deities from the time of ptolemy ii

8/13/2019 Deities From the Time of Ptolemy II

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BULLETIN OF THEM U S E U M OF FINE ARTS

VOLUME LI BOSTON, FEBRUARY, 1953 No. 283

Fig. 1 Granite Relief Detai l : The God Amun Time of Ptolemy IIM a r t h a A. Willcomb Fund

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY SUBSCRIPTION ONE DOLLAR


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LI, 2 BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTSPTOLEMAIC RELIEFSIIIDeities from the Time ofPtoIemy II Philadelphus

the torso of the deity on th e left (Fig. 1 , Cover)shows nothing of th at subtle, almost reticent,treatment for which the relief work of the classicalperiods of ancient Egypt is justly famous. As amatter of fact , it appears even more pronouncedIn two notes previously published in the when compared with the str ictly traditional mode

Bulletin stone reliefs of the early Ptolemaic in which the figure of the god on the right hasperiod have been discussed which are representative been cut.Philip Arrhidaeus and Ptolemy I Soter.1 In provides us with a first ndication of the approxi-both instances provenance as well as inscriptional mate date of the relief: it must belong to the Lateevidence made it easy to identify the t wo kings Period, and within this period to post-Persianand to establish the approximate date at which times when a relief style employing more accen-the representations on the blocks were carved. tuated modeling of the human body makes itsAlthough it is the framework composed of works first appearance under King Nectanebo I 378-of a rt the date of which is indisputably fixed, tha t 360 B.C.) of DynastyXXX.4 This stylistic featurealone can serve as basis for outlining the develop- ture persists from that date onward in many royalmerit of style and craftsmanship in any given reliefs although the tradi tional style, using moreperiod, the result is not always gratifying to the subtle surface treatment, continued. A well-reader, and often the picture thus gained appears dated relief of red Assuan granite (Fig. 3), cutblurred since divergent tendencies and seemingly during the reign of King Nectanebo I I 359-341contradictory features do not fit the pattern B.C.), which entered the Museum's collections inwhich the orderly mind of a student of Egyptian 1890,5 hows on the lefta male deity, the torso ofar t might like to construct. The main difficulty which is treated in amanner similar to that of theEgypanart lies in the lack of a reliable ar t history 1 cover).he latter is a representation of thedealing with the period from the seventh to the god Amun adorned with his characteristic two-first century B.C., and more specifically one feathered crown, th e ceremonial beard, and awhich concerns itself with the fourth and third short loincloth. A pectoral in form of a miniaturecenturies; the epoch during which the worlds of tur e shrine is suspended from a necklace which isequal terms. This is the Period a t which, gen- stretched hand held probably the scepter denotingthe Classical Archaeologist takes over, each Life. The inscription above the forehead of themainly occupied with his own field and hardly fa- god is lost; it presumably contained his name andfamiliar with whatever documentation is available epithets and ends with Life and Lordship. Theto the other.2 As a result we are faced with a text below the outstretched arm is the beginninglack of stylistic definitions. taking into account of his speech: I give t o thee ddressed to theth e foreign as well as native elements in Late king in response to whatever the king may havewhich base the study of an unrelated monument boring the figure of the god Ptah . As the captionspecifically of a relief primari ly executed in over his head Words spoken by ptah Sokartraditional style and devoid of any inscriptions Osiris) implies the deity appears here in syncretisticwhich might offer a clue to its dat e of origin. tistic form as Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.7 He wears aSuch a work of art is the large relief block illustrated tight-fit tingheadcloth and amummy shroud, and

in Fig. 2. which was acquired by the Museum is adorned with a long straight beard and, hangingfrom the estate of the late Dikran G. Kelekian over the collar of his garment a t the nape of thein 1951.3 Its subject matter, the upper neck, a tassel. In his hands he holds the scepterpart of two gods skilfully carved in sunk relief, is of Lordship which is combined with the hieroglyphs

not unusual in itself, and at first glance the slab for Life and Stability and, below, the beginningmight even pass as one of numerous similar represenaons of his speech repeats the words carved insenta tions found on the walls of many an Egyptian

examples of the art of Egypt in the times of Thus only the workmanship of the left figure

encountered in treating problems of Late Egyptian left figure on the newly acquired relief block (Fig.

