Ancient Egypt

December 6, 1996

Egyptian art is big business. The decline of classics has created a gap waiting to be filled, and Egyptian things have the advantage of not being Eurocentric, while being familiar enough not to be irredeemably alien. The Egyptian coverage in the dictionary is extensive, the range of contributors impressive and the scholarly and reflective tone is kept up almost without a lapse. Given that anglophone art history is something of a North-American speciality, and Egyptology is an expanding discipline in the United States, one would expect a preponderance of American authors. But it is gratifying to see this side of the Atlantic strongly represented.

A useful feature is the concentration on crafts as well as the more traditional, and exclusive, approach to fine art; linen manufacture, coopering and book production have their place here alongside canons of proportion or decorum and perspective. Relations with other areas are given prominence, especially interconnections with Syria and the Aegean.

The late period, until recently despised but now enjoying fashionable revenge, is treated in detail, as are the following Greek and Roman periods. A useful addition is the space given to museology: the evolution of antiquities law, the history of dealing in Egyptian art and the growth of exhibitions are aspects of Egyptology that have been largely ignored. There is also a useful supplement on Egyptomania and the Egyptian revival, and it is also good to see the arts in modern Egypt given serious treatment in their own right.

Coverage is admirably detailed, although one wonders whether some features, such as the pictorial spot-the-god guide, are really worth having.

Does a clear impression emerge from all this? One theme is the tension Egyptian art shows between the familiar and the unfamiliar. From the European viewpoint, Egypt takes the form of a distant cousin who resembles us uncannily, yet whose language we cannot understand. There is a possibility that he is infinitely wise, or is this an illusion caused by ignorance? Control of iconography and subject-matter was tight (hence the fact that Egyptian art is very easy to identify), yet this can go along with a relaxed and informal attitude, especially in the minor arts. Authoritarianism there certainly was, though hardly on the scale of severity encountered in China. There is also a lack of boundaries: funerary, religious and private art tend to merge into each other, as do texts and pictures, Egypt being the only early civilisation (apart from the Maya) to have retained the pictorial nature of its writing system. Finally there is the great range of scale, from the minute to the colossal. T. S. Eliot is credited with observing he could not trust a culture that was incapable of producing something very big or very small. Whether the poet would have felt at home in ancient Egypt the reader of this dictionary will be in a good position to judge.

John Ray is reader in Egyptology, University of Cambridge.

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