Over 7,000 years ago the vibrant culture that we know today as ancient Egypt arose along the banks of the Nile River. Bounded by desert to the east and west, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Nile cataracts to the south, ancient Egypt’s geographical reach for much of antiquity corresponds roughly to the area that now makes up the Arab Republic of Egypt (جمهورية مصر العربية) (see map). The ancient Egyptians’ own word for their land was kemet—the “black land”—a reference to the rich, fertile soil that made agriculture possible in the Nile Valley, and which was in direct contrast to the desert “red land” (deshret) that surrounded it. This environment of stark contrasts supplied the bounty of materials that Egyptian makers transformed into the arts of ancient Egypt: gold, copper, and other metals for casting; clays for molding; stones of varied hues and densities for carving and building; flax for weaving; papyrus for scroll-making; sycamore for constructing; and a rich palette of pigments.1

The Nile River was central to the ancient Egyptians’ culture and worldview, including their conception of geography, which was oriented to the south, further into the African continent where the Nile originated.^[1] They divided their land into two geographically distinct areas, aptly called “the Two Lands.” Upper Egypt is the southern region where the Nile cuts a valley through the bedrock, while Lower Egypt, where the Nile branches out into a delta that feeds into the Mediterranean Sea, is to the north. Each summer around July, monsoon rains in Ethiopia caused the river to flood the Nile Valley, bringing both water and minerally rich alluvial soil that enabled Egypt’s agriculture—and by extension its civilization—to thrive.2

Although it sometimes appears static from our distant perspective, art and culture were constantly evolving throughout ancient Egypt’s long history, from the development of craft specialization during the Predynastic Period (about 4000 BCE, see cat. 45) through the eventual closure of the native temples and rise of Christianity (third–fifth centuries CE). Much of ancient Egypt’s political history is divided into thirty dynasties, a tradition that dates back at least to Manetho, an Egyptian priest writing in the third century BCE (see chronology). Modern scholars further organize Egyptian history into periods of strong state centralization (the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms) and eras when power was more dispersed. Over these millennia, Egypt’s empire expanded and contracted, at times exerting influence over Nubia to the south and the Levant to the northeast. Conversely, rulers from the Levant, Libya, Kush, Persia, Greece/Macedonia, and, ultimately, Rome sat on Egypt’s throne, interspersed between longer periods of native Egyptian rule. All contributed to the economic, cultural, and technological practices that are reflected in Egyptian art.3

Identifying Ancient Egyptian Art

It is difficult to concisely define ancient Egyptian art. As Thomas George Allen remarked in the introduction to his 1923 handbook of this collection, the ancient Egyptian’s “enjoyment of art was never primarily for art’s sake; he endeavored rather to make his utilitarian objects beautiful as well.”^[2] Indeed, while ancient Egyptians acknowledged works that were beautiful (nefer), their language lacked a word that directly correlates to our modern concept of “art” in the abstract.^[3] Rather, Egyptian vocabulary focused on particular object types that modern viewers classify as art, such as statues, stelae, coffins, and tomb chapels. But utility and art need not be diametrically opposed; all these classes of object—and more—are recognized today as examples of artistic achievement.4

In seeking to identify and define ancient Egyptian art, we are presented with an incomplete picture. Artworks often exist today in a state of fragmentation: a portion of a carved tomb wall; a single ushabti that was once part of a set; or the head from a statue, now made anonymous with the loss of the inscription that once named its subject. Furthermore, all of the artworks in this catalogue have been removed not only from their physical environments, but also from the cultural context that originally gave them meaning. Each was produced with a particular function in mind, whether it be a delicate glass container designed to hold cosmetics (see cat. 46), a funerary papyrus devised to provide guidance to the deceased in the afterlife (see cat. 44), or a statue representing a priest that—once magically awakened—served as the recipient of the prayers and food offerings that would sustain him for eternity (see cat. 19).5

Belief in the power of representation was a central element of ancient Egyptian culture, and it is particularly important to religious and funerary art. According to the Egyptian worldview, access to an object, a representation of said item, or its written designation all had the capacity to provide the same functional benefit. For example, when placed within a tomb environment, a travertine (also called Egyptian alabaster or calcite) cosmetic vessel could be used by its deceased owner in the afterlife; a jar depicted on a funerary stela or the word “alabaster” written in a list of desired offerings would be equally effective at supplying the deceased with the cosmetics contained within such a vessel (see figs. 1a–c).6