Egypt and Greece met for the first time on nearlygenerally speaking, the Egyptologist leaves off and

twice wound around the god's neck.ing Lordship while the other hand holds the sign of

The ouseched

Egyptian art, and have no firm ground yet on to offer. Behind Amun is a chapel or shrine bar-

Egyptian temple The material, however, is red ssuangranite which occurs much less frequently 1937),Kl ei ner n Jahrbuch desdes Deutschen Archologischen Instituts, 52

Acc No. 90.233: red granite: from the Hall of Nectanebo n theGreat Temple at Bubastis: gift of Egypt Exploration Fund. Height 1.051891).p. 57. pI. XLIV fig. L . William Stevenson Smith. Ancient Egypt osrepresented in The Museum of Fine Arts third revised edition. Boston,1952). pp. 157-158. fig. 103. B. Porter and R. L. B. Mors, TopagraphicalBibliography. vol. IV Oxford. 1934 . p. 30.

6 Such pectoral with its long necklace is offered to gods by Ptolemy IIin reliefs published in E. Naville, Details relevs dons les ruines de quelquestemples Egyptiens Paris, 1930).pI. 5A; and The Journal o the W alters ArtGallery Baltimore), vols. VII-VIII(1944-45),p. 52. fig. 13. Its Egyptianname is wd: w) literally Well-being or Prosperity. For pectorals in gen-eral, see E. T. Whyte in Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.15 1892-1893), pp. 404-416.7 Maj Sandman Holmberg. The God Ptah Lund, 1946 . pp. 138-146.

than limestone or sandstone, and the modeling Of m., width 1.315m.; thickness 57 cm Edouard Naville, Bubastis London.1BulletinM . A., Vol.L, No. 280, June, 1952, pp. 19-27; and Vol, L,No. 281, October. 1952, pp. 49-56.

Greek and Demotic papyri are sti ll our main source for the history andcivilization of the Ptolemaic Period ca. 330-30 B.C. of Egypt. Thewealth of hieroglyphic inscriptions on Private monuments. statues andstelae. has not been exploited nearly as much.Height 82cm., width 90m. hickness 13cm.; width of shoulders of figure an left 25cm. Original dressed surfaces of block preserved on all sides exceptat bottom.

3 Acc. No. 51.739; red granite: Martha A. Willcomb Fund.


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BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS LI, 3

Fig. 2. Amun and Ptah Sokar Osiris Granite Relief from the Iseion at Behbeit el Hagar Time of Ptolemy IIM a r t h a A. Willcomb Fund

fron t of the god Amun. Behind the chapel of photograph of it was available to Steindorff whenPt ah are visible the wig, shoulder, and arm of an- he collected the others, it has not been publishedother deity facing to the right where a parallel with them.representation of gods must have decorated th e As for their place of provenance these reliefs falladjoining block. into three groups: those which come from the

There can be no doubt t ha t thi s relief came temple of Samannud (Seb enny tos) , others whichfrom a temple the walls of which were covered are from the temple at Behbeit el Hagar (thewith representations of deities to whom the king Iseion of the Classical au th or s ), and a thirdbrought various offerings. Fortunately the group the origin of which is still un cer ta in .source from which the block was acquired pro- Steindorff was able to distinguish these groupsvides in itself a suggestion as to two possible places par tly on the basis of earlier accounts which men-of origin. There is a number of large granite tion certain reliefs when they were still in situ, andtemple reliefs of the Late Period in American col- par tly on the basis of the inscriptions which namelections, and one of t he many Services rendered by one of the two localities or its principal deities.the late George SteindorfF was to collect and pre- I t would have been impossible, however, to de-sent these in an attractive study which was pub- termine the exact origin of t he Boston relief solelylished in 1945. Since most of these slabs had, at by means of Steindorffs stu dy since the block hadone time or anothe r, passed through the collection not been published before and neither its inscrip-of Dikran G. Kelekian, from whose estat e the Mu- tions nor the representation of th e two deities of-seum acquired the new relief, i t evidently belongs fered in themselves a reference to one or the otherto th e same lot, although, due to the fact th at the of th e two sites. In general the impression pre-relief was in a warehouse for many years and no vailed th at stylistically the relief belonged rather

