent state, they come at the
1989b, 472-5 with figs. 1-2). The palette may stand end of a development, not at its beginning. With the
on the margin of ideologically more central develop- 1st Dynasty their production ceased, and preserved
ments of temple relief and painting, in which the royal reliefs are confined to tomb stelae (e.g. Schiifer
king was shown interacting with deities, both sides 1986, pl. 10) and ivories. Reasons for this change
as later l- in human form at the probably include: developmeirts in the use of materibeiig depicted

same scaie; but any such works there may have been
are lost.rl The self-iontained nature of the palette and

als, so that precious substances that are lost from the

record began to carry meanings and implications of

status previously associated with other media; the
location of some artistic activities in los! contexts,
principally temples and palaces within the floodplain;
and, most importantly, a general restriction of the
.public contcxts of art. The legitimizing functions of
A striking aspect of the palettes and mace-heads iepresentational art could be complcmerited by other

its votive function may have required it to bridge

symbolic domains and to condense a great deal of
meaning. They do not alter its status as a work of art,
but they do ihrow into relief the great weight of
symbolism which it bears.

79

]ohn Baines

Thus the 1st Dlmasty,

rather like the 4th, appears to
have restricted the range and

use

of significant works of

representational art, and in a

different way of architecture,
to very few people. The stone
vases characteristic of the period (e.g. Fig. 7; see el-Khouli

1,97$ do not affect this patbecause

vast numbers were deposited
in the tombs of the kings and
of rather few others. What is

tern significantly,

striking in terms of categories of material is that the

vases are much superior in
execution to the rare preserved fragrirents of xulpture
in the round, except for ivories (Fig. 8; see e.g. Quibell

Figure 11:
9f lmenem.haf lll, proaenance unlorcwn. c-ambidge, Fitzwirliam
Museum E.2.1946. Dark shelly limestone.l.2th Dynasty. (Courtesy of the syndics of
the F itzwilliam Museum

Y4

mental scale of architecture. Rih-rals, such as the sacrifice of retainers at 1st Dynasty royal funerals (e.g.
Dreyer 1990, 67), demonstrated the power of king
and state in the most peremptory fashion. Art ap-

within the 6liie

and to have acquired an introspective character that

related it less to the wider society than was the case
in some later periods. Few surviving pieces from the
first two dynasties could clearly have functioned in
social competition or have belonged to genres distributed throughout the 6lite. Competition and ranking can, however, be seen in architecture. The highest
levels of society appear to have been strongly slratificd, with not more than one or two people at a time
constructing the most elaborate tombs, notably in the
Saqqara necropolis, next to the capital of Memphis.r2
There are more modest cemeteries with architecturally
constructed tombs at a number of sites in the country, showing that wealth was not centralized to an

palettes and mace-heads may

have been closely related to

those used on vases, and the
vases attained still higher levels after the palettes and
mace-heads ceased to be made, becoming the most
significant mobile art preserved from the period and
perhaps taking over traditions and personnel from
other media. Some inscriptions on stone vases from
the Step Pyramid, however, relate to their earlier use

forms of display, including the increasingly monu-

pears to have retreated progressivlly

1900, pls. 5-17); major stone

sculpture seems not to have
developed significantly until
the later 2nd Dynasty (notably Fig. 9; wood could have
been important: see Emery
1958, 10, pl. 27). The skills
which went into creating the

among the living, probably in temple rituals (e.g.

Roth 1991, 145-9il, reminding us that the range of
preserved contexts is very incomplete. It seems thus
that the vases must have been major symbolic re.
sources for the cult, as well as being deposited as
grave goods. (Such objects as large granite vases can
hardly have had a practical everyday use.)
1,2th Dynasty royal sculpture
Some of the most striking Egyptian images are the
haggard figures of the tZtf, Oynisty kingiSenwosret
III (Fig. 10) and Amenemhat III (Fig. 11). A fairly
consistent stylistic development can be seen, from

the statuary of Amenemhat I and Senwosret I at

the beginning of the 12th Dynasty to the time of

extrcme degree.

