HUGE Pix Ancient Egypt Art British Museum Jewelry Sculpture Cosmetics Painting

$65.99 Buy It Now, FREE Shipping, 30-Day Returns, eBay Money Back Guarantee
Seller: ancientgifts ✉️ (5,439) 100%, Location: Lummi Island, Washington, US, Ships to: US, Item: 122588458384 HUGE Pix Ancient Egypt Art British Museum Jewelry Sculpture Cosmetics Painting. She has served as a consultant for a number of exhibitions and reinstallations at several major museums throughout the United States. The recipient of a B.A. in History from New York University, Dr. Russmann was awarded an M.A. and Ph.D. in Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.

  “Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum” by Edna R. Russmann (Editor).

  NOTE:   We have 75,000 books in our library, almost 10,000 different titles.  Odds are we have other copies of this same title in varying conditions, some less expensive, some better condition.  We might also have different editions as well (some paperback, some hardcover, oftentimes international editions).  If you don’t see what you want, please contact us and ask.  We’re happy to send you a summary of the differing conditions and prices we may have for the same title.

  DESCRIPTION:  Hardcover with dustjacket.  Publisher: University of California (2001).  Pages: 288.  Size:  12¼ x 10½ x 1¼ inches; 4¾ pounds.  Summary:    This sumptuously illustrated book is a wonderful introduction to the enormous and varied legacy of ancient Egypt. Created to accompany one of the greatest loan exhibitions ever to have been mounted from the collections of the British Museum, “Eternal Egypt” illustrates the development and achievements of ancient Egyptian art over a period of more than 3,000 years. Almost all of the artifacts have been drawn from the Museum's permanent exhibitions; many are among the finest examples of their kind to have survived from antiquity. Handsomely produced, this book reveals these objects—including sculpture, relief, papyri, hieroglyphic writing, jewelry, painting, cosmetic objects, and items of funerary equipment—as a means of extraordinary artistic expression rather than simply as historical documents. The book and the exhibit, which will travel to eight U.S. cities over the course of three years, provide a remarkable opportunity to explore the creative genius of one of the world's most extraordinary civilizations.

“Eternal Egypt” features the unique and innovative aspects of art from each period, as well as characteristic styles, forms, and genres. Edna Russmann, one of the world's leading authorities on ancient Egyptian art and curator of the exhibition, offers a wide-ranging and authoritative introductory essay that covers archaism, portraiture, and stylistic innovation in Egyptian art. The text also relates the history of the British Museum collection of Egyptian antiquities, showing how these exquisite art works came together. Each piece in the exhibition is given a separate explanatory entry in the book. With its superb color photographs and accessible yet informative text, “Eternal Egypt” marks a substantial step forward in scholarly understanding of its subject, embodying the results of the very latest research and containing many new and original insights and observations. It will be a must read for anyone with a passion for ancient Egypt.

 

CONDITION:  NEW.  HUGE new hardcover w/dustjacket. University of California (2001) 288 pages. Unblemished and pristine in every respect except for faint shelfwear to the dustjacket. Pages are clean, crisp, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, unambiguously unread. The shelfwear to the dustjacket takes the form of faint "crinkling" to the spine head and heel, as well as the upper dustjacket tips (the open corners of the top edge of the dustjacket, front and back). Condition of the book is entirely consistent with new stock from an open-shelf bookstore environment (such as Barnes & Noble, or B. Dalton, for instance) wherein patrons are permitted to browse open stock, and so otherwise "new" books might show minor signs of shelfwear, consequence of being shelved and re-shelved. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING! Meticulous and accurate descriptions! Selling rare and out-of-print ancient history books on-line since 1997. We accept returns for any reason within 14 days! #5161c.

PLEASE SEE DESCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES BELOW FOR DETAILED REVIEWS AND FOR PAGES OF PICTURES FROM INSIDE OF BOOK.

PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.

  PUBLISHER REVIEWS: 

  REVIEW:  In Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art From The British Museum, you’ll see 144 stunning artworks drawn from the world’s most important collection of Egyptian art outside Cairo.

REVIEW:  Edna Russmann joined the Brooklyn Museum in 1989, as a research associate, a position she held until 1998, when she was named Associate Curator and in 2000, Curator. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Museum she was Visiting Curator at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Associate Curator in the Department of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and was a William Stevenson Smith Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Dr. Russmann is the curator of Unearthing the Truth: Egypt’s Pagan and Coptic Sculpture, on view February 13 through May 19, 2009. She was Guest Curator of Temples and Tombs: Treasures of Egyptian Art from the British Museum and Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum, both organized and circulated by the American Federation of Arts. She has served as a consultant for a number of exhibitions and reinstallations at several major museums throughout the United States. The recipient of a B.A. in History from New York University, Dr. Russmann was awarded an M.A. and Ph.D. in Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.

 

  REVIEW: 

Published in connection with a traveling exhibition held at the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, and seven other institutions between Mar. 1, 2000 and Sept. 21, 2003.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS:

A Historical Overview of Egyptian Art by Edna R. Russmann.