George Steindorff, Relief; from the Temples of Sebennytos andIseion in American Collections, in The Journal of the WaltersArt Gallery,vols. VII-VIII 1944-45), pp. 38-59 with 23 figs.

Id . ibid., figs. 6 ,7 ,16 ,9a n d12 , and probably figs. and 8, 10, 11, 23Id . ibid., figs. 3,21, and probably figs. 2,4, 5, 13, 1 5 ,17,1 8 ,19 .I d . ibid. figs. 14, 20, 22.


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LI, 4 BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM O F FINE ARTS

Fig. 3. Granite Relief fro m the Temple of Bubastis T i m e of N e c t a n e b oIIGift of the Egypt Explorat ion Fun d, 1890

to t he group known to have come from the greattemple of Behbeit el Hagar in th e Delta, b ut be-fore any serious study of it was undertaken a for-tunate coincidence brought forth a quite unex-pected lead.

In recent years Professor Pierre Montet of theCollege de France and his assistants have done in-termitt ent ly some work of clearing and recordinga t the temple of Behbeit el Hagar, the ruins ofwhich cover more than an acre and, for centuries,

have presented themselves as a maze of largegranite blocks, strewn about as if overthrown bya giant's hand. Th e early visitors who venturedto t he place have left us some notes and descrip-t i o n s ; later Edouard Naville explored the site in885 and in the nineties had paper squeezes takenof over one hundred blo ck s. And finally G.Roeder and C. C. Edgar copied the accessiblePorter and Moss, loc.cit. pp. 40-42.Edouard Naville, loc. cit., pp. 39-63 pl. 1-15.


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BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS LI, 5blocks and furnished a summary description of 26, 1845. He has left us in his Denkmaler a shortthe scenes represented on t h e m . Although description of a few blocks and among them notedsome of the reliefs recorded by Naville before the one as showing Amon; Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.)turn of the century found their way in to Amer- Th e mention of these two gods can only refer toican col lec tio ns, none of those published by Roe- the Boston relief; both Amun and Ptah have beender and E d g a r have ever appeared in the recorded only once a t Behbeit thus far, Pt ah -market. In 1909 the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek at Sokar-Osiris never, and the combination of theCopenhagen acquired in Ca iro two reliefs from two gods Amun and Ptah-Sokar-Osi ris is so rareBehbeit el Hagar, and in the following year C. C. that it has to be concluded th at the Boston blockEdgar noticed the destruction of anothe r b l o c k . was the one which Lepsius saw a t th e IseionIt is therefore most likely th at the bulk of these more than a cen tury ago.reliefs were taken from Behbeit el Hagar during I t is far more difficult to come to a conclusionthe first decade of this century. as to the d ate a t which the relief of the two deities

The French scholars who have worked at the was carved. The temple to which it belonged wassite since 1947 and studied the temple have con- built by King Nec tane boII 359-341 B.C.) or bytinuously reported on their findings. Due to one of his predecessors.; This ruler also begantheir efforts numerous new decorated blocks the decoration of the walls where his name ap-have been cleared, and one of them bears a rep- pears in the captions of several reliefs. But byresentation of th e god Pta h (Fig. 4 which is so far the largest part of scenes are inscribed forstrikingly similar to that on the Boston block PtolemyIhi la de lp hu s who was King of Egypt(Fig. 2) that one is tempted to ascribe them both from 285 to 247 B.C. He, too, left some of t heto th e same hand. On closer examination certa in relief work unfinished, and the name of his suc-small differences become a pp are n t ; yet style and cessor,PtolemyIIuergetes 247-221 B.C.), isworkmanship of the recently discovered Iseion found in the captions of a few scenes as well as onblock are so surprisingly akin to those of the relief cornices and columns of the temple. It wouldunder discussion that it seemed almost assured seem simple to assume th at each representationthat the two pieces belonged to the same temple accompanied by inscriptions with the name of adecoration. king, was cut during th e reign of th at parti cular

