Sesostris I

Relief from the White Chapel of Sesostris I, with cartouche. The chapel was built to celebrate the ''sed festival'', the festival connected with the royal jubilee during which rituals of renewal and regeneration took place. Country of Origin: Egypt. Culture: Ancient Egyptian. Date/Period: Middle Kingdom 12th Dynasty 1971 - 1926 BC. Place of Origin: Karnak. Credit Line: Werner Forman Archive/ N. J Saunders.

MAGIA Y SIMBOLISMO EN EL ARTE EGIPCIO

MAGIA Y SIMBOLISMO EN EL ARTE EGIPCIO

RICHARD H. WILKINSON , ALIANZA EDITORIAL, 2003
ISBN 9788420679723
La comprensión de los principios del arte egipcio y de su desarrollo histórico pueden introducirnos en la apreciación de las obras maestras que han sobrevivido, pero no podremos comprenderlas realmente sin tener algún conocimiento de la magia y del simbolismo subyacentes, intrínsecos a su composición. Todas las obras de los  egipcios eran verdaderos jeroglíficos que precisan de una decodificación. El presente estudio, desde una pura perspectiva egiptológica, trata de proporcionar esa clave para reconocer muchos de los símbolos que se encuentran en las pinturas, esculturas y otras obras egipcias, y la manera en la que los antiguos artistas los utilizaban. El simbolismo de la forma, del tamaño, de la localización, de los materiales, del color, de los números, de los gestos…, el lector descubrirá los fascinantes niveles que yacen bajo la superficie del arte egipcio.

Ostracon: UC 26937

Ostracon: UC 26937
Buff ware ostracon with figure of yoked horse painted on surface in red. Part of chariot, to which reins of horse lead, painted on right in black. Horse's legs missing. Mane and tail indicated. Bridle in red, reins in black.
date: late 18th Dynasty?

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/

Figured ostracon

Figured ostracon In the absence of an ancient Egyptian treatise on art, the unfinished works, preparatory sketches and informal sketches provide invaluable insight into ancient Egyptian artistic production. The largest group of such material comprises thousands of sketches, mainly in black, or in black and red, on medium to large limestone flakes from the workplace and village of Ramesside Period craftsmen working on the tomb of the king at Thebes (Deir el-Medina). These are called 'figured ostraca' in Egyptology today. In addition to the Ramesside limestone ostraca, there are numerous others of the same period on pottery sherds, in particular from the Petrie and Quibell excavations at the Ramesseum; there are also a smaller number from earlier New Kingdom construction sites, notably the temples of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III at Deir el-Bahri, on the west bank at Thebes.
The subject matter varies greatly, and, without record of context or in instances of secondary deposition, function is often difficult to ascertain; often figured ostraca are interpreted as evidence for the training of artists, as in Deir el-Medina and the Ramesseum, but this is not made explicit by context or by accompanying writing. Large ostraca were found in tombs of kings in the Valley of the Kings, as if deposited as votive offerings; this is a particularly likely function in the case of images of deities, kings, and names of kings. Some examples bear an inscription identifying the donor; the back of ostracon UC 33193 bears the words in hieroglyphs 'Hathor lady of heaven, mistress of all gods - made by the scribe ... Qenena (?)'.

