Art Museum Journal

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: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2005.
Review by STAN PARCHIN
October 12, 2009

Single-volume studies of ancient Egyptian art and its scientific analysis rarely strike a balance in their treatment of the two subjects. Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London excels in its remarkably even coverage of both topics. This attractive and highly readable catalogue of a recent American exhibition by the same name describes in 205 pages more than 160 antiquities from a renowned British collection.

The show's United States tour began in April 2005 at Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum and concluded at the University of Kentucky Art Museum in June 2009. The catalogue explains the artifacts intelligently in a dozen 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. The institution 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 detailed in her popular A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1877). Her book introduced a generation of British readers to Egypt, its people and ancient monuments. Shocked by the overwhelming neglect of many archaeological sites there, Edwards helped to create the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882, its purpose having been the study of Egyptian art and architecture. She donated her antiquities to the university museum. And its collection grew immensely as a result of Edwards' patronage and Petrie's systematic excavations.

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 18th Dynasty and presumed 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 promote his new solar religion in two- and three-dimensional sculpture.

Among the most significant finds 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. The figures are arranged in hieratic scale, the most important person depicted as tallest in stature. The royal parents and princess proceed ritualistically on a ground line inclined slightly upward. The couple offers four libation vessels to the Aten, Akhenaten's deity whose disk emits rays of sunlight that terminate in hands. The three figures' physiognomies appear deformed with their elongated arms and legs, bulbous hips and fleshy thighs, the characteristically exaggerated style of art from the early years of the pharaoh's reign.

Another revealing fragmentary sculpture from Amarna is the beautiful Torso of a Princess (ca. 1344-1336 B.C.). This  sculpture of a pre-adolescent child, her bodily proportions not yet those of a woman, is depicted naked. Most likely part of a larger 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. The pharaoh's sculptors necessarily paid unusual attention to his female progeny (and wife Nefertiti as well) while executing the king's sculptural programme at Amarna.

Petrie and his successors also excavated at Saqqara, site of the Old Kingdom's Step Pyramid. It was commissioned by the Third Dynasty's Pharaoh Djoser (r. 2686-2613) and designed by Imhotep, his chief vizier or administrator. The necropolis (cemetery) yielded a Late Period Anubis Shrine (ca. 664-525 B.C.) dedicated to the Egyptian god of mummification (embalming). Anubis is represented by a sacred long-eared jackal. This species of dog reportedly roamed Egyptians burial grounds. Hence, the canine deity came to be regarded as the protector of the dead. Priests entrusted with funerary rituals frequently wore Anubis masks while performing their duties. Here the slender limestone statue of the god, who assisted in one's transition to the afterlife, is seen reclining atop a shrine. A similar wooden example was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London makes for an important addition to the library of anybody interested in Egyptian art and archaeology. Although the book lacks a glossary, bibliography and index, it includes a map of Egypt, a chronology, footnotes and Internet citations. 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.  

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