But yet another indication of the provenance of ruler, and thus gain styli stic criteria by which thethe Boston slab has become available, and it came undated reliefs could be judged. Bu t at Behbeitto light as a result of th e find of the new Iseion el Hagar this method cannot be applied with anyblock with the representat ion of the god Pta h. reasonable amount of certainty: Steindorff him-This deity had not been mentioned in th e list of self remarked: Artistically, the reliefs of Nek-gods and goddesses drawn up by Professor Montet tanebos II and of the Ptolemies form a unit, andas a result of his first study of the temple of Beh- he concluded: I am unable to discern any styl-beit el H a g a r , and thus the earlier lists compiled istic differences between t h e m . This remark-by C. Roeder were co ns ul te d. Although they able unity, achieved in spite of the fact th at Nec-did not furnish any additional evidence for the tanebo II and Ptolemy I I lived nearly a centurygod Ptah , they do give one reference to the name apar t, is due to the frequently noticed ability ofof the god Amun in a hieroglyphic inscription at the Egyptian craftsmen to imitate the style of anBehbeit? and furthermore cite C. R. Lepsius, earlier period with well-nigh complete fidelity.Denkmaler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, Text vol. Th e outstanding styli stic feature of the Boston re-I (Leipzig, 1897) for a block which Roeder did not lief, the elaborate modeling of the torso of the godfind at the Iseion, but which was seen by Lepsius Amun, is one which is already found on reliefs ofwhen he visited Behbeit el Hagar on September the time of King Ne ct an eb o , and yet the rep-Travaux 35 1913), pp. 89-1 16. of the crown is not as deeply carved as tha t of the

body or as that of other divine crowns on blocksknuckles of the hand with th e sign of Life. Someday, perhaps, when all accessible blocks at Beh-beit el Hagar have been cleared and published theriddle of the semi-finished stateof many of thesereliefs will be solved.

The question now arises whether the degree ofmodeling as exemplified by the torso of the godAmun is of a ny help in determining the date of theslab, and here we are on somewhat safer ground.

Z e i t s c h r i f t fur agyptische Sprache,46 1909-10), pp. 62-73: Recueilde resentation of the deity s unfinished: the outlineSteindorff, loc. cit.. figs. 3 and 21.

See above, note 14.Maria Mogensen, La Glyptothequey Carlsberg, la collection egyp- from the Iseion, and the same holds t rue for the

tienne Copenhagen, 1930), p. 108 A774), p. 109 A776), P I .CXVIII.Recueil de Travaux,5 1913), pp. 90 and 91 Block 2).P. Montet, in Kemi, 10 1949). pp. 43-48; A. Lezine, ibid..pp. 49-57:P. Montet, in Chronique dEgypte, 4 1949). pp. 33-34: id . in Bulletin de laSociete Francaise dEgyptologie, 2 October, 1949). pp. 41-43: id . in Annales

du Servicees Antiquitese IEgypte,0 1950). p. 44: J. Leclant, inOrientalia 19 1950 ). p. 496 and figs. 18-25 on pl. LXVI-LXXIII; id.ibid., 21 I 952). p. 246 and figs. 22-23 on pl. XLIV -XLV.courtesy of Mr. Jean Leclant to whom is also owed our Fig. 5 which shows

Notably in the cutting of the caps contour and in the treatment of

Id ibid. 19 1950) p 496 fig. 23 on pl. LXXI; here illustrated by theThe inscription abovetolemy further to the right on the same block.the god reads: Ptah. South of His Wall , Lord of Ankh -tawy).

the eye.pp. 43 ffLes i v in i t e s dutemple deBehbeit el hagar, in Kemi, 10 1949),

Zeitschrift f u r agyptische Sprache, 46 1909), pp. 71-72; Recueil deLOC. it ., p. 93 Block IO .

