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Egyptian trEasurEs from the Brooklyn Museum
October 7, 2011–January 8, 2012
Frist Center for the Visual arts e ingram gallery
t O L i V E F O r E V E r
to Live Forever: Egyptian treasures from the Brooklyn Museum
Civilization in Egypt began around 5300 BCE (before the common era), when nomadic people established
communities along the banks of the Nile River. Pharaonic
rule began around 3000 BCE and lasted until the end of
Roman control at 642 CE. Through these millennia, the
culture was unified by a belief in life after death. To Live
Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum features
objects—sculptures, human and animal mummies, papyrus
documents, and tomb furnishings—that were meant to
help people reach the afterlife and remain there through
eternity. With works ranging from a simple yet delightfully
abstract female figurine, dated about 3650–3300 BCE
(fig. 1), to a mummy with a realistically painted face covering,
created soon after the time of Christ (cover), the exhibition
enables the contemporary audience to admire the aesthetic
achievements of the ancient Egyptians. At the same time, it
offers insight into the economics of attaining the afterlife by
comparing funerary objects made for royalty and the non-royal
elite to those produced by members of the lower classes.
While ancient Egyptian understanding of the afterlife was
complex, at its core was the denial of death’s finality. Magic
rituals and objects placed in tombs were meant to ensure a
smooth transition to the afterlife, also known as the netherworld
Fig.1
ended, Osiris weighed the deceased’s heart to gauge his or
her adherence to principles of justice known as ma’at. If
the heart was equal to a feather, the dead had lived with
integrity and was allowed to enter eternity, to live as he or
she had before dying.
The source of this belief was the story of the death
and rebirth of Osiris, who with his wife, Isis, had
ruled Egypt at the beginning of time. In a fratricidal
power play, Osiris’s jealous brother, Seth, invited
the king to a party only to trap him in a special box
made exactly in Osiris’s dimensions. Seth and his
co-conspirators sealed the box and threw it into the
Nile; Osiris drowned and Seth claimed the throne.
Isis retrieved Osiris’s body and magically revived him
long enough so that they could conceive a child. She
also built temples for him where he could receive food
offerings after death, establishing the role of the tomb
and the notion that those in the afterlife had the same
needs they had in this life.
Egyptian funerary objects reflect the story of Osiris.
Elaborately inscribed and painted coffins and wood
or stone sarcophagi, as exemplified by the Large Outer
Sarcophagus of the Royal Prince, Count of Thebes, Pa-seba-
khai-en-ipet (fig. 3), are like the box in which Seth trapped
Osiris. Housing the coffin and sarcophagus, the tomb is
the site at which the passage to the afterlife—which mirrors
Osiris’s own journey—begins. Like Osiris, the deceased
continued to live as they had before attaining immortality,
so the tomb also contained functional objects, including
weapons for men and cosmetic containers, mirrors, and
grooming accessories for women. Other objects in the tomb
were exclusively for the next world. These included shabties
(singular “shabty” a word meaning “ one who answers”),
or duat. The duat was believed to be an improved version of the familiar world, complete
with its own fields, desert, and Nile River. It was situated below the earth, where the sun—
represented by the sun god Re—fled to in the west at the end of the day to begin his twelve-
hour flight through the night. At the end of the twelfth hour, Re was reborn into the eastern
horizon. Egyptians believed that after dying, they could follow Re’s journey and ultimately
become one with Osiris, the god of the netherworld. The Amduat (fig. 2), an ancient funerary
text developed from The Book of the Dead, gives an illustrated, detailed description of the
course the sun takes during its sojourn. The text provides the magic spells and cryptic
knowledge that the deceased must know and recite in order to complete this journey safely.
Knowledge of these mysteries was not enough to gain eternal life, however; once the journey
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
course of seventy days. Then priests poured an expensive
combination of imported and domestic resins inside the
body to preserve it. These preservatives ensured that
the body was both waterproof and resisted damage
caused by microorganisms and insects. The body
was then wrapped in linen and placed in a coffin,
now ready for the funeral service. A less expensive
method substituted an abdominal injection of
cedar resin for the surgical process. This resin
liquefied the internal organs, which were drained
through the rectum. Dehydration with natron
followed, along with wrapping in linen. In the
cheapest method, an enema allowed embalmers
to remove the internal organs through the rectum.
The costs of mummification did not simply arise
from the process itself, but also in the external
appearance of the mummy. The materials used in
the human mummy in this exhibition, a fifty-nine
year-old Greek named Demetrios (fig. 5), indicate
the wealth he commanded in life. The pigment in
the red linen shroud contains lead imported from
Spain, while the face is covered by a sophisticated
portrait of the deceased, done in the medium of
encaustic, or wax plus pigment. The divine symbols
on the shroud and Demetrios’s name and age are in
gold leaf, a valuable commodity even in ancient times.
The range of costs associated with mummification
is similar to that of objects created for the tombs.
While royalty could afford the most rare and beautiful
materials available and could employ the finest
craftsmen, the literate elite, many of whom were clerks,
government officials, or priests, commissioned works
composed of less expensive materials, made by artisans
mummiform figurines representing servants who would
work in the fields for the deceased in the afterlife. Tombs
were also the site in which the deceased’s survivors
would provide food and other necessities, as Isis had
done for Osiris. They could make offerings of actual
food, or through representations of food, drink,
clothing, and other items rendered on tomb
walls.