',t

.l't

80

f.,1
:1

:it
.t'l

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

*.rin

Amcncmhat III, after which evidence for royal works

Aldred 1971b; Tefnin 1992;Fay,

is sparse (Evers 1929;

in press). Some works of the first half of the dynasty,

notably large hardstone statues, have more individual
physiognomies than those of earlier times, and pieces

from the entire dynasty have ears of exaggerated

individual feAtures of Senwosret III
and his successor nonetheless exhibit a marked
change. Statues of the two can mostly be told apart
on the basis of facial type. Both share the wom look,
which is especially typical of Senwosret III; distinctions between them suggest that the kings' personal
physiognomies contributed to the sculptural norm,
but they do not demo4strate that an ideal of 'true'
portraiture suddenly appeared. As is shown by the
marked contrast between the king's head and his
body, which remains him and muscular, the new
type did not run counter to the principle that most
people, and panticularly kings, were shown in idealizing and 'perfect'guise. This point applies strikingly
size. The highly

tively, it could have beert introduced under Senwosret

as a specific statement about the king's role and
responsibility, and thus have made a statement about
Senwosret III in particular. Tefnin (1992) has suggested that the iconography of royal eyes and ears
signifies the king's responsible role in relation to humanity, and he has integrated the facial presentation
with the notion of royal 'propaganda', ascribirrg to it
the same kind of meaning as I do (Tefnin 1991c; for
propaganda, see further Baines, in press). While this

III

interpretation is tempting, the limited public access

to the works restricts its focus so far that the term
itself becomes problematic. It seems better to view
the iconography as part of a dialbgue between the
king and gods on the one hand, and between the
king and the 6lite group responsible for producing
and giving meaning to statuary on the other. The

to cases where the same facial type occurs on a sphinx.

To modern eyes these create a strong contrasf between the specificity of the face and the generality of
the body. This apparent difference may illuminate
further the relation between body and face on anthropomorphic statuary: in some sense the worn facial type should convey an ideal.
This iconography, as one can appropriately term
the facial treatment, should signify a quality of the
king. The form has an evident analogy in the royal

instruction texts of the period, notably the Instruction for Merikare and the Instruction of Amenemhat
(e.g. Lichtheim'1.973, 97 -7W, 135-9), which emphasize the burdens of the king's office and the respon-

sibility he must bear. Statues with the highly

characterized faces come from temples (e.g. Naville
19W, pl.19
four from a single temple), where this
- king's
aspect of the
role would be displayed to the
gods, while among humanity only priests had access
to inner areas. But this 'intimate' interpretation should
not be overstressed, because some of the same features occur in softened form even on a perhaps more
public colossal head (Romano 1979, no. 40), where
such a treatment might seem surprising. The temple
context can, however, be contrasted with a mortuary
one, because a statue of Amenemhat III from his
pyramid complex lacks any of the new features (Evers
1929, pls. 102-4). The focus of this iconography appears therefore to be this-worldly.
There are two principal ways of viewing this
development. As an ipproich to depicting the liing's
face, it could have originated near the beginning of
the dynasty and have strengthened later. Alterna-

Figure 72. Colossal quartzite hud of Amenhotep lll, t'rom

hb mortuary ternple on the West Bank at Theba. British
Museum EA7. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the British
Museum.)
81

fohn Baines

latter could have consisted, in addition to the king

himself, of officials in charge of furnishing templei
and mortuary complexes and of the leaderJof work_
shops. These people were presumably steeped in val_
ues, of which We can see another expiession in
Iiterature, that formed part of the same overall highculh:ral complex. It seems that they wished to ir,.-or_
porate those values into the king,s sculptural image.
In this context of production within a small
6lite_group for epcting royal and divine patrons, the
works will have had a specifically artistic.focus _ a
concern with visual form and its realization of meaning
- while retaining their broad ideological significance. This focus can be seen in the influence exerted
by the royal statuary. Many non-royal statues of the
late 12th and 13th Dynasties have similar casts of face
to royal pieces. The royal style was disseminated to
contexts where its iconographic implications could
hardly have been the same, although its sober and
serious qualities probably had theiiown value (see
e.g. Vandier 1958, pls. 7T-92; large group: Habachi
]f!S, nts. 5G-109; see also Sourouzian t99t, pls. +g52). Some owners may also have seen their loial role
as sharing elements with that of the king, but they
could hardly have entertained his cosmic alpirationi.
The tendency of the non-royal to follow thb royal is
widespread within and outside Egypt and it unsurprising. This case is revealing because a specific
iconography changed as it was transmitted into some.
thing that was mainly a prestigious association. Royal
statuary was influential despite its inaccessibility in
its destined position. Here, the large numbers of royal
statues should be borne in mind: they must have
been produced for many temples in a variety of sizes
and types, and the most important temples contained
a number of them. Some of their influence may have
passed directly through workshops, stimulated e!
ther by members of the 6lite who were involved with
them or by the sculptors themselves, who will have
applied anfl spread their haining and stylistic predi
lections broadly.
This dissemination and elaboration within a restricted context can be observed in many periods; the
most striking example may be the development of
temple relief and iconography in Ptolemaic and early
Roman times (c.320 ec-ao iOOle.g. Sauneron & Stierlin
1978), when the ubiquitous hieroglyphic writing in
the wall scenes was in a form veiy-flw could rJad,
while the overall design and details of the interiors
were largely invisible once they had been completed
(as had always been the case). Much of the motivation for these developments was religious, but artistic aspects were also crucial. In comparison with 12th