C . R. Lepsius, lor. cit.. p. 220.L e z i n e , loc. cit., p 56.

Id. ibid., p. 58.See above. note 4.

Steindorff. loc. cit., p 40.Travaux5 1913). pp. 115-116.


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LI, 6 BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTSnected with them; such at least may have beenthe original intention of the founder. Only whenwork on th e reliefs was resumed under Ptolemy I IPhiladelphus may the tendency to do justice toother Egyptian gods as well, have developed.Osiris, Isis, and Horus had long been associatedwith Behbeit el H a g a r , b ut Amun of Thebes andPt ah of Memphis have no primary connectionwith the place, and it is hardly possible th at it wasintended to represent them when the decorationof t he temple walls was begun during Dyn astyXXX. Their presence at Behbeit el Hagar ismost likely to be a result of the pantheistic tend-encies for which th e Ptolemaic Period is sowell known.

In closing, a word might be said on the Greekinfluence to which so many salient features ofLate Egyptian art have been ascribed, especiallythe treatment of bodies in relief as shown in theleft figures on the reliefs of Ne ctanebo I (Fig. 3)and of Ptolemy II Figs. 1-2). I t is true thatsuch modeling makes its first appearance in reliefwork shortly before the middle of the fourth cen-tury B.C., but it is generally overlooked that inEgypti an sculpture in the round it occurs alreadyin the second half of t he sixth centu ry B.C., th atis, at a time when Creek Archaic sculpture wasstill far from a naturalistic approach in the tre at-ment of the male torso. For instance the model-ing of t he kneeling figure of Psamtik-seneb inthe British Mu s e u m clearly shows what mightbe termed tripart ition, th e subdivision of th efront of th e torso into three distinctly separate

Fig. 4. The God Ptah Behbeit el Hagar

There is no doubt tha t t he Ptolemaic craftsmenwho worked on the temple reliefs of Behbeit elHagar faithfully followed the style set under theearlier king, but in so doing they also slightly ex-aggerated certain features, and i t is this slightexaggeration which, at present, is perhaps theonly stylistic indication of t he da te of th e slabsrepresentations. Though photography cannot doustice to the nearly three-dimensional quality ofa few details, it may be pointed out that the

dept h of the navel, t he globular bulge of the ab-See the references cited in notes 22 and 23 above.

No. 16041; for references see Porter and Moss, oc. cit. IV p. 51.Psamtik-seneb is dated to the time of Amasis 568-525 B .C.) by SerapeumStela no. 4128 in the Louvre information kindly provided by Mr. G.Posener).domina1 region as it springs from the linea alba,and the projection of th e brachioradialis agreewith similar features on well-dated reliefs ofPtolemy I at the Iseion .

There is yet another point which helps to con-firm this attribution. As stat ed before, the nameof the god Amun occurs only on one block hithertoobserved a t B e h b e i t e l Hagar,hile the godPtah (Fig. 4) too is represented only once on ablock which happens to be dated to the reign ofPtolemy I I (Fig. 5 . Ptah-Sokar-Osiris is nevershown anywhere else in the reliefs of t he Iseion.As both Ptah and Amun are principal deities ofthe Egyptian pantheon it might be surprising tofind that there are so few representations of themin the temple. Th e reason lies in the purpose ofthe building which was primarily dedicated to th eOsiriac family of gods and to the deities con-

This conclusion is partly based on a s tudy of numerous photographsof unpublished blocks at Behbeit el Hagar which Mr. J. Leclant kindlyplaced at the disposal of this writer.See above, note 24.Photograph by courtesy of Mr. J. Leclant. To the left of this sceneappears the goddess Nut and, further to the left, the god Ptah Fig. 4).This block, which is decorated on three sides, belongs to the door embrasureof a partition wall between two rooms of the temple. Fig. 5 . Ptolemy II Offering to Osiris Behbeit el Hagar


