Memory of Empires: Ancient Egypt - Ancient Greece - Persian Empire - Roman Empire - Byzantine Empire

THE MONUMENTS

Let us try to form a general idea of the monuments which have come down to us. What has been said above on the subject of history in general cannot but be repeated in the case of the history of art. All our knowledge is above all things fortuitous; for certain periods materials abound whilst for others, on the contrary, there are none at all, although one cannot legitimately infer from this lack of evidence that the Egyptians had completely ceased, for long ages, to produce works of art.

Certain classes of objects have entirely vanished. It is sufficient to cite but one example: the decorative goldsmith’s work, which is known to us through the representations of it on bas-reliefs and on paintings in the tombs and temples of the New Empire, where we see the kings presenting it as an offering to the gods, or the envoys of tributary states coming forward to lay it before the throne of the Pharaoh. Of another kind of monument, which is mentioned at times in the texts, it chances that a single specimen has survived. This is the great statue in metal of King Pepi I of the 6th dynasty.

The division of the country into Upper and Lower Egypt is an important one from the point of view of the preservation of works of art. One might say, almost without exaggeration, that in the Delta everything has disappeared, whilst in Upper Egypt, on the contrary, a great number of antiquities is preserved. This difference can be accounted for in various ways, of which we may cite a few instances.

In the Delta, on account of the great distance of the quarries, most of the buildings were necessarily constructed of wood or brick, stone being but sparingly used only in the principal parts, such as in facades or in doorways. The great growth of settlements and townships in Lower Egypt has led to a more and more systematic pillage of the ruins in order to carry off all the stones which can be re-used for building. The damp soil of the Delta has destroyed most of the objects confided to its care, whilst the desert of Upper Egypt has preserved them almost intact. But alike in Upper and Lower Egypt, other causes of destruction and disappearance are not lacking.

Even in quite recent times antique sites have been exploited as quarries: the temple of Amenophis III at Elephantine, for instance, which was an object of great admiration to the savants of Napoleon’s expedition, was completely demolished a few years later. Travelers in the first half of the nineteenth century have described and published in their narratives of travel many once important ruins which have vanished completely today.

When one considers the countless wars and revolutions which have devastated the country (to say nothing of the fact that under the last dynasties Egypt submitted to at least two Ethiopian invasions, two Assyrian, and two Persian), and when one recalls the systematic destruction by the Christians who smashed the idols and the temples of false gods, and by the Arabs who mutilated all human figures, to say nothing of the ravages caused by excavators of long ago, one is astounded to find that so many Egyptian monuments still remain. And as though destruction by man were not sufficient, animals have done their share; one may instance the veritable invasions of white ants which have ravaged the ancient cemeteries.

It will now perhaps be convenient to draw up a kind of synopsis of typical groups of monuments, which must occupy our attention, picking out characteristic examples from each kind and for different periods. A monument of the 1st dynasty in the name of King Narmer (which some would identify with Menes, the first king to unite the two Egypts under one scepter) is known as the Palette of Narmer. It displays, among other things, a figure of the king clubbing a vanquished foe with his mace. From this monument onwards, the general association of ideas is fixed, and the same theme reappears again and again across the whole page of Egyptian history. The same palette, by its portrayal of a ritual festival, makes it possible for us to trace, from the very beginning, the complex of motives which originate in the art of this remote epoch. The stele of the Serpent King, now in the Louvre, is a masterpiece of execution. The falcon which surmounts the royal name is rendered with incomparable precision. One wonders for how long and with what thoroughness it must have been studied from nature before it became possible to seize with such perfection the characteristic form of the bird and to render the lines so simply and with so sure a hand that all the succeeding ages should find no need to alter in the smallest degree the outlines which thus became fixed and unchanging.