Figure 13. Black granite statue of the goddess Salehmet

t'rom the Mut tanple complex at Karnak, probably
t'irst set uy in the mortuary temple of Amenhotep
on the West Bank at Thebes. Bitish Museum EA4S.
(Courtesy of theTrustees of
\eign ot' Amenhotep III.
theBitish Museum.)

il

82

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

.I

Dynasty royal sculpture, the Graeco-Roman temple

forms had relatively little impact outside, in part because they were so highly specialized and in part
because of a gradual withering of the native 6lite.
Both for the 12th Dynasty and for Graeco-Roman temples, the institutional position of art should
be borne in mind. Whereas thd creation of enormous
monuments such as the great Pyramids self-evidently
required huge resources and many people, the more

regular pattirn of production of statuary and relief

involved high degrees of skill and of artistic decision

and design. As might be expected, artistic and jconographic concerns were significant to the development
of these genres at least as much as considerations
relating more closely to contexts of use. A straightforward notion of propaganda may not be appropriate for the interpretation of statuary and relief.
The late 1.8th and early 1.9th Dynnsty

The third period I review briefly runs from the later

18th Dynasty to the early 19th (c. 140V1275 sc). This
begins with the reign of Amenhotep III,during which

more works of architecture and representational art

were created than in almost any other (for all the
following, see Kozloff & Bryan 1'992,passim). Unlike
most kings, Amenhotep seems to have worked on
projects at an undiminished or increased Pace uP to
his death. Surviving works from his reign include
royal and non-royal, as well as maior and decorative
forms; the $eat quantity preserved can be only a
small fraction of what was created. Among the king's
maior undertakings was his stupendous mortuary
temple, which was decorated with many hundreds
of hirdstone statues of himself (Fig. 12) and of deities
(Fig. 13) and sacred animals. The temple may have
been the largest single one built to date, and in front
of it stood tte hrgeit transported statues ever made
in Egypt, the quartzite Memnon Colossi, which were
carved in an extremely hard stone and brought hundreds of miles upstream to be set in position. These
feats were recorded in inscriptions set up in the temple which presented them as being integrated into
ihe design of the whole city of Thebes (Helck 1961,
195-9, U2'-3). While these texts hardly address narrowly artistic concerns beyond general expressions
of thL temples'beauty and of the rich materials used
in their construction and decoration, they do form an
iconological commentary on their significance and
simple. in
thus supply some discourse
- probably
surrounding
comparisbn with its oral background
the king's whole proiect to remodel the country's
religioui capital and hence to extend a substantially
aesthetic design beyond the core of temples and pal-

Figure 74. Seated statue of Amenhotep Son ot' Htpu,

baied on Middle Kingdom models (nase atu recanted in
antiquitfl. Cairo Museum CG
granite.- Reign of Amenhotep
Legrain 1.905, p\.75)
aces (O'Connor,

427'27 .

lll.

in PreParation).

Ftom Karwk Gtey

(Rephotographed t'rom

The entire operation was organized by Alen;

hotep Son of Hapu, a non-royal official who inscribed
a veision of the events on one of his statues (Helck
7967,2721). He had the hiShest non-royal status in
the land and was granted the.unprecedented Privilege of a mortuary iemple of his own (Wildung 192
286). On the East Bank, opposite the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, was the Luxol T-epPle, whose
meaning seems to have focused on the kingship itself