Because function was an essential component of these artworks, understanding their original contexts—and by extension the audiences they were produced for—is crucial to fully appreciating them as works of art. Most ancient Egyptian artworks were produced for use in a dwelling of some sort: houses of the gods (i.e., temples), of the king (i.e., palaces), of the living, or of the dead (i.e., tombs).^[4] With these locations came different levels of access. For example, statues displayed in temples—sacred spaces that were not open to the public—would only be visible to priests and other temple personnel, while reliefs carved in publicly accessible tomb chapels could be seen by a range of visitors who wished to honor the deceased by presenting offerings and reciting the requisite prayers on their behalf. Other areas of the tomb, such as burial chambers, were intended to be sealed for eternity and their contents hidden from view. Thus, certain objects made for an expressly funerary function were not meant to be seen at all after the funeral, although patterns of object reuse make it clear that this was not always the case, even in ancient times.^[5] Objects used in daily life, including jewelry and cosmetic vessels, could transcend these boundaries; when buried with their owners, they continued to be of use in the realm of the blessed dead.7

Creating Ancient Egyptian Art

The closest Egyptian term to the modern Western concept of the “artist” is hemu, a word that designated those who had expert skill in a range of specialties—from sandal-makers and carpenters to metalworkers, sculptors, and painters.^[6] Patrons paid not only for technical expertise and an aesthetic eye, but often perhaps more so for the specialized knowledge required to produce an object or artwork that was fully functional in both a physical and spiritual sense. This is true, for example, of decorated coffins or funerary papyri, where properly wording the texts or incorporating representations of the correct gods was paramount to the efficacy of the object.8

As was the case for most professions, artists trained through apprenticeship, with titles, skills, and knowledge passing along family lines, most commonly from father to son. Complete works—whether small statues or large monuments—were produced by a team of artists with differing specializations and skill levels who worked within a hierarchy under the guidance of a supervisor, for example the Foreman of the Workers in the Place of Truth Neferhotep or Overseer of the Builders of Amun and Overseer of Works in the Temple of Mut Amenhotep (see cats. 11 and 101–4). Some even lived in specialized communities, such as the state-supported workmen’s village of Deir el-Medina in Western Thebes, where the artists responsible for carving and decorating the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the New Kingdom (about 1300 BCE) lived and were buried with their families. This collective approach to art making meant that individual artists rarely claimed their work. Their anonymity did not reflect a lack of social prestige, however. Workshop scenes depicting teams of jewelry makers, potters, sculptors, and other skilled artisans plying their trades populate tomb chapel walls of the elite (fig. 2). These detailed scenes capture makers’ work processes for eternity, and—through the Egyptian concept of substitution—ensure that artists and craftsmen would continue practicing their art in perpetuity to the benefit of their community.9

Ancient Egypt had a pyramidal social structure supported at its base by agricultural workers and laborers and with the king at its pinnacle. The works presented in this catalogue were largely produced for the elite—the families belonging to the upper portion of Egypt’s social hierarchy who served as government officials, temple priests, and military officials.^[7] While the method of transaction is still incompletely understood across time and object type, it is clear that many artworks were purchased readymade and, if needed, customized through the addition of a personal name. For example, some copper alloy statuettes offered to the gods in temples bear the incised name of their donor along the base (see cats. 26, 29–30). Other works were custom commissions, evidenced by the fact that the names and titles of the owner fit seamlessly into the composition rather than needing to be abbreviated or leaving unnecessary blank space.10

While skilled artists were able to fulfill private commissions in their spare time, they performed most of their labor for larger institutions, either a temple or royal estate. These institutions regulated workers’ output, controlled their access to the raw materials needed to complete their projects (such as metals and stones that might be mined some distance from the Nile Valley), and often even retained ownership of their tools.11

Understanding Ancient Egyptian Art

Ancient Egyptian art was highly representational. Rather than faithfully reproducing the people, animals, and environment that comprised the ancient Egyptians’ world, artists worked within a visual system aimed at concisely documenting information and conveying it to the initiated viewer. To achieve this, art practitioners exercised their creativity while adhering to compositional conventions that dictated stylistic factors such as scale and proportion, perspective, and orientation.12

Egyptian artists drew from a toolbox of features including color, iconography, and text to imbue works with culturally specific meaning. For example, color (now often lost) could convey information about identity. Egyptian artists used red-brown pigment to render the skin of Egyptian men, while women were shown with yellow-hued skin (see cat. 7).^[8] It is thought that this gendered differentiation reflects societal roles: while women primarily worked within the home, men toiled outside where their skin tanned. In funerary art, yellow or gold flesh evoked solar connotations of rebirth and the divinized state of the deceased rooted in the understanding that the gods had golden skin (see cat. 99).13