Aspects of Egyptian Art by Edna R. Russman.

Two Dimensional Representation.

Portraiture.

Archaism.

The Formation and Growth of the Egyptian Collections of the British Museum by T.G.H. James.

Catalogue:

Early Dynastic Period.

Old Kingdom.

Middle Kingdom.

New Kingdom.

New Kingdom to Ptolemaic Period.

New Kingdom to Roman Period.

Third Intermediate Period.

Third Intermediate Period to Late Period.

Late Period.

Ptolemaic Period.

  PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS: 

  REVIEW:  When it comes to ancient Egyptian artifacts, the British Museum holds one of the best collections in the world. When remodeling necessitated removal of many objects from display, the concept of a traveling exhibit was born. The show, which opened in Toledo, OH, in March, will be on display in different locations in the United States until the beginning of January 2004. Over 144 pieces are included, many of which are from the Study Collection, not usually on public view. Russmann (Egyptian collections, Brooklyn Museum of Art) has put together a marvelous exhibition and gathered exceptional scholars to join her in writing on their areas of specialization. The result is this excellent catalog, full of clear illustrations of both delightful tidbits and impressive masterworks. Easy to use and fun to read.

  REVIEW:  When it comes to ancient Egyptian artifacts, the British Museum holds one of the best collections in the world. When remodeling necessitated removal of many objects from display, the concept of a traveling exhibit was born. The show, which opened in Toledo, OH, in March, will be on display in different locations in the United States until the beginning of January 2004. Over 144 pieces are included, many of which are from the Study Collection, not usually on public view. Russmann (Egyptian collections, Brooklyn Museum of Art) has put together a marvelous exhibition and gathered exceptional scholars to join her in writing on their areas of specialization. The result is this excellent catalog, full of clear illustrations of both delightful tidbits and impressive masterworks. Easy to use and fun to read, this is highly recommended for academic and large public libraries. [Library Journal].

REVIEW:  "Eternal Egypt: Masterworks Of Ancient Art From The British Museum", an outstanding exhibition curated by Edna R. Russman of the Brooklyn Museum (which has its own superlative Egyptian collection), presents 144 masterpieces from the British Museum and will travel to various cities in the United States through early 2004.

  Most of the objects are arranged chronologically, with some thematic groupings such as scribal arts and jewelry. The earliest objects are a small ivory figure of a king from Abydos dating to ca. 3000 B.C. and an ivory plaque from the tomb of the 1st Dynasty king Den (ca. 2985 B.C.). While this timeline approach is helpful for ancient Egypt neophytes like me, it occasionally separates pieces that you might otherwise wish to compare side-by-side. One example is the head of Mentuhotep II (ca. 2055-2004 B.C.) and a head of Thutmose III (ca. 1479-1425 B.C.), both wearing the white crown. The two are similar in scale, but distinctive in styles and materials (Mentuhotep is in rough sandstone, his skin painted bright reddish brown and the crown white; Thutmose is carved out of fine-grained dark gray stone, unpainted but polished to a velvety finish).

  Many of the sculptures are large to colossal in size, such as a standing black granite figure of Sesostris III (ca. 1874-1855 B.C.), a red granite lion of Amenhotep III (ca. 1390-1336 B.C.), a pink granite statue of Ramesses II (ca. 1279-1213 B.C.), and a Hathor head capital from Bubastis (ca. 924-850 B.C.). My votes for best in show go to a white-and-brown banded quartzite head of Amenhotep III, looking pudgy faced and benign, and a seated sandstone figure of Sety II (ca. 1200-1194 B.C.) that embodies a static, impassive sense of power.

  Several wooden statuettes are among the exhibition's highlights. These include an ebony figure of a 6th Dynasty (ca. 2345-1855 B.C.) palace official named Meryrahashtef, which the modern sculptor Henry Moore admired, and a late 18th or early 19th (ca. 1336-1279 B.C.) figure of a man wearing an elaborately pleated costume. A number of papyri are on display, including three vignettes from a 19th Dynasty (ca. 1295-1186 B.C.) Book of the Dead showing the funeral of Ani, with his mourning wife and associates; Ani in the Hall of Judgment; and scenes of Ani's life in paradise. Also on view is a satyrical papyrus of the 19th or 20th Dynasty (ca. 1295-1069 B.C.) depicting various animals in human roles, with predators and prey mixing: a lion and gazelle play a board game, while a hyena plays pipes as he leads his goats to pasture and a cat herds a flock of ducks.

 

  Several objects are familiar to aficionados of the late 18th Dynasty: a painted stela showing an aged Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye; a statue of Tutankhamun reinscribed for Horemheb, the general who came to power at the dynasty's end; and reliefs of Horemheb on which the uraeus, the rearing cobra denoting royalty, was added after his ascension. The creepiest objects in the exhibition are two wooden guardian demons from Horemheb's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

  A headset audio guide was well worthwhile, providing clear commentary on a number of the pieces that supplemented the placards at each display case. Actress Heather Headley reads the basic narration, but often introduces observations by others such as Brooklyn Museum curator Edna R. Russman and W. Vivian Davies and Richard Parkinson of The British Museum. There are children's versions of the audio tracks for a few of the objects.

