The wooden beam that may once have held the oars of the Pharaoh Khufu’s second boat was lifted yesterday from its pit on the Giza Plateau, Nevine El-Aref reports
History has a special scent and taste on the Giza Plateau, where an unsurpassed assembly of soaring pyramids, the awe-inspiring Sphinx, and splendid chapels and tombs reflects the great civilisation of ancient Egypt. Although most of the plateau has been thoroughly excavated, there are still secrets to be revealed.
The Japanese-Egyptian team as well as journalists and photographers, yesterday gathered around the pit of the Pharaoh Khufu’s second boat on the southern side of the Great Pyramid at Giza to watch minute by minute the lifting up of a boat beam that had recently been discovered, revealing a further such secret.
The beam is carved in wood with metal pieces in different shapes and sizes. The restorers had earlier removed other beams from the pit and covered them in situ with a special chemical solution to protect them from the atmosphere.
The present beam has now been taken to the laboratory on the plateau where restorers will first reduce its humidity until it has reached 55 per cent and then treat and consolidate it.
“This may be the beam that once held the oars of Khufu’s second boat,” Eissa Zidan, director of restoration at the project told Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that the beam had been found during excavations carried out inside the pit on the boat’s eighth layer.
Showing posts with label Wood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wood. Show all posts
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Museum Pieces - Canopic Chest of Hornedjitef
Canopic Chest Of Hornedjitef
In the 30th Dynasty (380-343 BC), the four packages with embalmed entrails were no longer interred in vases or between the mummy's legs, but placed in a small wooden chest in the form of a shrine or naos. These chapel-shaped canopic chests are also found in the subsequent age of the Ptolemies. The chest consists of a square base plate on which stand four painted side panels, which incline inward slightly and are bounded by a characteristic hollow cornice. A wooden figure of a falcon mummy has been attached to the lid, representing Sokar, the god of the dead. The owner of this chest was Hornedjitef, a priest of Amon. His grave lay along the road leading to Queen Hatshepsut's temple of the dead, in Deir el-Bahari. Other burial gifts belonging to this person are now in the British Museum.
Date created:
250 BC - 200 BC
Measurements:
58 x 28 x 28 cm
Objectnr:
AH 215
Source: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/canopic-chest-of-hornedjitef/GQEyRicBwCqseQ?projectId=art-project
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| Rijksmuseum van Oudheden Leiden |
In the 30th Dynasty (380-343 BC), the four packages with embalmed entrails were no longer interred in vases or between the mummy's legs, but placed in a small wooden chest in the form of a shrine or naos. These chapel-shaped canopic chests are also found in the subsequent age of the Ptolemies. The chest consists of a square base plate on which stand four painted side panels, which incline inward slightly and are bounded by a characteristic hollow cornice. A wooden figure of a falcon mummy has been attached to the lid, representing Sokar, the god of the dead. The owner of this chest was Hornedjitef, a priest of Amon. His grave lay along the road leading to Queen Hatshepsut's temple of the dead, in Deir el-Bahari. Other burial gifts belonging to this person are now in the British Museum.
Date created:
250 BC - 200 BC
Measurements:
58 x 28 x 28 cm
Objectnr:
AH 215
Source: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/canopic-chest-of-hornedjitef/GQEyRicBwCqseQ?projectId=art-project
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Museum Pieces - Spoon in the Form of a Young Girl Carrying a Vase
Spoon in the Form of a Young Girl Carrying a Vase
H. : 31,50 cm. ; L. : 7 cm.
E 8025 bis
This delicate decorated spoon is quite remarkable both for its size and for excellent condition, with well-preserved inlays of blue pigment. The figure is carved from a strip of wood, while the interior details are in bas-relief. The decoration depicts a servant girl carrying a large earthenware jar, which is actually a receptacle fitted with its own cover, so creating a perfect correspondence between the object and its subject.
A heavily laden servant
Though smiling, the young woman seems to move forward with difficulty, slightly bent under the weight of her burden. She is entirely naked except for a broad necklace that covers her shoulders; jewels, now lost, once adorned her legs, but she still wears her earrings, visible under her thick braided hair. Her nudity contrasts with the rich decoration of the objects she carries: a stemmed krater with scroll handles on her right shoulder, and a bag in her left hand. Both these objects are decorated with water lily petals, the ubiquitous plant motif in art of this period, which also reappears on the plinth supporting the figure. The vase is hollowed into the shape of a spoon, which is concealed under a cover that pivots on a tenon. The composition is perfectly balanced and the object is in an impeccable state of preservation.