The primary function of the tomb was to
hold the deceased’s body, which had been
mummified to ensure the same eternal life
enjoyed by Osiris. The preservation of
the body was essential, because it was
constituted of a person’s physical and
spiritual selves, the latter including the ka,
a spiritual double, born at the same time
as the person; the ba, associated with the
powers or personality of the individual;
and the ren, which controlled the person’s
fate. To live forever, the body and these
spiritual forces had to be preserved and
integrated into an akh, or effective spirit,
that existed as a tangible being in the
next world.
The Greek historian Herodotus, who
visited Egypt in the fifth century BCE,
described three mummification processes.
The most expensive involved the surgical
removal of the brain and major organs
(except the heart, needed for Osiris’s
judgment), which were stored in canopic jars
(fig. 4). Embalmers used natron, a naturally
occurring salt, to dehydrate the body over the
Fig. 5Fig. 4
At least four strategies were
available to those planning to
furnish a tomb on a budget:
they could substitute, imitate,
combine, or reuse. Substitution
involved choosing a cheaper
material instead of a precious
one. For example, faience, made
mostly from sand, was often
used in place of gold. Imitation
meant decorating one material
as if it were something more
expensive. Thus, a terracotta
mummy mask could be
painted yellow to imitate
gold. Combining was
a common strategy,
especially in coffin
sets. With expensive
coffins, there was
both a separate lid
and a mummy board,
which was shaped into a
life-size figure of the deceased
dressed in everyday clothing and placed
directly on the mummy. To save money, the typical mummy board decoration could be used
on the lid itself, thus combining the two. Reuse involved removing the name of a previous
owner and reinscribing an object for a new user. Coffins, statues, and shabties could all
be reused.
These methods of economizing reveal tremendous creativity among those who did not
have the means to furnish a tomb according to elite standards. While the craftsmanship
and extravagant materials used for the wealthy inspire admiration for their extraordinary
beauty, the objects made for the average person have a humble presence that is eloquent
in its own right.
who were not as prestigious as those
employed by the royalty. For this
group, furnishing a tomb was likely
the biggest expense they would
ever encounter. The lower classes
often produced their own funerary
objects and were frequently buried
with no coffin, sarcophagus, or
tomb for protection.
This exhibition provides
opportunities to compare
funerary objects made
for people with different
levels of wealth. An
example of this is seen
in the juxtaposition of a
professionally crafted,
gilded, and inlaid
mummy cartonnage
(fig. 6), representing
a woman whose life
was spent in luxury,
and a hand-modeled
and naively painted
terracotta mask (fig. 7), which was perhaps
fashioned by the deceased
herself, when she was still
alive, or a family member.
Though both covers adequately
protected the mummy, the materials
used demonstrate how poorer members of
society could also inexpensively provide the objects necessary to reach the
next world.
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Images:
Cover: Mummy Mask of a Man. From Egypt. Roman Period, early 1st century CE. Gilded and painted stucco, 20 1/4 x 13 x 7 7/8 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 72.57
inside front and back covers: Panel from the Coffin of a Woman (detail), From Asyut, Egypt. Middle Kingdom, late Dynasty 11 to early Dynasty 12, ca. 2008–1875 BCE. Wood and pigment, 17 1/2 x 71 1/2 x 1 1/4 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 1995.112
Fig. 1. Female Figurine. From Burial no. 2, el-Ma’mariya, Egypt. Predynastic Period, Naqada II Period, ca. 3650−3300 BCE. Painted terracotta, 13 3/8 x 5 x 2 1/2 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 07.447.502
Fig. 2. Papyrus of the “Amduat,” What Is in the Netherworld, of Ankhefenmut. From Thebes, Egypt. Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 22, 945−712 BCE. Ink on papyrus, 8 7/8 x 11 13/16 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1826Eb
Fig. 3. Large Outer Sarcophagus of the Royal Prince, Count of Thebes, Pa-seba-khai-en-ipet. From Thebes, near Deir el-Bahri, Egypt. Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21, ca. 1075−945 BCE. Gessoed and painted wood, 37 x 30 1/4 x 83 3/8 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 08.480.1a–b
Fig. 4. Canopic Jar and Lid (Depicting a Jackal). From Egypt. Late Period, Dynasty 26 (or later), 664−525 BCE or later. Limestone, 11 9/16 in. high x 5 1/4 in. diameter. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.894Ea−b
Fig. 5. Mummy and Portrait of Demetrios. From Hawara, Egypt. Roman Period, 95–100 CE Painted cloth, gold, human remains, and encaustic on wood panel, a: 13 3/8 x 15 3/8 x 74 13/16 in.; b (portrait): 14 11/16 x 8 1/16 x 1/16 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 11.600a−b
Fig. 6. Mummy Cartonnage of a Woman. From Hawara, Egypt. Roman Period, 1st century CE. Linen, gilded gesso, glass, and faience, 22 11/16 x 14 5/8 x 7 1/2 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 69.35
Fig. 7. Head and Chest from a Sarcophagus. From Egypt. Roman Period, 4th century CE. Painted terracotta, 17 1/2 x 17 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 83.29
inside back cover: Deir el-Medina Worker Grave in Shape of Pyramid, 2008. © Courtesy of Jim Womack
To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum has been organized by the Brooklyn Museum.
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