 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/ostraka/figured.html
 Figured ostraca in the Petrie Museum
Flinders Petrie retrieved ostraca from excavations, but he also collected dozens of ostraca; for his purchases, the places and dates of acquisition remain to be researched, and are given in the following table as 'not recorded', but most are probably from Thebes. These have been published in black and white (Page 1983). The list below gives the references to the publication.
Of the 82 items, 34 are of pottery; for these, Colin Hope contributed an important analytical study (in Page 1983, 59-62). His examination of the fabric of the pottery sherds confirmed the Middle Kingdom date of three items from Lahun (UC 6557, 6559i and ii).
A figured ostracon is a depiction on a limestone flake or pottery sherd, not an integral rock-face or an intact vessel; this is an important classificatory criterion in terms of artistic conception, because the drawing is made when the surface is already reduced to sketch size, and the artist draws the composition on that specifically reduced space. Some items in the list below, such as UC 33209 and 33238, seem to be parts of depictions on pottery vessels intact at the time of depiction; these are strictly speaking not 'figured ostraca' but the remains of decorated pottery vessels. For this distinction, see the comments by Colin Hope in Page 1983, 63, commenting on the joined pair of sherds now numbered UC 35910. Like UC 33238, that pair of sherds was inked in modern times with the mark 'O'; this was used in different ways by Petrie and contemporary excavators, but one use was to identify material from the tomb of Djer in the First Dynasty royal cemetery at Abydos. In later periods the tomb of Djer was identified as the burial place of the god of the dead Osiris; excavations have uncovered votive offerings there from the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period, including pottery vessels inscribed with hieroglyphic or hieratic inscriptions and/or decorated with scenes of a person offering to Osiris.

rekhyt

Tile with rekhyt bird

Period: New Kingdom, Ramesside

Dynasty: Dynasty 19–20

Date: ca. 1295–1070 B.C.

Geography: From Egypt, Eastern Delta, Tell el-Yahudiya

Medium: Gray faience filled with blue

Dimensions: H. 9 x 10.5 cm

Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917

Accession Number: 17.194.2336

metmuseum.org

EL PUEBLO EGIPCIO: LA VIDA COTIDIANA EN EL IMPERIO DE LOS FARAONES

T.G.H. JAMES , CRITICA, 1901
ISBN 9788484325109

 La mayoría de libros que se publican sobre el antiguo Egipto tienden a destacar el papel de los reyes, de los grandes nobles y de los sacerdotes. En este libro -que Barry Kemp ha calificado de detallado y lúcido, T.G.H. James se centra, por el contrario, en examinar los trabajos y los días de los egipcios anónimos: burócrat as y escribas, albañiles y campesinos, carpinteros y artesanos. ¿En qué tipo de casas habitaban y cómo eran sus condiciones de vida? ¿Cómo se administraba justicia? ¿Qué sabemos de sus relaciones familiares, de sus rivalidades y pleitos, de sus sueños y esperanzas, es decir de su vida real? A todas estas preguntas nos responde T.G.H. James que ha realizado un exhaustivo trabajo de investigación a través de las incripciones y tumbas y templos, de los archivos oficiales, de la correspondencia privada, de informes y despachos para devolvernos el pulso de la vida cotidiana en el imperio faraónico y mostrarnos cuánto en común tienen nuestras vidas con las de aquellos que habitaron las riberas del Nilo hace casi cuatro mil años.

Small coffin of an ichneumon mummy

The small box is made from a single rectangular log of wood. It has a lid on the front side. The top side is painted with a checkerboard pattern in red and black. On the box is a small but rather detailed figure of an ichneumon, that was originally gilded. The box contains (part of) a small animal mummy; it is not clear whether it originally belongs in the case or not.

Present location	ALLARD PIERSON MUSEUM [06/002] AMSTERDAM
Inventory number	APM 3332
Dating	LATE PERIOD
Archaeological Site	UNKNOWN
Category	COFFIN/SARCOPHAGUS OF MAMMAL
Material	WOOD; PLASTER
Technique	PAINTED ON STUCCO; SCULPTURED
Height	5.8 cm
Width	9.3 cm
Depth	5.3 cm

Bibliography

• K.A.D. Smelik, Egyptes heilige dieren in het Allard Pierson Museum, MVAPM 18 (december 1979), 3-6: 5/fig. 10
• R.A. Lunsingh Scheurleer (ed.), Egypte, eender en anders (tentoonstellingscatalogus APM), 1984, 126 (nr. 269)
• W.M. van Haarlem, R.A. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Gids voor de afdeling Egypte, Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam, 1986, 33
• R.A. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Egypte, geschenk van de Nijl, 1992, 117, 120/fig. 82
• W.M. van Haarlem, CAA Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam, Fasc. IV, 1997, 30-31