The arts of making in ancient Egypt. Voices, images and objects of material producers 2000-1550 BC

288 Pages·2018·8.426 MB·English

by  Gianluca Miniaci, Juan Carlos Moreno García, Stephen Quirke, Andréas Stauder (ed.)

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This book provides an innovative analysis of the conditions of ancient
Egyptian craftsmanship in the light of the archaeology of production, lin-
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guistic analysis, visual representation and ethnographic research. H
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During the past decades, the “imaginative” figure of ancient Egyptian A
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material producers has moved from “workers” to “artisans” and, most re- T
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cently, to “artists”. In a search for a fuller understanding of the pragmatics

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of material production in past societies, and moving away from a series of F

modern preconceptions, this volume aims to analyse the mechanisms of M
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material production in Egypt during the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550
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BC), to approach the profile of ancient Egyptian craftsmen through their I
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THE ARTS OF MAKING
own words, images and artefacts, and to trace possible modes of circu- G

lation of ideas among craftsmen in material production. I
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The studies in the volume address the mechanisms of ancient produc-
N IN ANCIENT EGYPT
tion in Middle Bronze Age Egypt, the circulation of ideas among crafts- C
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men, and the profiles of the people involved, based on the material trac- E
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es, including depictions and writings, the ancient craftsmen themselves T
left and produced. E VOICES, IMAGES, AND OBJECTS OF
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THE ARTS OF MAKING
IN ANCIENT EGYPT
Sidestone Press

