EGYPTIAN ART

GEOGRAPHY• relates to two regions: North Africa and Southwest Asia.

•Egypt has coastlines on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

•The country borders Libya to the west, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east, and Sudan to the south.

PEOPLE•Egyptians are an ethnic group and the citizens of Egypt sharing a common culture and a variety of Arabic.

PEOPLE

Scribe

• hunters and fishermen• soldiers• slaves• priests • scribes • artists and craftsmen • farmers and herdsmen

The priests Craftsmen

Slaves Soldiers

PEOPLE

CleopatraThe last active pharaoh

• The leader was called a PHARAOH.

SOCIAL STATUS

DAILY LIFE• The ancient

Egyptians maintained a rich cultural heritage complete with feasts and festivals accompanied by music and dance.

• A painted depiction of Senet, one of the world's earliest known board games.

CLOTHINGWas made from simple linen sheets that were bleached white.

mode of clothing

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS• They believe in the

divine and in the afterlife.

• Believed that every human being was composed of physical and spiritual parts or aspects.

The Book of the Dead

BURIAL CUSTOMS

An Egyptian mummy kept in Vatican Museums

• They believed immortality after death.

• Mummification is one way of preserving the human body.

Canopic jars of Neskhons, wife of Pinedjem II. Made of calcite, with painted wooden heads. Circa 990–969 BC. On display at the Britis Museum.

WRITING

• Hieroglyphics are an early form of picture writing.

Hieroglyphics

PAPYRUSA thin paper-like material made from the pith of the papyrus plant.

Papyrus (P. BM EA 10591 recto column IX, beginning of lines 13-17)

ROSETTA STONE  a granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum.

EGYPTIAN ART• The Ancient

Egyptians produced art to serve functional purposes.

Narmer Pallete

FUNERARY ART

Any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead.

Ushabti of pharaoh Ramesses IV (20th Dynasty)

AMARNA ARTCharacterized by a sense of movement and activity in images, with figures having raised heads, many figures overlapping and many scenes busy and crowded. Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt.

Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

INSIGHTS• I have realized that despite their social status they

did not forget to praise and thank their Gods.

• Their lack of education is not a hindrance for them to produce a work of art.

• I wonder how they able to build the pyramids that in fact there were no machines at that time to help them build it.