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BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS LI, 7units, each of which is of swelling rounded formwithout any flat surfaces: the breast with pro-nounced lower boundary, below it the rest of therib cage within the limits of t he thoracic arch, a ndthen the upper abdomen with the navel near itsb a s e . In relief work this tripartition is first totypes.found on temple decorations of King Nectanebo I,but its translation into two-dimensional repre-sentation resulted in a curious shifting of theplanes, due no doubt t o the unwillingness of theEgyptian sculptor to deviate from certain tradi-tions. Thus the navel always remained near oneside of the torsos contour line as noticeable on thereliefs in Fig. 1 (Cover) and in Fig. 3. This formof modeling in relief is a native development de-rived from a mode established much earlier insculpture in the round, a nd it took place withoutforeign influence. Th e same holds true for real-istic portr aiture which time and again appears inEgyptian art , from Dynasty IV to Dynasty XXVand more frequently in the following centuriesdown to the Roman period. I t constitutes aninherent native trend, and in its final form is basedon long-established Egyp tian practice rathe r t hanon foreign motivation . Parallel with the develop-ment runs the traditional trend of pious conserva-tism, in relief as well as in sculpture in th e round,and frequently these two modes of representationare found side by side, as on th e Boston relief inthe figure of Amun on the one hand and in t ha t ofPtah-Sokar-Osiris on the ot h e r .

the Meroitic Kingdom of Kush embellished theoffering places of thei r pyramid tombs, and pro-vides comprehensive illustration of the a rt ofsculpture in relief in th e ancient Sudan: an a rt re-flecting local interpretations of Egypt ian pro-

Volume I in the same series, El Kurru, an ar-chaeological repor t on the excavation of t ha tearliest of th e royal cemeteries of Kush, was pub-lished by the Museum of Fine Arts in 1950.Volume 11, Nur i , a similar treatment of the prin-cipal cemetery of the Napatan Period, is now inan advanced stage of preparation. Subsequentvolumes dealing with the excavation of the ceme-teries a t Barkal and Meroe are planned to followthe completion of Nur i . The illustrations nowpublished as Vol. III are directly associated withthe archaeological material which will form thesubject matter of these projected volumes.

BERNARD . BOTHMER~~a For the anatomy of contemporary Greek statues, see the masterfulanalysis in Gisela M. A. Richter, Kouroi (New York, 1942 . pp. 34-40,157-158, 194-196, and p a s s i m .

This may be th e place to record th e following changes in th e locationof certain reliefs as published by Stei ndorf f. loc. cit.Fig. 10, in 1951 on loan a t the Cin cinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati. Ohio.Fig. 13, Museum of the Cranbrook Academy of Art , Bloomfield Hills,Fig. 14 Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts. Columbus, Ohio (No. 47.107 .Fig. 15 Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington (No. Eg 11.27 .

Michigan (No. 1948.33 .

A New Publication of theEgyptian DepartmentROYAL CEMETERIES OF KUSH, VOL. I I I,R Decorated Chapels of the Meroi ti c Pyram idsat Meroe and Barkal by Miss Suzanne E. Chap-

man of th e Museum staff and Dows Dunham,Curato r of Egypt ian Art , is shortly to appear, itsprice to be announced. This large folio volume2318nches) has a 6-page text by Mr.Dunham and contains 34 collotype plates, includ-ing reproductions of 55 original drawings by MissChapman, as well as photographs and materialfrom other sources, illustrat ing the relief decora-tion of all the funerary chapels a t Meroe andBarkal, based on the records of the HarvardUniversity-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedi-tion as well as on earlier photographs and copiesof these monuments. It constitutes the mostcomplete presentation now possible of the elab-orate scenes with which the kings and queens of

deities from the time of ptolemy ii

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