"World of the Pharaohs" on exhibition in U.S.
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas -- The "World of the Pharaohs" exhibition in Little Rock does more than depict the lives of kings during the 3,000 years of pharaoic rule. The items on display also illustrate what daily life was like in the rich Nile delta.
The show offers windows into the ancient past, some subtle and some grand.
A colossus of Ramesses the Great, thought by many scholars to be the pharaoh who tangled with Moses, greets patrons as they enter.
"This is the only face from the Bible that you can ever see," said well-known author and Egyptologist Bob Brier, one of many experts brought in by the Arkansas Arts Center to lend their voices during the nine-month run.
The 200-plus objects, except the two mummies, are from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which has one of the finest ancient Egypt collections the world.
Some of the wall panels and stele or sculpted stone slabs on display show remarkably fine work, while others reflect a more coarse style. That's consistent with the state of craftsmanship at different times as kingdoms came and went.
Many of the sculptures of the human form are stunning. Brier said the ancient Egyptians placed a premium on realistic depictions. "It's super-realism," he said. "It's not two-dimensional, flat, like looking at medieval paintings," he said. "You're looking across 2,000 years or more."
Many of the items on display are from tombs of the wealthy, which were laden with belongings the deceased would need in the afterlife. Most were collected by an archaeologist in the early 20th century working for Harvard University and the MFA, so the items can be explained in their historical context. That stands in contrast to items bought from antiquities dealers.
The displays are grouped thematically, rather than by age. Different pieces of jewelry are together, as are tools, vases, amulets, etc. The items are under low lights but they are expertly lit. An ancient stele commissioned for a home, Brier noted, is lit almost directly overhead, so shadows bring out its beauty.
Elsewhere, there is a 3,300-year-old panel that depicts two of the Pharaoh Akhenaten's daughters. The hieroglyphic inscription notes that the pharaoh's "great wife," Nefertiti, was also in the picture before the panel was broken. Brier noted that Akhenaten was the first monotheist, focusing worship on the sun god.
Tutankhamen succeeded Akhenaten and restored the pantheon of gods during his short reign.
The exhibit also features more down-to-earth items, including a hammer and chisel. The chisel hasn't changed much over the millennia, but the hammer has. The all-wood hammer is shaped like a cylinder with a dowel for a handle coming out of one end. The one on display has taken on a shape similar to a dinner bell from the beating it took, from chips of wood flying away from all that hammering.
One of the mummies on display, that of a woman named Hetep-Bastet, was a gift in 1927 from the Cairo Museum of Antiquities to the precursor of the University of Quebec. The mummy's rest was disturbed when the sarcophagus was knocked over during a 1969 student protest in Montreal. The sarcophagus was recently restored by conservators at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
The coffin of Hetep-Bastet, dating to between 644 and 525 B.C., is skillfully painted, showing gold and red and earth tones. Brier noted that she is depicted on a funeral couch with four canopic jars underneath, where her organs would be stored so she could use them in the afterlife. Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming, stands over her.
The other mummy is from the Roman period and shows evidence of the diminished skills among craftsmen who weren't valued by the western rulers. The crudely drawn figures on its coffin don't have the correct animal images and some are mislabeled. The Egyptian language and pharaoic culture was on its way to being lost for more than a millennium.
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If You Go...
WORLD OF THE PHARAOHS: Through July 5 at the Arkansas Arts Center, Ninth Street and Commerce/MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas; http://www.arkarts.com or 501-372-4000. Open Tuesday 9 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Wednesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. The museum is also scheduling speakers and other special events. Adults $22; youths 6-17, $14. Various discounts for families, college students, seniors, military and groups.