ART1035: Class 4
Course Schedule and Applied Exercises
Upcoming Deadlines and Course Schedule:
The beginning of the next unit and deadline for exercise submission is set for .
Course lecture slides and supplementary materials are posted directly on Canvas for students to access on personal devices.
Applied Exercise Assignments:
The course includes creative-based assignments known as applied exercises.
These assignments allow students who put in creative effort to earn extra points and boost their overall grade.
Because the majority of course grades are determined by exams and tests, these applied exercises serve as a vital opportunity for students who are not strong test-takers to improve their scores.
Students are required to work on the first applied exercise outside of class time and hand it in physically during class on .
Historical Overview of Ancient Egypt
Chronological Framework:
Ancient Egyptian history and artwork are broadly categorized into two primary eras: the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom.
Old Kingdom: Encompasses early Egyptian civilization, foundational rulers, early architecture, and initial developments in visual art. Key rulers studied from this period include Cuckoo (Khufu).
New Kingdom: Represents the secondary major era of Egyptian civilization, covering subsequent rulers, expanded artistic styles, and leading chronologically toward the reign of Cleopatra.
The curriculum focuses on primary named rulers for the Old Kingdom and primary named rulers for the New Kingdom.
Geographic and Religious Alignment of Architecture
Alignment with Waterways and Solar Cycles:
Ancient Egyptian architectural complexes were deliberately built adjacent to major water bodies (specifically the Nile River) and were deeply integrated with religious faith.
Pyramids and religious structures were purposefully constructed on the West bank of the river to correspond with solar symbolism.
The orientation directly aligns with the daily passage of time: the rising sun, setting sun, sunrise, and sunset.
Building in the West mirrored the core theological belief that the sun god entered the afterlife every night at sunset.
The Rosetta Stone
Physical Description and Discovery:
The Rosetta Stone is an iconic art historical artifact that appears unassuming at first glance—a large, dark, clean-grained stone slab covered in small written inscriptions.
It was discovered in a fractured, incomplete state, representing a recovered chunk of a larger original monument.
By analyzing unbroken artifacts, artistic conventions, religious context, and cultural practices, historians successfully created visual renderings to reconstruct its original, complete appearance.
Trilingual Inscriptions:
The artifact features a single uniform text written in distinct scripts and languages:
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Located on the top section, composed of pictorial symbols and image-based figures rather than written alphabetical letters.
Egyptian Demotic Script: Located in the middle section, representing a cursive or popular form of Egyptian writing (referred to as demonic Egyptian script).
Greek: Located on the bottom section, written in ancient Greek.
Decipherment and Historical Context:
Prior to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, scholars possessed smaller hieroglyphic objects but could only make educated ballpark guesses regarding their translation.
Because scholars already knew how to translate ancient Greek, the Greek text on the stone provided the foundational key required to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic script.
Greek text was present on Egyptian artifacts because Egypt was ruled by a Greek-speaking dynasty during the historical period in which the stone was created.
Canon of Proportions and Artistic Conventions
Hierarchical Scale:
Egyptian artists utilized variable scale to signify social status, importance, and heroism.
Rulers, gods, and hero figures were depicted significantly larger than surrounding figures to highlight their authority.
Secondary figures, servants, or defeated enemies were depicted at a much smaller scale.
Animals were frequently integrated into compositions to fill empty spatial areas.
The Canon of Proportion:
Ancient Egyptian art introduced the canon of the portrait (or canon of proportion), establishing a formal system for measuring ideal human proportions in artistic depictions.
This proportion system remains a foundational technique used by artists to calculate the relative sizing of the head, torso, and limbs.
Artists overlaid a grid structure over their figures, where each individual grid square was measured as a qubit.
Twisted Perspective and Artistic Liberty:
While artists adhered strictly to grid structures and qubit measurements, they simultaneously took extensive artistic liberties.
Figures were rendered using a twisted perspective (combining profile and frontal views simultaneously).
These poses do not translate realistically from actual human anatomy, illustrating a deliberate choice to prioritize symbolic clarity over naturalistic anatomical accuracy.
Papyrus Production and Depictions of Nature
Environmental Depictions in Art:
Artistic works found inside tombs extensively featured aquatic scenes, particularly life along the Nile River.
Compositions depicted riverbeds, marshland vegetation, fish species, waterbirds, and various groceries or resources filling every available plant space.
The Nile River provided physical sustenance (food through hunting and fishing) and functioned as a powerful spiritual metaphor for life, growth, and existence.
Manufacturing Process of Papyrus:
Papyrus reeds grew abundantly in shallow water and marshland environments and regenerated rapidly after being harvested.
