The 26th Dynasty, also known as the Saite Period, is
traditionally placed by scholars at the end of the
Third Intermediate Period or at the beginning of the
Late Dynastic Period. In either case, the Saite Period
rose from the ashes of a decentralized Egyptian state
that had been ravaged by foreign occupation.
Supported by the assistance of a powerful family
centered in the Delta town of Sais, the Assyrians
finally drove the Nubians out of Egypt. At the close of
this campaign, Ashurbanipal’s kingdom was at the
height of its power; however, due to civil strife back
east, he was forced to withdraw his forces from
Egypt. Psamtik I, a member of the family from Sais,
seized this opportunity to assert his authority over
the entire Nile Valley and found his own dynasty, the
26th of Egyptian history. Known as the Saite Period
due to the importance of the capital city Sais, the
26th Dynasty, like many before it, sought to emulate
the artistic styles of past pharaoh in order to bolster
their own claims to power and legitimize their
authority.
Yet despite that artist sought to replicate models of
the past, Egyptian art of this era was infused with a
heightened sense of naturalism. This fact is likely due
to the influx of Greek culture. The Saite rulers
recognized that Egypt had fallen behind the rest of
the Mediterranean world in terms of military
technology. Thus, they were forced to rely upon
foreign mercenaries, many of whom were Greek. With
ties between these two cultures firmly established
during the 7th Century B.C., commercial trading
quickly blossomed. Special entrepots for foreign
traders were established, including the famed center
of Naucratis, a Delta town in which Greek merchants
were permitted access. During the Saite Period, two
great powers of the Mediterranean world became
intimately linked, commercially and culturally. As the
exchange of ideas flowed across the sea, the Greeks
began to experiment on a monumental scale while
the Egyptians began to approach art with an
enhanced sense of realism.
The funerary rites and rituals of Egypt are among the
most elaborate and celebrated burial traditions in the
ancient world. The foremost concern was the
preservation of the body, in order that it might be
reborn in the afterlife. While the painstaking
mummification process achieved this goal of
counteracting the effects of physical decomposition,
the ancient Egyptian were not satisfied with a
wrapped body alone. Gorgeously decorated mummy
cases and sarcophagi developed over the course of
thousands of years so that the body could be
properly presented to the audience of the gods
awaiting the deceased’s arrival in the next world.
These cases were created from a variety of materials,
including stone, wood, and cartonnage, that were
utilized depending upon the wealth and status of the
deceased. Some of the earliest examples were
relatively unadorned, featuring the general shape of
the body highlighted by idealized facial details. Later,
they evolved into ornate memorials that sought to
recreate the specific appearance of the memorialized
individual, both in terms of physical feature as well as
clothing and jewelry. Polychrome paint infused the
works with color and the finest examples were gilt.
This gorgeous fragment comes from the front of an
anthropomorphic sarcophagus lid that would have
once held the body of the deceased. Here, the artist
has clearly succeeded in capturing the individualized
facial feature of the deceased despite the idealized
tendencies inherent in the style.
Subtle features like the figure’s full, fleshy cheeks,
round jaw line, and bulbous nose effectively declare
this representation to be that of a specific person
while simultaneously maintaining an adherence to the
standard type. The unadorned wig that crowns the
head, the man’s almond-shaped eyes and clearly
defined brow, and his sweetly smiling mouth all have
their precedent in some of the earliest works of
Egyptian funerary art. Created during the twilight of
the Late Dynastic Period, this gorgeous fragment of a
head reveals that traditional Egyptian art forms
continued to thrive despite the increasing influx of
Hellenistic tastes.
- (X.0377)
|