If we now glance at the reliefs on the wooden panels of Hesi, in the Cairo Museum, which date from the first part of the third dynasty, we shall find there, perfectly employed, the fundamental conventions in Egyptian drawing of the human figure. Thus, we see that the monuments of the first dynasties, rare as they are, display a fully developed art the execution of which is striking in its perfection.

The great necropolis areas, which extend all over the plateau of the Libyan desert from Gizeh to Meidum, have preserved an important series of architectural monuments; royal tombs, generally in the form of pyramids; funerary temples of the kings, adjoining the pyramids themselves; and the tombs of high officials of the type called by archaeologists, “mastabas.”

To cite some instances: the reconstruction of the temple and pyramid of Khephren gives us a general view of the necropolis of Kheops and of Khephren. In the background the great masses of the pyramids tower above the burial chambers of the kings; on their eastern faces the funerary temples stand, connected by a long passage to a kind of vestibule in the valley, at the foot of the plateau. Numerous mastabas are grouped around the pyramids, or in the neighborhood of the vestibules in the valley below. The same general arrangement is met with around the pyramid temples of Abusir, where we shall find all the fundamental principles of Egyptian architecture in all ages employed by the architects of the 5th dynasty, especially the floral columns, which are the most typical elements of this architecture.

The mastabas, which are massive rectangular piles, appear too as architectural complexes containing in embryo all the fundamental parts of the sacred edifice of Egypt. The walls of the chambers within are covered with bas-reliefs and paintings; in niches or in recesses hidden in the masonry are found numerous statues which furnish material for the study of sculpture in the round. To name three examples: The first is a diorite mask in the Leipzig Museum, reproducing the features of Khephren. Detached from the statue, this fragment perhaps gains somewhat in beauty and lifelike intensity, separated as it is from the purely Egyptian peculiarities of form which sometimes offend our eye. Next comes the striking copper statue of Pepi I; it bears witness to a very advanced knowledge in the rendering of anatomical details. It is, in fact, a real masterpiece in metal work. The material of which it is made has permitted the sculptor to separate the arms and legs entirely from the trunk without having to make use of slots for fitting, which we find in stone statues. The two statues of Rahotep and Nofrit, found at Meidum, complete our examples of the perfection of Egyptian art under the Ancient Empire.

Later ages may perhaps have produced more elegant works, but they have never succeeded in surpassing the Ancient Empire in truth and in fidelity to nature.

All of a sudden everything seems to dwindle and disappear, and the few monuments of the intervening period between the Ancient and the New Empires are of such a kind as to provoke the belief that some irremediable catastrophe has occurred. The most casual glance at the Dendereh stele of the end of the Ancient Empire shows to what depths of ugliness and coarseness Egyptian art must have lapsed, at least in Upper Egypt. Had we not precise information as to date, one might easily imagine that the Dendereh reliefs are centuries older than the admirable statues of the Ancient Empire. One can scarcely attribute this to the clumsiness of some inexperienced craftsman, of whom a poor man had requisitioned a funerary stele in some provincial town. The royal monuments of the 11th dynasty give a scarcely better impression, for we find the fragments of a certain King Mentuhotep at Gebelein, reproducing the theme of the Narmer palette, which is treated in a stiff and angular fashion without any life.

But a very short time had to pass before the kings of the 12th dynasty had completely revived the traditions of the Ancient Empire. The bas-reliefs of Sesostris I at Koptos, as well as at Karnak, show us once more in their conception and execution the perfection of the work of the Ancient Empire.

We know of few great architectural monuments of the Middle Empire. Plenty of temples had fallen into ruin in the course of ages, had been restored, rebuilt or enlarged by the sovereigns of the New Empire. A study, however, of the great funerary temple of the 11th dynasty at Deir-el-Bahari, whose ruins give us the data necessary for such a reconstruction, will serve to give a good idea of the abilities of their architects. A careful study should be made of a number of interesting documents of the Middle Empire: the tombs of the nomarchs or provincial governors in Upper Egypt, the most remarkable of which are at Beni Hasan. The façade of the...