Production Procedure:
Reeds were harvested from water beds and cut down.
The outer layer was peeled back, and thin longitudinal layers of the inner stalk were sliced.
These thin layers were arranged in overlapping horizontal and vertical rows.
The layered stalks were pounded repeatedly using a mallet or specialized beating tool.
The beating process fused the natural plant fibers together, creating a durable sheet material.
Despite being a paper-like material, papyrus possessed extraordinary structural strength, enabling manuscripts and illustrated sheets to survive fully intact inside dry sealed tombs for thousands of years.
Pyramid Architecture and Construction Engineering
Design and Solar Alignment:
Pyramids were built as -sided geometric structures clustered tightly together in defined complexes, such as the Giza complex.
The geometric shapes were specifically designed so that sunlight wrapped around the surfaces to cast precise shadows, mimicking the visual appearance of sun rays penetrating the desert landscape.
Pyramids were originally encased in smooth white limestone designed to reflect bright sunlight (though most outer limestone layers have worn away over time).
The structures were built from several thousand individual stone blocks, each vastly dwarfing human scale.
The Great Pyramid: Built specifically for the pharaoh Cuckoo (Khufu).
Engineering and Labor Force:
Architectural and historical research disproves non-human construction theories, proving the structures were built through human engineering and creative organization.
Workers moved massive stone blocks across land using wooden slats, leverage devices, and team pulling methods.
Builders constructed extensive earthen and stone ramps along the sides of the structure to drag heavy stones to higher tiers.
The labor force consisted primarily of peasants and workers from that social class.
Workers lived in dedicated temporary settlements and residential camps constructed directly adjacent to the pyramid building sites during long construction periods.
The Great Sphinx
Anatomy and Theological Function:
The Great Sphinx is an anthropomorphic figure, defined as an artwork that combines human and animal physical forms.
Features the body of a lion paired with a human face and head.
This anthropomorphic design humanizes the animal while granting human rulers lion-like power and stances.
The Sphinx was spiritually believed to carry souls into the afterlife.
It was closely associated with solar transitions, reflecting the daily cycle of death and rebirth marked by sunset and sunrise.
The Book of the Dead and Judgment in the Afterlife
The Book of the Dead ("Culture of the Dead"):
A major funerary text comprising over illustrated papyrus pages detailing instructions, prayers, and rituals to guide the deceased through the afterlife.
The Weighing of the Heart Ritual:
Anubis: Depicted as a deity with a black canine or feline head, bright white eyes, and a formal ceremonial head covering.
Symbolism of the Color Black: Black represented regeneration and rebirth. This symbolism stemmed from the dark, fertile soil along the Nile River that nourished crops, as well as the blackened appearance of human bodies following mummification.
The Judgment Scene:
Anubis places the heart of the deceased onto a balance scale to evaluate their earthly character and conduct.
The proceedings are observed by deities and accompanied by musical performances.
If the individual fails the judgment test, their heart is consumed by Ammit (a hybrid monster depicted with mixed animal features).
Devouring by Ammit resulted in complete destruction, rendering the deceased permanently unable to enter the afterlife.
The Concept of Ka and Canopic Jars
Preservation of the Ka:
The core purpose of the mummification process was to preserve the physical body to safeguard the Ka.
The Ka represents the individual's vital life force, weight, soul, or essential spiritual presence separated from the physical vessel.
Canopic Jars and Organ Removal:
During mummification, internal organs were removed from the body cavity and placed into distinct canopic jars, each associated with a specific protective entity:
Lungs: Stored in a jar associated with a baboon/character deity.
Stomach: Stored in a jar associated with a jackal deity.
Intestines: Stored in a jar associated with a falcon deity.
Liver: Stored in a jar associated with a human deity.
The body cavity was filled and treated separately, while the preserved organs remained safely sealed inside these jars alongside the mummified body.
Tomb Architecture and the Discovery of King Tutankhamun's Tomb
Subterranean Tomb Layout:
Tombs were constructed with distinct underground chambers, including a main chamber for the king, a secondary chamber for the queen, and connecting galleries or hallways.
Designed with single entry and exit pathways to secure the burial.
Engineers built functional air ventilation shafts into the stone architecture to allow construction workers and priests to breathe while working inside deep subterranean spaces.
Discovery of King Tutankhamun's Tomb:
Discovered in by British archaeologist Howard Carter, who worked alongside local Egyptian teams.
Prior to , historians widely believed the tomb had been destroyed or looted.
King Tutankhamun ("King Kujikawa", King Tut, or the