Chief Of Seers

Elizabeth Goring, Nicholas Reeves, John Ruffle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136156809
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Geschichte der ägyptischen Antike

Written in memory of the late Cyril Aldred, one of the world's most highly regarded experts in Egyptian art, the 30 original and thought-provoking essays in this volume, by an international team of leading scholars, are a major contribution to Egyptian art history, to Egyptology and to art history in general.

Several Objects, and some Aspects of the Art of the Third Intermediate Period

Richard A. Fazzini

CYRIL Aldred was perhaps best known for his research and publications on Egyptian art of the New Kingdom, especially Dynasty XVIII and earlier times, but he sometimes also benefited his professional colleagues by turning his trained art historian’s eye, and his felicitous command of English, to later eras. In one such study he managed within a few brief pages not only to improve our knowledge of the iconography of a major deity but also to help lay the basis for the study of several significant aspects of the artistic style of the Third Intermediate Period.¹ Hence it seems appropriate to contribute to this volume of studies in memory of Cyril Aldred the publication of several objects relevant to the study of the art of the Third Intermediate Period.

In the article already cited, Cyril Aldred credited George Steindorff with coining the term ‘Third Intermediate Period’,² which Steindorff used as a label for Dynasty XXI to Dynasty XXV.³ Acknowledging that terminology is not a matter of general agreement, the author of the present article is using ‘Third Intermediate Period’ to refer to late Dynasty XX to Dynasty XXV in Egypt; ‘Libyan Period’ for the time from the accession of Shoshenq I to Shabaqo’s conquest of Egypt; ‘Kushite Period’ for Dynasty XXV in Egypt, beginning with Shabaqo’s conquest; and ‘Late Period’ for Dynasty XXVI through the Macedonian Period to the accession of Ptolemy I Soter.

The first of the objects (see fig. la) that are the subject of this article was purchased by the Brooklyn Museum in 1975 with monies from the Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund (accession number 75.167). It is a fragment of sunk relief in limestone, showing a male figure facing left. He wears the ˘hbswt-beard, a short, curled wig with uraeus and streamer, and a broad collar necklace. To judge from the better-preserved side of the figure, he presumably had an armlet on each arm and may very well have had two halter straps to support a now missing midriff covering or ‘corselet’. Just above his head is preserved the lower edge of a solar disc. The relief, whose provenance is not known, is 43.5 cm in height, 43 cm in width, and circa 5 cm in depth.

When it was acquired, this relief was catalogued provisionally as a work of the Ptolemaic Period. However, subsequent study led the writer to conclude that it was much earlier, with one small detail arguing for a probable date no later than the Libyan Period. The detail is, of course, the two creases on the figure’s throat. As Aldred has observed, this feature ‘came gradually into prominence during the reign of Amenophis III and was typical of the Amarna Period and later of the Ramessides’;⁴ and contrary to the opinion expressed by John Cooney,⁵ both the flesh folds on the neck and indented/pierced earlobes (another Dynasty XVIII stylistic innovation) are to be found in both northern and southern works created during the Libyan Period.⁶ In fact, after their appearance on some funerary furnishings of Dynasty XXI,⁷ the creases on the throat appear, for example, on royal reliefs at Thebes in the reigns of Shoshenq I and Osorkon I, and even on one image as late as the time of Osorkon III and Takelot III.⁸ In the north they can even appear on images in hard stone of Osorkon II, are certainly still current in the reign of Shoshenq III, appear in reliefs that may be as late as Shoshenq V, and seem to make a rare appearance in a few images of Dynasty XXVI.⁹

If the Brooklyn relief is not later than the Libyan Period, could it be earlier than the Third Intermediate Period? The face has an arched eyebrow in relief, with tapered end. The eye is almond-shaped and set level in the face, the narrow cosmetic lines rimming both eyelids tapering towards the end of their extension at the outer canthus and reaching back as far as the end of the eyebrow. The nose, with its flared nostril, is aquiline and its profile makes a distinct break with the line of the forehead. The mouth is relatively small, its upper lip only very slightly thicker than the lower. The meeting of upper and lower lips is marked by a horizontal line that does not reach the mouth’s outer corner, which is marked by a depression as well as an incised line. The creases on the throat alone indicate that the Brooklyn relief cannot pre-date the reign of Amenhotep III and, together with its general style, suggest that it is most probably post-Amarna in date. Moreover, the boldness and rounding of Brooklyn’s sunk relief are elements of style one would not expect in a work of the pre-Amarna New Kingdom. Nevertheless, it would appear that somewhat better parallels for the features can be found in the art of pre-Amarna Dynasty XVIII¹⁰ than in post-Amarna Dynasty XVIII–Dynasty XX, the best of the latter being in the time of Seti I–Ramesses II or the later part of Dynasty XX.¹¹ In other words, one could view the Brooklyn relief as somehow reflecting elements of the art of pre-Amarna Dynasty XVIII and as displaying stylistic features of the post-Amarna New Kingdom without showing sufficiently strong affinities to the art of the post-Amarna New Kingdom to compel its attribution to that era. And that is one argument for the relief’s attribution to the Third Intermediate Period.