THE ARTS OF MAKING
IN ANCIENT EGYPT
VOICES, IMAGES, AND OBJECTS OF
MATERIAL PRODUCERS 2000–1550 BC
edited by
Gianluca Miniaci,
Juan Carlos Moreno García,
Stephen Quirke & Andréas Stauder
© 2018 Individual authors
Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden
www.sidestone.com
Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press
Photograph cover:
• Front cover: Wooden model ÆIN 1633 © Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, courtesy of Tine Bagh
• Lower right: Detail of a manson at work from the tomb of Sobeknakht at el-Kab, Egypt
© Oxford University Elkab Expedition, courtesy of Vivian Davies
• On the back: Hippotamus in faience ÆIN 1588 © Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek,
courtesy of Tine Bagh
ISBN 978-90-8890-523-0 (softcover)
ISBN 978-90-8890-524-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-90-8890-525-4 (PDF e-book)
Contents
Introduction 7
Sculpture workshops: who, where and for whom? 11
Simon Connor
The Artistic Copying Network Around the Tomb of Pahery in 31
Elkab (EK3): a New Kingdom case study
Alisee Devillers
Antiquity Bound to Modernity. The significance of Egyptian 49
workers in modern archaeology in Egypt
Maximilian Georg
Epistemological Things! Mystical Things! Towards an ancient 67
Egyptian ontology
Amr El Hawary
Centralized and Local Production, Adaptation, and Imitation: 81
Twelfth Dynasty offering tables
Alexander Ilin-Tomich
To show and to designate: attitudes towards representing 101
craftsmanship and material culture in Middle Kingdom
elite tombs
Claus Jurman
Precious Things? The social construction of value in Egyptian 117
society, from production of objects to their use (mid 3rd –
mid 2nd millennium BC)
Christelle Mazé
Faience Craftsmanship in the Middle Kingdom. A market 139
paradox: inexpensive materials for prestige goods
Gianluca Miniaci
Leather Processing, Castor Oil, and Desert/Nubian Trade at the 159
Turn of the 3rd/2nd Millennium BC: some speculative thoughts on
Egyptian craftsmanship
Juan Carlos Moreno García
Languages of Artists: closed and open channels 175
Stephen Quirke
Craft Production in the Bronze Age. A comparative view from 197
South Asia
Shereen Ratnagar
The Egyptian Craftsman and the Modern Researcher: the 211
benefits of archeometrical analyses
Patricia Rigault and Caroline Thomas
The Representation of Materials, an Example of Circulations 225
of Formal Models among Workmen. An insight into the
New Kingdom practices
Karine Seigneau
Staging Restricted Knowledge: the sculptor Irtysen’s 239
self-presentation (ca. 2000 BC)
Andréas Stauder
The Nubian Mudbrick Vault. A Pharaonic building technique 273
in Nubian village dwellings of the early 20th Century
Lilli Zabrana
Introduction
Ancient Egypt is considered a true repository of beautiful objects. The fascination they
have exerted on Western imagery has certainly contributed to the consideration of
the land of the pharaohs as one of the cradles of Western civilization. Both ancient
Egypt and the Classical world (especially ancient Greece) were thought to share a com-
mon sense of beauty, harmony and delicacy that struck a chord with archaeologists
and visitors of museums all over Europe and North America. People capable of such
achievements were in some way “our” ancestors and paved the way to the sculptural
magnificence of a Phidias or a Praxiteles: ex oriente lux could not be better illustrated
than in the archaic and Egyptian-looking appearance of the archaic kouros.
However, here lie two problems, intimately related. One of them concerns identi-
ties, the other one work processes. Western culture has celebrated genius and freedom
of creation of their artists, an ascending path of progress contemporaneous to individ-
uality and market freedom in the realm of economy. The names of many artists, espe-
cially from the Renaissance on, occupy a place of choice in the pantheon of national
glories. Their fight to emancipate themselves from the constraints of patrons, conserva-
tive tastes and prudish social values are the best proof of the triumph of individuality in
modern times. Ancient Egypt, on the contrary, was catalogued as an “oriental” society.
Artistic creations depended on the commands of “despotic” monarchies that left little
room to the expression of geniality, a quality reserved to Western Artists. Under these
conditions, production was basically developed in workshops, a collective way of work-
ing that still reduced the possibilities of expressing individuality. If one adds the weight
of temples and “priests”, one was tempted to assimilate the conditions of Egyptian
artistic production more to the obscure European Middle Ages than to the heroic
times of a Phidias or a Michelangelo. The concept of “artisan” and “workshop”, and the
flavour of collectivism they carry with them, should explain why ancient Egypt, despite
its remarkable artistic achievements, was fatally doomed to fall short of producing
Great Art. Another continent was waiting for that.
At the same time, as the focus of research was put on beaux arts, workshops (spon-
sored by kings) and “artists”, ordinary craftsmanship has received less attention and its
analysis has depended on models elaborated elsewhere. One influential example has
been the idea of division of labour as concomitant to the birth of “complex” societies
and “civilizations”. According to this view, as economic activities became more com-
plex and the needs of people and, especially, nascent political powers increased, the
INTRODUCTION 7
emergence of full-time specialists was necessary. When their work was highly appreci-
ated (nature of raw materials involved, sophistication), such specialists were grouped
in palace or temple workshops and their produce commanded by and delivered to
these institutions. A perverse consequence is that this approach neglected the role of
rural and itinerant craftsmen/woman as well as that of people involved part-time in
agricultural activities and part-time in handicraft production. As for the very concept
of palatial and temple workshops, the archaeological evidence from Mesopotamia, for
instance, reveals that, contrary to this assumption, craft activities were usually dis-
persed in cities and hardly formed specialized urban areas. In other cases, alternative
circuits provided raw material used by rural craftsmen/woman. Mobile populations,
for instance, collected gold, especially alluvial gold, and it is quite possible that they
sold it not only to the agents of pharaoh but also to rural artisans. It has also been sug-
gested that people collected small blocks of stone from the quarries usually exploited
by the king and that they elaborated small objects. On the other hand, it is also well
known that temples adapted their production of certain items depending on the type
of consumers. In other cases, the imitation of high quality goods gave an impetus to
new types of objects adapted to a “low cost” demand, as it happened, for example, dur-
ing the Late Bronze Age. As for one of the most important craft activity of the ancient
world, the production of textiles, the very nature of the evidence preserved has focused
on institutional production, centred on palace and temple workshops. However, oth-
er documents reveal that small fleets of ships collected cloth from women and it is
quite possible that women played a crucial role as textile workers for merchants who
collected their production and sold it in Egypt and abroad. Nubians also emerge as
major vectors of the diffusion of leather cloths and specialized techniques of leather
preparation (dying, tanning) since, at least, the late 3rd millennium BC.
In this vein, craft activities appear as rather more complex activities than previ-
ously thought. The limits between “high” and “low” production, between qualified
specialists and part-time workers, between “artists” and mere “producers”, seem more
blurred, while the centrality ascribed to the production promoted at institutions such
as temples, palaces and the households of high officials appears questionable.
Pervasive preconceptions among researchers thus collide repeatedly and systemi-
cally with evidence for ancient patterns of and ideas around material production. All
fifteen contributors to this volume confront, in different ways, that continuing dis-
juncture. A shared focus on practice allows new thinking on the location and societal
value of different activities, and on their shifting social context of class, age, gender and
ethnicity, all inseparable from ancient categories and structures of thought in action.
Comparative archaeology and anthropology provide often the most promising
empirical and theoretical ground for avoiding assumptions in research. Here Shereen
Ratnagar (11) draws on South Asian archaeology to assess the times as well as places
of making, with “sporadic domestic activity” distinguished from regular production in
a socially transmitted technological line. Within Egyptology, Alexander Ilin-Tomich
(5) uses a single object-type, the stone offering-table, to take up the same question of
production timespace, with examples of centralised production set against evidence for
regional innovation. Rather than a dichotomy or a bland spectrum of possibilities, the
detailed evidence here delivers a more specific history of interplay in different output
locations. Similarly, assessing the category of “workshop” from the corpus of stone
8 THE ARTS OF MAKING IN ANCIENT EGYPT