Visual Culture: October 2013

The Greek historian Herodotus (500 BCE) stated:

Of all the nations of the world, the Egyptians are the happiest, healthiest and most religious.

Gods and Goddess's

The scenes depicted on the walls of tombs show every day activities such as farming, building ships and also going to war, within all of these scenes the humans are accompanied by "neteru" (gods) this shows the connection between the humans and gods and the strong belief that the gods are watching over them.

There are estimated to be around 2000 different gods and goddesses that the Ancient Egyptians believed in and would pray towards asking for help. Many different roles of the gods and goddesses would overlap between two or more, this is thought to show that they believed each helped each other rather than having a singular role.

Selection of some of the Deity's

Anubis
(embalmer of the dead)

The Creation

Present day scientists are in agreement with the Ancient Egyptians about the state of the Earth before the Big Bang, however the Egyptians believe that the creation was planned by Divine Law and that "The One" commanded the Universe with his voice :

I am the Eternal ... I am that which created the Word ... I am the Word ...

They believe that everything was created when the corresponding sound had been spoken by Ra (god of the sun and the creator) and that the objects magically appeared and this was how they got their names.

Ra was believed to be swallowed every night by the sun goddess Nut and was reborn every morning, he was depicted as a man with a hawks head and sun disk headdress. Many believed that he travelled through the underworld at night and while he was there he was a man with a rams head

Nut
(sky goddess)

Man on Earth

They believed we have a purpose on earth and that everything was for a reason, we are just pieces in the grand design of the universe. They also believe that we have been placed on Earth until we can show we are harmonious and deserving of the Afterlife. If in our time on Earth we fail then we are reincarnated until we can prove we are worthy.

After death there is the Judgement of whether in our earthly life we have done our "duty to man" this is called the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony.

Standing before a committee of 43 deities plus the god of the dead and afterlife Osiris, the judged must swear on the name of each and confess to having committed no sins against each. If found innocent then the judged was permitted to move forward. If they had sinned in their lifetime then they would be returned to Earth in a reincarnation until they do not sin.

Osiris

A ritual alongside this was weighing the deceased's heart against a feather, if the heart was lighter then the dead were allowed into the "Fields of Hetep and Iaru" which is their Heaven. However if the heart was heavier than the feather then the beast Ammut (or Ammit) would be permitted to "gobble" the heart, this is a punishment worse than Hell because without the heart then the deceased would cease to exist completely.

The thought of ceasing to exist frightened the Ancient Egyptians and in the present day I feel many people are still frightened of dying and leaving nothing behind for people to remember them by.

Tombs

The scenes that were drawn onto the walls of tombs were there because the deceased was hoping to have that same life in the after-life. It was believed that drawing these scenes onto the tomb walls ensured the deceased was going to find that in heaven everything was harmonious, same as had been in the scenes on the wall.

Saqqara Tomb of Ti

The tombs were often packed full of material objects that the deceased was thought to need, they had models of the tools of their trade, clothes and other essentials.
Model versions were often used instead of the full size real versions as these were cheaper to make and meant there was more spacing inside the tomb. In my opinion it also meant the individuals tools could be passed down onto their next of kin so that they could take up the business.
In the after-life the model sized tool would be transformed into a full sized real tool for the person to use so it would not matter that the person would be buried with only models.

They were also buried with a food supply and scenes of food on the wall, this was as the Egyptians believed in offering food up to the gods. They would have been buried with a supply of their favourite foods as this is what they would be hoping to eat in the afterlife, the paintings of food were thought to continue the supply of food after the material supply had been eaten as the food would be transformed into real in the after-life.

In the tomb painting the size of the people was important as the most important person/people were the tallest and more prominent within the scene. This was often a representation of the most wealthiest and important powerful people. It also represented the person who had commissioned the painting to be done for example in the Tomb of Ti he is the largest person because the tomb was representing his life.

Mastaba of Ti
(hippopotamus hunting)

Writing

Hieroglyphs

Also referred to as pictographs or phonographs

The Rosetta stone is a text that is written in three different languages; hieroglyphs, demotic and ancient Greek. Scholars were able to translate the text by using the Greek section of the stone as it is the same piece of writing for all languages.

Rosetta Stone

Demotic

Comes from the word "Democracy" which has the definition of:

"a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. "

Because Hieroglyphs were mostly used by the priests and others who were wealthy enough to afford books and to be educated, another style of writing was created "for the people" this writing influenced the modern day alphabet that is in use.

Sources

Egypt from Alexander to the Copts, An Archaeological and Historical Guide, Edited by Roger S. Bagnall and Dominic W. Rathbone

Visual Culture

Tuesday 22 October 2013

The Ancient World