As has sometimes been noted, art of the earlier Ramesside Period can display Tuthmosid influences. Moreover, some such works number among the ‘archétypes de la XIX^e dynastie’ which Myśłiwiec sees as the basis for certain changes in the facial ‘iconography’ of Ramesses VII(?), IX, X, and XI.¹² On the other hand, the Tuthmosid elements Aldred observed in a statue of Ramesses IX¹³ could reflect earlier, Tuthmosid-influenced Ramesside art just as well as actual Tuthmosid works. In fact — and without denying that works made between the reigns of Ramesses II and IX sometimes reflect the Tuthmosid — among the stylistic tendencies of later Ramesside art, it is this tendency to encompass both actual Tuthmosid antecedents and Tuthmosid-influenced earlier Ramesside art that appears to grow into one of the main stylistic tendencies of the Third Intermediate Period.

In general, when the relatively few and brief commentaries on the pre-Kushite art of the Third Intermediate Period have not viewed it as the survival or, worse, as the decline of Ramesside art, they have been mainly concerned with the identification and discussion of the revival or survival of Tuthmosid stylistic elements and/or iconography. Less often, as was the case, for example, with Aldred’s study of the Carnarvon statuette of Amun and sculpture in metal in general,¹⁴ they have also been concerned with defining stylistic evolution over time or with viewing the art of the time as displaying some coherence of style. In fact, it is rare to find a comment such as that by Yoyotte — who viewed Memphite reliefs of the reign of Siamun as harbingers of what he saw as the basically Ramesside reliefs of the reigns of Shoshenq I and his Libyan Period successors — to the effect that both the best donation stelae and temple reliefs of the Libyan Period have ‘les visages, les corps effilés, les vêtements frangés possèdant une grâce particulière à ce temps’¹⁵ (the italics are this author’s).

At the risk of oversimplification, but to make what could be a longer story¹⁶ necessarily brief, the writer will here simply emphasize a few points:

a. A good many works of Dynasty XXI–Libyan Period display varying mixtures of Tuthmosid and Ramesside elements, and in particular early or very late Ramesside elements.

b. Most of these objects deviate sufficiently from Ramesside art to be distinct from it. And in connection with this point it is worth noting the observations by F. von Kaenel and P. Montet that the reliefs recovered at Tanis from the Dynasty XXI tomb of Khonsuheb ‘. . . sont plus proches, par le style, de ceux d’Osorkon II que des reliefs de la XX^e dynastie’,¹⁷ and that the reliefs of Shoshenq V at Tanis are in a style ‘qui n’est pas très éloigné des reliefs du tombeau d’Osorkon II’.¹⁸

c. There is at least a relative coherence of style over both time and space. To be sure, the observations just quoted may argue for a site-specific continuity at Tanis. And it must be admitted, for example, that the situation at Thebes is somewhat different in that its reliefs and statuary may sometimes display a relatively stronger Tuthmosid influence¹⁹ and a less continous history for the general style of which we are speaking.²⁰ On the other hand, clear reflections of Tuthmosid style may sometimes be seen in northern Egyptian works.²¹ Equally important — and without denying that there are regional differences in the art of the Third Intermediate Period (some aspects of which will be discussed below) — there are sufficient similarities among many royal reliefs of the Libyan Period from various sites²² to justify speaking of a broad Third Intermediate Period style, or at least a stylistic milieu encompassing various mixtures of the Tuthmosid and Ramesside. Moreover, although there would be much that was new in the art of Dynasty XXV, this general style of late Dynasty XX/XXI, but especially of the Libyan Period, helps explain some of the art of the Kushite Period, including aspects of its temple reliefs.²³

This particular stylistic milieu of the Third Intermediate Period is the artistic context of the Brooklyn relief. But where should it be placed in time and space within this milieu? The answers to that question could be the same for a relief that recently came to my attention. Acquired by that worthy in the 1920s, it is in the Reverend Theodore Pitcairn Collection and is illustrated (see fig. lb) by kind permission of the Pitcairn family.

This relief, which is 68.5 cm in height and 30.5 cm in width, shows a king who had at least one arm raised in a worshipful gesture. He wears the ‘khat’-headdress from which descends a streamer, and which is adorned with a uraeus whose body is arranged in two horizontal loops. Although variants can occur in Tuthmosid times,²⁴ it has been noted that this pattern for the uraeus’ loops is essentially a Ramesside stylistic element that survives through the Libyan Period.²⁵ Above the king’s head are the remains of a solar disk labelled ‘Behdet’/‘Behdetite’, from which hang one of what was probably a pair of cobras, each with an ‘ankh’-sign. Such a set of symbols above a king’s head is hardly uncommon, including in the Libyan Period²⁶ and when the king wears the ‘khat’.²⁷ As already noted, the king’s ‘pierced’ earlobe is a phenomenon otherwise attested from Dynasty XVIII until Kushite times.²⁸

Despite some differences, this writer believes the Brooklyn and Pitcairn reliefs’ faces are sufficiently similar to associate them closely in time and, perhaps, space. But the questions remain: where? when?

It is difficult to identify stylistic chronological indicators for many aspects of the art of the Third Intermediate Period, in part because the monuments known to us may not always represent a high percentage o...