83

John Baines

(Bell 1985). The hardstone stela of the twin brothers

Suty and Hor, the'architects' of that temple, is preserved (Edwards 1939,p1.21). Several features of the
stela, notably the innovative solai hymn, show that

they were among the leading people of the age. Apart

from this biographical flesh which can be added to
the bones of the monuments and their builders, there
was a high level of innovation in architecture, in the
slyle of some statuary and in the elaborate reliefs of
non-royal tombp. Variety and quite rapid develop
ment in art parallel a great diversity in religious texts
and support the assumption that the artistic changes
form part of a wider ferment (Baines, forthcoming).
Certain features looked to the past, for example in
the performance of ancient rituals Gpigraphic Survey 1980, 43,,p1. 28) and in the Middle Kingdom
model for a major statue of Amenhotep son of Hapu
(Fig. 1a; Sourouzian 1991).
Art should be seen both as an essential medium
through which these changes were formulated and
as a goal: it was constihrtive and not accessory. The

ultimate purpose of Amenhotep III's projects may

have been religious and political, being connected

with solar religion and with raising the king's status

in relation to people and to the gods. Such goals were
realized through art and architecture, and in the king's
grand remodelling of capital and country as a divine
cosmos with a superhuman royal protagonist (there
is naturally Iess evidence for the likely counterpart of
all this in living ceremonial).
This prominence of art, and of people who can
be termed artists, continued during the 'revolution'
of Amenhotep III's successor Akhenaten. In a graffito
at Aswan, where they may have supervised the extraction of granite for statuary, the father and son
sculptors Men and Bak commemorated their work
for both kings, differentiating between the artistic
styles of the two (Habachi 1965,86 fig. 11; Krauss
1986, 18 fig. 8). Bak's own mortuary stela (Fig. 15;
Krauss 1985) exemplifies the new style in a strong
form. Later in the reign, the chief scrrlptor Thutmose,
who occupied a large house compound at the new
capital of el-Amarna, headed the studio which created numerous heads (e.g. Fig. 16), including the
renowned Berlin bust of Nefertiti. The compound
hardly a
contained stabling for chariot horses
- with the
and the obiect
requirement for sculpting

sculptor's name and titles that identified the tenant

was an ivory horse blinker (Krauss 1983)' In a city laid
out for ceremonial chariot ioumeys to and from the

Figure 15. Stela of the sculpto.r Bak and his wife Tahere,
proaenance unknown. Berlin, Agyptischa Museum'l' | 63.
Quartzite. Reign of Akherwten. (Courtesy Agyptische
Museum Berlin.)

suburbs where the king resided overnight (O Connor,

in preparation), a chief royal sculptor could ride the
streets with the other members of the lite.
Men, Bak and Thutmose are important also be-

cause they came

at the beginning and end of

Akhenaten's radical artistic style. Men and Bak were

active through the formative period of the new style,
84

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

studio show a
..r'whereas the works from Thutmose's

partial return to a traditional man^d softening and a

,,er. Sinle Akhenaten was not himself an artist, he
must have relied on people like these to make a reality of his ideas, and thiy in turn probably had a
decisive impact on the particular direction of artistic
development. The graffito of Men and Bak states that
the king had instruited them personally,and this has
sometiires been taken literally, but Rolf Krauss has
demonstrated (1986, 40-2) that such statements are
conventional in inscriptions of builders and archithe earliest related text dates to the Old King;
tects
dom -(Roccati 1982, 187-6),and an instance is kirown
and so need not show anyfrom el-Amarna itself
thing distinctive about Akhenaten. What is said is
likely to contain some truth by coincidence, since
Akhlnaten must have indicated that he wanted radically new artistic forms and may have influenced
'their direction.
Where Amenhotep III and Akhenaten agreed,

.'{
'

or more probably took things for granted, was in

using artistic production to formulate and propagate

their-differing iaeas. The scale of Amenhotep II-f1
works hardly diminished under Akhenaten; nor did
standards, ai least in statuary. But, just as the smallscale works of Dynasty 0 do not seem to have addressed a wider audience, even the colossal and
strucat least highly visible
public
relatively-A'menhotep
- only
- orIII were ultimately aimed
tures of
at those who could visit the temples, or in their greatest dissemination at those who would partake in the

