Most Egyptian art, such as this relief, was never intended for public
display. The Egyptians poured their creative energies into the construction
of temples for the gods and tombs for themselves, both considered holy places
that would not have been entered after they were completed. However, grave
robbing was so rampant that, by the Eleventh Dynasty (ca. 20351991
B.C.), pharaohs stopped using pyramids and had their coffins hidden in chambers
carved into cliffs.
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Tomb walls were painted or carved with shallow reliefs depicting
funerary rituals as well as images of the deceased, family members and daily
life. Portraits of the deceased were to serve as an abode for the spirit,
or ka, of the deceased, should the mummy be destroyed. Depictions
of family members and daily life functioned to both entertain and provide
for the ka in the hereafter. Color would have been added to the relief
carvings. |
Despite the relatively late date of this relief, the depiction of
the figures remains consistent with the centuries-old traditional manner
of Egyptian representation. The two figures are seen with their heads in
profile, and torsos depicted frontally. This manner of representation gives
the viewer the most recognizable way of seeing each part of the body, a
convention that dates back to the beginnings of Egyptian art, some three
thousand years earlier. |
