For some, Plato’s observation still rings true. In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher claimed in his Laws that a remarkable degree of stasis could be observed in ancient Egyptian artforms: ‘no painter or artist is allowed to innovate… or to leave the traditional forms and invent new ones… And you will find that their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms that they had 10,000 years ago’. While today we would see ancient Egypt existing for a period of more like 4,000 years, it is true that certain artistic themes can be traced across this span. This tendency for repetition is at odds with the freedom and individuality associated with artists in the modern world. As such, it can be easy to see the corpus of ancient Egyptian art and artefacts as primarily a collection of endlessly regurgitated generic forms produced by equally indistinguishable artisans. The resulting anonymity of ancient Egyptian artists is compounded by an apparently widespread – though not universal – restraint in signing their work. Little wonder, then, that study of ancient Egyptian crafts has traditionally focused on the images and objects themselves, rather than on what they can reveal about the individuals who created them.
Yet when you look more closely, traces of individuality can be found in many different forms. On one level, new styles demonstrably did emerge over the course of the millennia. Items such as jewellery were susceptible to the whims of fashion, while advances in technology like the development of the potter’s wheel and glassmaking presented new possibilities and a wider canvas to experiment on. At another level, there are ample opportunities to find traces of the people responsible for achievements ranging from monumental architecture to minute worked gems. Perhaps the most obvious insights into individual artisans can be found in inscriptions on funerary stelae, which document how they wished to be remembered. One, belonging to a man called Irtysen, declares ‘I am an expert artist/craftsman, someone who is efficient at his craft’. Archaeology allows us to explore the workshops where sculptors toiled, or the kilns pushing ancient Egyptian thermal technology to its limits. Perhaps, though, the most vivid glimpses of these artisans as people can be found in more subtle traces, like the mistakes they concealed or the unfinished works that betray their methods. All of this, and more, is being explored in the Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (see ‘Further information’ below).
Egypt inside out
‘For the last 40 years, the Fitzwilliam Museum has been looking at ancient Egyptian objects from the inside out’, says exhibition curator Helen Strudwick. ‘We’ve been trying to understand not only how the object was made, but why it was made in that particular way, who was commissioning these items, and what they were paying for. So, it’s a very broad spectrum of research that we’ve been doing here.’ In many ways, this approach can be traced back to that most celebrated of archaeological discoveries: the tomb of Tutankhamun. In 1923, Howard Carter engaged a forensic scientist, Alfred Lucas, to conserve the materials within. Rather than rushing to apply preservatives, though, Lucas took care to study how these objects were made, and what with, before subjecting them to any conservation treatments. What was pioneering in the 1920s is standard practice for museums in the 2020s. Ever since the 1970s, when the Fitzwilliam appointed Janine Bourriau as its first professional Egyptologist, the museum has taken a keen interest in how these objects were made, undertaking detailed studies of material ranging all of the way from pottery to papyrus. In the exhibition, the artefacts are mostly divided by type, with sections devoted to stoneworkers, potters, makers of faience and glass, metalworkers, jewellers, makers of linen and basketry, woodworkers, papyrus-makers, and coffin-makers. The opening portion, though, asks how these varied professions saw themselves, and how they were seen by wider society.