Attire and form were further utilized to communicate identity. Clothing might signal a particular role within society (see the sem priest on cat. 10), and a crown could identify a deity or the king (see the Blue Crown of the king on cat. 43). Even physical form could be encoded with information. Many gods and goddesses adopted the features of specific animals (see cats. 24, 26, 31, and 33), enabling them to be readily identified by members of a largely illiterate society.14

True personalization was achieved not through creating a portrait likeness, but rather by the addition of a name inscribed on the surface. For statues, such identifying information was usually added to a back pillar or base (see cat. 21), while two-dimensional representations were captioned by the surrounding text or within the context of the larger work, such as a tomb chapel (see cat. 1).15

Egyptian artists designed scenes to maximize the use of available space on a wall, stela, coffin, or other surface to be decorated. Variations in scale convey the relative importance of individuals within a scene—gods and kings are larger than mere mortals, and tomb owners are rendered on a bigger scale than the people bringing them offerings. Figures are often arranged in superimposed registers to be “read” from top to bottom, with subsidiary characters shown at a fraction of the size of the scene’s primary actors. Individuals of different sizes were depicted proportionally. This proportionality was aided by the use of a squared grid system, where key points on the human body—such as the hairline or the tops of the shoulders—corresponded to specific lines on a gridded surface.^[9]16

Within compositions, providing unobstructed views of individual elements was paramount. A tabletop covered with an abundance of food and beverages appears orderly in ancient Egyptian art, with each item shown individually from its most recognizable vantage point. While the items would be side-by-side or even stacked in the lived world, in art they might be separated out into orderly rows so that each is faithfully represented, not obscured by surrounding objects (see fig. 3). Alternatively, numerous goods might be stacked in a fashion that seems to defy gravity, with the stack’s height indicating depth such that objects that appear higher should be interpreted as being behind those beneath them. Likewise, to create a holistic view of baskets, chests, and other vessels, contents were depicted above their container, and should be understood as resting inside of it (see fig. 4).17

This preference for presenting the most complete possible view of individual elements often resulted in multiple perspectives being employed within a scene. For example, on cat. 6, the lily pad and clapnet floating on the surface of the water are represented from an aerial perspective, while the birds and lotus flowers are depicted in profile, a more easily interpretable view (fig. 5). Composite views were even employed for the representation of single figures.
18

In two-dimensional representations of the human form, composition was closely tied to the hieroglyphic writing system, with individual elements depicted in their most representative view as part of a composite form. Thus, whereas the head is shown in profile, allowing for a clear view of features such as the nose and chin, the eye is shown from a frontal perspective. Similarly, the shoulders are represented straight on, but the torso is depicted from the side. This distinctive approach to representing people is one of the most iconic features of ancient Egyptian art. In certain periods, the close ties to the hieroglyphic ideal resulted in representations that are not anatomically correct. For example, the dominance of the hand hieroglyph, 𓂧, which represents the fingernails, and the foot hieroglyph, 𓃀, which shows the inner arch, could result in a figure with two left (or two right) hands or feet (see fig. 6).
19

In three-dimensional sculpture, frontality was the guiding principle. When sculpted in the round, figures—be they human or divine—face stoically forward, prepared to participate in a ritual action, usually as the recipient of offerings. Through the Opening of the Mouth ceremony (for a depiction of this ritual, see cat. 10), statues were activated so that they could embody the ka (spirit) of the entity they depicted, enabling them to magically hear the prayers, smell the incense, and consume the food and drink presented.20

A Brief Guide to This Catalogue

Selected from the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection of more than 1,100 ancient Egyptian artifacts, the 111 artworks featured in this catalogue illuminate cultural practices and artistic achievements in the Nile Valley over the span of four millennia (about 3500 BCE–150 CE). Entries are arranged by type: relief sculpture, statuary, shabtis/ushabtis, writing and drawing, vessels, personal adornment, amulets, inlays, and funerary equipment. Within sections, artworks are further arranged chronologically, from the earliest objects to the most recent.21

All dates provided are approximate and reflect a range that may be as brief as a single king’s reign or as long as a dynasty, or even multiple historical periods spanning hundreds of years. In some instances, objects can be dated with some precision. Cat. 9, which was produced for the tomb of Iniuia, who is known from other sources to have served under King Tutankhamun (reigned about 1336–1327 BCE), is one example. In most cases, however, scholars have assigned dates to objects based on features such as object type (certain classes of object were not produced in all periods) and style, as indicated by the archaeological and historical record.22