Iife and ceremonies of the capital. They may not have

had much message for the people of the country as a

whole. There is no strong sense in which they were

propagandistic to the widest public - altlo"Fl:"tl
propalanda would be hard to identify and might not
t e dtpiessed in art.13 What they do show is that radical change necessarily involved the artistic forms
which wire part of the civilization's definition'
Art remained significant for religious and other
change when Akhenalen's reforms were reiected after hii death, but not in a straightforward way' There
was an almost imnnediate return to traditional forms'
and this has an obvious symbolism, but for at least a

generation styles continued to be influenced by

i.khenaten. fume develoPments in style and in therendering of nahrre before and during the time of
Akhenatln (e.g. Russmann 1980) were not lightly
like ourselves ; may not
abandoned and artists
have seen them as specific to the ideas which were

being repudiated. But under Sety I (c'-1292-7279 scJ'

whenr the rejection of Akhenaten and the return to
enriched traditional forms culminated (Fig. 1D, there

Plaster head, possibly of-the later King Ayl'

the house compound.' of theiculptor Thutmose at eI-

Figure 16.

frim

'A*or*.

Berlin, A,gyptisches Museum 21'350' Reign ot'

Akhenaten. Gourtisy Agyptisches Mus eum Berlin)
was a generally stronger contrast with-the styles of
(e'g'
Akheniten than at thJend of the 18th Dynasty
his
In
199-1)'
Hornung
Calverley & Broome 1933-59;

Jatively short reign, Sety constnrcted andd.ecorated

*"r,v *uio, *orks] principally temples and his tomb'
continuing the artisiic focus of Amenhotep III in particular. Ti'e principal difference, and one that is in
keepinq with the aims of Sety I, is that his art was not
rtro'"g[, innovative. His militiry reliefs constit"!" 1l

i^poi l",

exception here (Epigraphic Survey 1986)'

Sety's artistic aihievements are noteworthy also since

85

John Baines

Figure 17,

Relief

of

Sety

I offeing to

Sokar,

north wall of

the HaIl of Sokar

86

and Nefertan in his tanple at Abydos'

On the Status u'''d

Pt'po'"t

of Antiutt Egyp

F'ieure 78. CrouP of ot't'eing

iirrrt o, the lintet relief of
HelioPolis' Cairo
Dieho
-Ui from nal d' Ent r 6 e 29271'
J o ur
Fourth century nc'

ti^

Rrpho t o gt aPh ed f t om M
1907 , Pl' 34.)

asP er o

he mounted numerous military

1990)'
c-ampaigns (e.g' Murnane

una'so"t"lgtti have had fewer

i"io,tt."t 6 devote to art than

*futt l" Periods of Peace' This

the
expenditnre is a measure of

.o^ntittnittg centralitY of art'

which wai not an adiunct ot
other activities and PurPoses'
but was a PartlY autonomous

ffi:::: ffiffi
U",*"en 700 sc and

300

'ua
"".i*
*"r" fewer than in earlier eP-

o.frt. O"fY small numbers of

maior monuments surviv" 11:i
*"'" conccntrated in
ilH:H;:'il.iu;i #:;;'ir'"v
is poor' The reltte Nile Delta where pi"t"*'utio"

eria;;;a,his

il;il";;;!i;o*"sttows suci' material interchanging

Period PaPyrus

cially in its uses "f ;;ii;"'

,tvrJ u.su,, :: lPnT
fore there was any
riugn""t"d territories
reunification or tn" .orrnlry,i
The extent of
(M.A. Leahv 1992; R;;;;"t' rgz+l'
at'a 26th Dynasties was'how;;i;il;,t'" ute' zstt'
it"tt"otttpassed
ever, much greater ttt"" "utfiut' ""dincluding the re1st70)'
il;;;;#s G'g' Brunnet
royal titularies,lld more
use of ancient t"*t' u"a

[:nf Xl,tll.r'!H]T1

."*rv " :",lll,:"il:l*'f;T,";ii::i :?[:il

acteristic of much ea

it""i''il;;;;

i''

rhird-I ntermedir zbo-i tizo nc) or

uL)
ate Period tc. rozolT:o

(t"" in

general: der

Manuelian 1993)'

this revival is the

In art, the striking feature of

",", p;;Tt

"**f: # JJ"tr; ::"HtI j'?il

ffixr*:r*l;:xn::'r:
tir[#!i1df
pieces (e'g'
of differeni stVfes
co;bination

i".,single
iommissioning

tradition (Baines
with the great stream of tit"tury
of [hese features have
1gg2,254 with n' 41)' Some
periods"as with
more limited parallels i'o* "utti"t
of Hapu cited earlier'
the statue of Amenhot;;;""
public

it

*th:l

i-"^1t
but their extent is new''-is 'tt"it
These are exemplified
and self-conscious ttlu'*t"t'
of Ibi at Thebes which
in an inxription in tf*i"*U
to read it-9"J'b:t also to
invites the reader noi-lust

