Well after a lot of thinking and a lot of organising and a lot of list-making, I think I had better get on with some research, yes?
ANCIENT EGYPT
Was it all just about funny looking people who like to draw?
(Who knows what the hell is going on there ^)
I thought seeing as I don’t know the first thing about ancient Egypt, that I should probably get to grips with all the crazy things they did. I have to admit, it was so much fun learning about it all, I just wanted to share it with everyone! (in some cases I attempted too and looked like a complete loser) There’s so much to learn about it all, and It was almost overwhelming when trying to find a starting point, so I looked back through my Berlin photo’s and decided it would be a good idea to start getting to know Egypt as a country before I dive into the facts, myths and lifestyles. I found A LOT of pretty funky stuff, but here’s one thing that (is well suited to Art and Design) and I found pretty fascinating:
The Egyptians were one of the first major civilians to codify design elements in art and architecture. The wall paintings done in the service of the Pharaohs followed a rigid code of visual rules and meanings. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian Hieroglyphic inscriptions appeared during the predynastic period on Naquada III pottery vessels dated around 3200BC.
I started feeling much better once I began to know more about what I was studying, and it just kept on coming and coming. The main things that crept up were temples, pyramids, sphinx’s and so on, but I didn’t research to far into these just incase I wasn’t going to focus on them. When in the Neues Museum, the hieroglyphs and engravings/reliefs were what caught my eye the most, and how each artifact seemed to have a story scripted on them. What I really wanted to find out is what they were trying to say, whats it all about? So I got to learning all about the kings and queens, the Pharaohs and the dynasties. I felt my brain swell up pretty fast!
GODS AND GODDESSES
Crikey, there sure are a lot of them, and in some crazy world their wives were also their sisters.. I won’t go into detail about them all (but I will some of the most important ones) as it could get very time-consuming, however here are some snaps from my sketchbook, and just ask if you would like to hear more.
I didn’t spend a lot of time on each god and goddess because once I had understood their role in Ancient Egypt it was enough for me to move on to the next. So, above we have:
AMUN: He was a pretty lucky fella, being one of the most powerful Gods in ancient egypt, known as ‘The King of the Gods’. He soon became combined with the Sun God, RA, in which made him even more powerful, furthermore becoming the God Amun-Ra. A large and important temple in Thebes was built to honour him.
ANUBIS: With the head of a Jackal and the body of a man, Anubis was the God of Embalming and of the Dead. They believed Anubis looked over the dead as jackals are usually found in cemeteries. When Osiris was murdered, Anubis was the God to help embalm his body. He watched over the mummifying of people when they died. priests often wore a ‘Mask of Anubis’ during mummification ceremonies.
ISIS: Isis is a protective Goddess with a headdress the shape of a throne, accompanied by a set of low horns with a sun disk. She was the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus.
In the end I ended up researching into 15 Gods and Goddesses. It fascinated me how each God or Goddess linked together, and the little stories and myths that the Egyptians believed in, for example: The Goddess of the sky Nut was believed to swallow the Sun God Ra at the end of each day and give birth to him each morning. Weird but wonderful! After looking into it all a little more it built up my interest and thankfully managed to keep me inspired.
I think my next steps should be to learn more about Pharaohs, what it takes to become a Pharoah and what it entails, and anything else that I may come across that could be helpful and/or a lead for a final piece.
Heather Kirk Illustration 