Carved spoons
This object imbued with an artistic aesthetic belongs to a category that is well represented in museums around the world; as in almost every domain of Egyptian art, none of these spoons is similar to any other. This one is particularly large, and its slender shape suggests a date from the early Ramesside period. The figures adorning these objects, generally female, are placed in bucolic, artistic (dance or music), or domestic scenes, as with this example. They are not identified as either historic figures or divinities. The action does not seem intended for a deity, and there is no accompanying inscription. Other spoons feature images of flowers, elaborate bouquets, animals in action, and trussed game animals: a repertoire that is ultimately fairly similar to the genre scenes and still lifes of western art.
A purpose that remains a mystery
The purpose of these objects has never been fully determined. The receptacles are shallow, which suggests they might be cosmetic spoons. These highly colored and oily products would have left traces on the spoons, however, and yet the wood is perfectly clean. Though fragile, the handles bear no marks or signs of wear.
The elaborate bouquets and trussed game animals represent temple scenes of offerings to the gods. Such subjects may have been adapted for objects intended as gifts, which would correspond well with their generally attractive themes and subjects, a reflection of the sensibilities of the upper echelons of New Kingdom society. Indeed, many of these spoons were found in the necropolis of the royal harem of Medinet el-Ghurob, in the Faiyum region.
Bibliography
J. Vandier d'Abbadie, Musée du Louvre Département des Antiquités Egyptiennes - Catalogue des objets de toilette égyptiens, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1972, pp. 20-1, entry 30.
Author(s): Pierrat-Bonnefois Geneviève
Source: http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/spoon-form-young-girl-carrying-vase
 |
| Credit: Musée du Louvre/C. Décamps |
E 8025 bis
This delicate decorated spoon is quite remarkable both for its size and for excellent condition, with well-preserved inlays of blue pigment. The figure is carved from a strip of wood, while the interior details are in bas-relief. The decoration depicts a servant girl carrying a large earthenware jar, which is actually a receptacle fitted with its own cover, so creating a perfect correspondence between the object and its subject.
A heavily laden servant
Though smiling, the young woman seems to move forward with difficulty, slightly bent under the weight of her burden. She is entirely naked except for a broad necklace that covers her shoulders; jewels, now lost, once adorned her legs, but she still wears her earrings, visible under her thick braided hair. Her nudity contrasts with the rich decoration of the objects she carries: a stemmed krater with scroll handles on her right shoulder, and a bag in her left hand. Both these objects are decorated with water lily petals, the ubiquitous plant motif in art of this period, which also reappears on the plinth supporting the figure. The vase is hollowed into the shape of a spoon, which is concealed under a cover that pivots on a tenon. The composition is perfectly balanced and the object is in an impeccable state of preservation.
Carved spoons
This object imbued with an artistic aesthetic belongs to a category that is well represented in museums around the world; as in almost every domain of Egyptian art, none of these spoons is similar to any other. This one is particularly large, and its slender shape suggests a date from the early Ramesside period. The figures adorning these objects, generally female, are placed in bucolic, artistic (dance or music), or domestic scenes, as with this example. They are not identified as either historic figures or divinities. The action does not seem intended for a deity, and there is no accompanying inscription. Other spoons feature images of flowers, elaborate bouquets, animals in action, and trussed game animals: a repertoire that is ultimately fairly similar to the genre scenes and still lifes of western art.
A purpose that remains a mystery
The purpose of these objects has never been fully determined. The receptacles are shallow, which suggests they might be cosmetic spoons. These highly colored and oily products would have left traces on the spoons, however, and yet the wood is perfectly clean. Though fragile, the handles bear no marks or signs of wear.
The elaborate bouquets and trussed game animals represent temple scenes of offerings to the gods. Such subjects may have been adapted for objects intended as gifts, which would correspond well with their generally attractive themes and subjects, a reflection of the sensibilities of the upper echelons of New Kingdom society. Indeed, many of these spoons were found in the necropolis of the royal harem of Medinet el-Ghurob, in the Faiyum region.
Bibliography
J. Vandier d'Abbadie, Musée du Louvre Département des Antiquités Egyptiennes - Catalogue des objets de toilette égyptiens, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1972, pp. 20-1, entry 30.
Author(s): Pierrat-Bonnefois Geneviève
Source: http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/spoon-form-young-girl-carrying-vase
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