- di;;i;'" ciLi""Lr
il"
is also striking

71-3)'rhis tomb
sections-of which

1e83'

(more
'o' "Jl"t*atiorr'
6th DynaslY tor.nb
were closely based on-the
ell ttu*utate Deir
than '1500 y"u" oto"'i'o]f
(Kuhljo tl: no-rth
Gabrawi, about 300 iiio^"it"t
haSjeen verv
would
1,,,,,,,,,

;"il;il;kel

1e83)'

It

ryt

re-

transcriptions of the old

taxing to make suitJle
is that the later lbi knew
liefs, but what is '"t"]ituUfu
of
tomi' U"tu" this was a'matter

about the olaer

th";;;;;;

i1::*d

knowl-

Pg
chance, it implies
uncient provincial monuedee of not very p'oJ""ttt
the fact would remain
mJnts. Even if tt

*"t'ti""t"'

that such to^us *ere

there
museurns
eihiuitions or
elsewhere in the

U-ei"-g;4"d^ltllugh

for art
iro-iil' and,the
;;;;;;tce
of
*"fot*t
'
ii"*tutu"t-in a varietynos'
pt'""o*#u
of
analogous
bv the rich.#r",'i
e60'
Bothmcr
pi''J-er'
"ut""''if
igit'
:ilt::i;;-

der Manuelian 1985,

d'

Kingdom tomb inscrtp13-14). A copy of a Middle

in moaem times on a'Roman

here,is espeperioa io the argument

"A 'revivalist' artistic

g"

.'

tt-

6/

|ohn Baines

Ancient Near East (Roaf n.d.; Cooper 1990; Beaulieu

1989, 13U41)
these practices come close in their
- out of ancient works.
deliberate seeking
This example is one of many. The Late Period
use of the artistic past involved a more explicit and
varied recourse tha4 in earlier times, but there was
not necessarily a difference in kind. It implies the
presence of attitudes and treatments that can be paralleled in artists'methods in many cultures, and is a
visible analogy for the verbal practices of criticism
whose absence from the record scholars have taken
to suggest that a sense of 'art' was lacking
while
- as will
contfnuing tacitly to analyze the works as arU
be clear, I believe that this strategy is correct and that
they are wrong to have such scmples. It also allows a
considerable measure of innovation, as is visible notably in the tomb reliefs of the fourth century oc (Fig.
18; see L.M. Leahy 1988). A crucial point here is that,
whether or not such developments were prompted
by, or intended to incorporate, other ideological matters, their formulation was artistic. The culture and
tradition of art created a world that referred in the
first instance to itself for its meaning, and was able to
articulate its discourse in terms of differential recourse to past or contemporaneous models.
Thus, while recourse to the past was a broad
phenomenon, in art it is likely to have contributed to
the insulation of the institution from othcr cultural
activities. This separation has clear social implications. Those who can comprehend the use of old
styles are a small, learned minority, in this case probably a smaller group than in the New Kingdom. Only
they count as truly competent to iudge; in their own
eyes, only they count at all. Despite the usc of divergent modelg the social divisiveness of art becomes
more evident than the cohesiveness it offers by presenting a single culhrral definition. These tendencies
probably reached their high point in temples of the
Graeco-Roman Period (Fig. 19), some of whose inscriptions are almost literally indecipherable. These
esoteric creations received. massive patronage and
were deeply serious in intent. They were also very
complex works of art, and in considerable measure
their raison d'tre was in their artistic character. In
the long term, a situation emerged in which traditional artists were answerable only to a small native
priestly 6lite and through them to the rulers. In one
way, this is everything artists can ask for. In the end,
however, it may be the death of art because too many
people may come to see a specific form of art as
dispensable or abhorrent. In Egypt this happened
during the Roman Period. When Christianity came,
it too worked through art, necessarily rejecting tradi-

tional Egyptian style and subject matter along with

the religion and civilization to which they had been
integral.
Conclusion: the institution of art
The significance of art can be seen in many facets of
Egyptian civilization, and is commensurate with the

preponderance of aesthetically formed material in

the record. Art served the ordered cosmos, which
was celebrate{ on behalf of the gods and which hu-

manity (as represented by the king) and they defended against the forces of chaos. It defined,
encapsulated and perpetuated that cosmos. At the
same time it served the perpetual destinies of ruler
and inner 6lite and circumscribed their lifesryles in
relation to the rest of society. The focus of artistic
production on these central activities, many of them
secret and'exclusive, reinforced and legitimized the
position of art, which in turn legitimized religious
dedications and much of the underlying social di.vi
sion, in a mutually sustaining rycle. In this context,
the role of hieroglyphic writing in art is important
(Fischer 1986; Baines 1989b). Writing brought representational forms together with high verbal culture,
while also limiting access to that culture by incorporating it in a style of writing available only to a minorily even of the literate, most of whom used the
cursive form of hieratic. The reinforcing cycle of official religion and art also favoured the-iniernal, selfregarding focus of both. What mattered in maintaining
thc order of thingslwas thc activity of thc small group
who commissioqCd, dcsignccl, and perlraps cxccutcd
the works of arlwithin the context of 6lite high culture. Only those involved comprehended thelctivities and their significance fully. A wider legitimation
for their position is one that is general to 6lites: on
behalf of society they assume responsibility for portentous matters and appropriate the necessary resources.l{
Within continuing artistic culture, the uses of tradition reinforce this focus on the 6lite and their artistic
interests. There is ample evidence from Egypt for artistic change, variation and innovation, so that interpretations of the fundamental aim of artistic conventions as

being to maintain 'invariance' (Davis

1.989, passim;

Assmann 1992,769-74) do not take an actor's PersPective The perpetual dialogue with'the past and the use
of different past models with diverse implications characterize an artistic discourse that is internally self-sus-

taining and uses this characteristic to assert its

significance to the wider society. This intemal discourse,
which provides an analogy within the culture for the
88

On the Status and Purposes of Ancient Egyptian Art

Figure 19.View of the

temple complex of Hathor
and Isis at Dendara, from
southwut. First century
sc-seconil century l.o.
(Rephotographed from

Chassinat 1"934, pl. 11..)

relative insulation of
Egyptian civilization
from its surroundings,
is both a legitimation of
art and a way in which

artists create a context

in which only theirown
concerns matter. As
such, it is a typically Professional phenomenon.

Professions, both
ancient and modern,
are exclusive and assume that only their
members can iudge the

/ -i'

validity of what

theY
do, avoiding recourse to

a wider constituencY.
This applies strongly to
the Egyptian 6lite, ind hence to the status of the art
whoi-production they organized and which they or
their m;sters, the king and the gods, consumed' The
6lite was a professional class, a grouP of administrators rather than a nobility. Artists might be designers

and supervisors, or possibly executants, who were

part ofihat central giorrp, or they could be subordinate artisans who worked for them. Either way, they
depended principally on the king and the 6lite, and
fai less ot ihe reit of society. Their livelihood came
from state or 6lite incomes that wcre appropriated
from producers to the centre by way of .taxes, rents,

or levies of labour (see e.g- ]anssen 1975)' The artists

had little constituency in the wider society' As people who did not wield supreme Power in thc state,
ihey have left little individual trace in the record, anymoie than evidence bearing upon the grandees of
many other periods and cultures would include much
about artists
The split between the groups involved in artis-

tic produciion and consumption and the rest of

,o.l"ty is complemented by the scarcity of artisti
cally-iormed

c" from outside thc 6lite' The scale

"uid"t
undertakings was so grcat that a
of iome artistic
large proportion of the population must-have been
affictia by them. Such people oftcn havc little say in

what is imposed on them, but they must have participated more or less willingly in these activities, and to
a considerable degree they must have acceptEd the
importance of wf,at was done, that is' its. official
legitimations. To that extent, the *otkt and the instituiion of art will have exerted persuasive Power over
ev'eryone. The archaeological I9.ot9 of the.First Int"r.n"diut. Period (c. 2150-2000 sc), in which there
was a proliferation of crude but characteristically artistic firms among a larger grouP than in centralized
periods (e.g. Seidlmayei tWO; Dunham 193D' supoorts the issumption that artistic forms had such

io*"r.

The tomb stelae and statuary of this period

lerued a traditional 6lite function and inherited forms

werc adopted with the function' Similarly, votive
bronzes, which proliferated in the Late Period and
were probably dedicated by a relatively large social
grorrp, remained within established artistic conveniions, altnottgh with widely varying levels of artistic
execution (e.g. Roeder 1956).
The for-ms created in the first few dynasties
continued to constitute much of thc definition of the
Egvotian cosmos and socicty; no altcrnative was availfnit indissociablc identification of art and civi"6i"'.
lization, which is a measure of the significance of art
in Egypt, says something important about the role of

:i()

fohn Baines

+
'
--t!:r"-'+i^naland 4'
artratherthanshowingj*:r^ili'J:'is':11,11'

Someaspects:Baines(1990)'ClvRobins(e'g'1993'

l:*#k*mt$[1xH'"$:ilT"[
privileged men.
,f"ry
Acknowledsements - *i6.f s *f;:1;,jt'i'il.,**qi[lff*lj#.

multifarious

phenorr

oilo-r,uur,1ions tf,at

.'"'":":1"{*#fffi"1.j*'*;llli1
East

rhis a*ic'Ie
on Ancient Near

'

t--o:i":';:^i";;;.'to-ryiutiu""e TtitlY;,^^.,^of representations

^*he orestiseshowrr-a number or i
ol:t\i;;;-i'
6'
Heren
i
and
u'"
^
th"v
Robins
tt'ut
Gav
ffi"Ti[:*i:*'iltffi;,
it'u
*1".'i'"13,111i:y":tlll,ffi*i
?iirl?#;;;;r',
Ju*:, lo
I
whitehouse ro, "o*,i",'',!'J,.
his
me
Roaf for showing
l".l'"iL, workshop is in I
"lryot:':"1iH:]"#; iiiu tpu'"" tn:l ^T ul{:l'

t{,1H,*.1ffi*:::*:;H

Matthews at wolfson

,Ytin:l

':n

Xt'$Ti'SHiff,l'#il"5o ""i.,' i::"ffi'l:

:i::",Jil;;;'J ";l

translate

'-,'
,ii:til=#*tt+sfui:i,!#
il:::ffli$'ii:'j1,1?l*;*;**15:ti"'5

i;H*il;ill"e'1*r:l"iig,?lll',:;:ff'u;;
and cite theu
der Manueriu,'

ti"orvXili"il';';"nnv,pf;ji;

'

$nlfg'":,,9t;;g'
;n'H**tr*ttft
;;";'.ievidente".";[K#*i:""1Hr:fff,f- tril:i"r-i*$".:t".{#}irF.t.T'i#

8 fiil[#.Tl#:ln*;nli:f#::",:m:
y"*l:::1Tl"il3?,$"1"tX;ffi";
;:.1'";;;"J
:ill-., .hanee in *re rro-,i;i=#;'Gi*1".

w
to a studY, written

ill'.x,fliTi'.tli:ii,?T:iu".i1kJ,i:ilr i:;$,.;i;i;;?:;xj:i1t1#"?J$-"'ta,?*t

iryi:,1;i:Hi:lii;;il;;;;;

i$*"#i#;,1$:'':L1*il$#:]":

u,au,ifrh}';#;9.n#::#9ffffi:.'.''ffi.q[',.i_ij.*gr"."
*t"'i"l"Y 1::: r.1,fi"t"3'.or,."ur"'a
*"
o,ientot'ri,titut, 10
"_:i;;ii"
^ rhere are,$,HiiLll[:{l*",illlllilJn:';
p;:;

i;;

to
"?;'xi liH*H'""'ffire
" ,,,itfil.Tii,:ii,,il,F"g,ji:.::1fi{,fi:;

N.,es

re.riers date

1
ffr"? r:tlTL"ffi}1ilTl:::,:ffi: "
2.
L ;il;J;"othercriteria'oj'1'"?JiY-Tropriateio i1::ii*';T,',ti,,]t?ffi
:lur

ffi:il,lt

the

T;,n

i,

riiio,rg-zs,,,Tltff.ff;,i:ilY.lll;:ru;;;
,, *ll**q,i{::f!,*fr=:HJ:{:#:lit{
EgYPtian art' bu
,ii'n or

tt'-tl,3iiHi,?iiil$#*:l

tive, and theY d

character betw

traditions.Thcfltflon-ut

l-'],,j-;

"f

is

ro*he ul "^:1T",^,aining,raditions
the pe.
Ewpdan 14.'Ihrslot:':'^,::':,"-r"a
literary texts of
'" ff*t=*
'r '[he Pe-

*:fi;i#[i:':";;tl';T"

::,',:'::il:ittrJl"${1i,ifr,"j,.':f+,H
Mesoame
examPle' with

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share, for

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the principar

:'1"^::

1*:*:'.1]:"[X

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