  A catalog, sharing the exhibition's title, is available in hardback and paperback versions from the University of California Press (published in association with the American Federation of Arts). The show's curator, Edna R. Russman, is lead author and editor with contributions by British Museum and Brooklyn Museum Egyptologists and others.

REVIEW:  From the Predynastic Period (circa 5,000 - 3,100 B.C.) to the time of Cleopatra and the Roman occupancy (30 B.C. to 642 A.D.), the British Museum houses the foremost collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world. The Eternal Egypt exhibition is a rare opportunity to view such a magnificent and astounding selection of objects, over half of which have never been seen outside of London.

  Eternal Egypt is the first major survey exhibition that approaches the fascinating world of ancient Egypt from an art historical standpoint and is designed to highlight the evolution and achievements of Egyptian art over a period of more than 3,500 years. Ranging from intimate treasures to monumental statues, the diverse works on display encompass the entire repertoire of the ancient Egyptian artist and include sculpture, papyri, pottery shards, jewelry, cosmetics, and funerary objects, as well as portraits and personal possessions of famous pharaohs, including Akhenaten, Amenhotep III, and Ramesses the Great.

  Arranged chronologically, the installation allows viewers to see how dramatically this art changed over time and provides an overview of the richness and scope of this exceptional collection. The works on display were chosen not only for their role in telling the story of ancient Egyptian art, but also for their sheer visual splendor. This selection represents the best of The British Museum’s holdings, and includes many of the museum’s well known "pilgrimage pieces," as well as more rarely seen but no less beautiful works. The works in the exhibition comprise a wide variety of media including stone, ivory, terracotta, wood, papyrus, glass, and gold – the metal of the pharaohs.

   

  Highlights of Eternal Egypt include a splendid gilded cartonnage mummy mask, leaves from several Books of the Dead, a colossal quartzite portrait head of Amenhotep III, a haunting Greco-Roman period mummy portrait, a marvelously sculpted red granite lion and the only seated statue of King Sety II.

REVIEW:  Things go faster and faster now, which is one reason to see "Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art From the British Museum" at the Walters Art Museum, in which they don't. The beauty of the show, and its instructive power, are both to be found in its wondrous lack of hurry. Every now and then it seems a good idea to just stop.

  That's what old Egyptian art, even cracked and broken, does.

  It holds still.

  It stands firmly.

  It stays locked.

  The images and signs that our era likes best often involve rushing -- the quick stabs of the impressionists, the moving paint of Jackson Pollock, the quick cuts of action movies. Our ads and wide receivers ceaselessly accelerate, which makes old Egypt well worth pondering. Stasis was the secret of its art, and its longevity. There has seldom been a nation so successfully conservative. We don't think of it enough.

  Or catch its true spirit. What rises from the Camel pack, the back of the dollar bill or the obelisk on the Mall is only a faint whiff of the land along the Nile. The Egyptian exhibition -- which smells of mud and reeds, of dust and sun-baked brick, of continuity and patience -- gives off a pure perfume.

  The show is big. With 144 objects, and two floors of exhibits, it is the largest exhibition ever mounted at the Walters. But its art is mostly smallish, and in that sense misleads.

  Bigness is, of course, a great thing Egypt gave us. But bigness cannot travel. There is no way to pack the hugeness of the Pyramids, or the vast, doubt-crushing scale of the column rows at Luxor, or Queen Hatshepsut's temple, into wooden cases small enough to be flown about on airplanes, and the present exhibition has been touring for 40 months. It already has been seen in Toledo, Memphis, Brooklyn, Kansas City, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Chicago. Because its art has to fit into packing cases, the old colossal heads on view aren't all that colossal. And though the alert red granite cat reposing at the exhibition's entrance -- the "Lion of Amenhotep III Reinscribed for Tutankhamen" (circa 1390-1352 B.C.) -- weighs a good 6,000 pounds, it's still smaller than its bronze descendants at the doorway to the Corcoran, to say nothing of the Sphinx.

  What's best about the show is that it's chronological.

  The immensities it offers are immensities of time.

  It stretches on and on.

  The oldest object in it is a finger-size and incomplete statuette in ivory, a figure of a king, large-eared and tall-hatted, from 3000 B.C. Among the newest is a limestone plaque, the "Funerary Stela of Petobastis-Imhotep," from A.D. 23, and it, too, depicts a monarch, and he, too, has big ears (to hear the voices of the people), and he, too, wears the knob-topped crown of Upper Egypt, and presides in sure serenity. And between these two related images 30 centuries have passed.

  And nothing much has changed. The laws are still the same.

  And the rules have been in place right from the beginning, and right from the beginning everyone involved -- the peasant on the riverbank, the scribe at his papyrus, the cleanser of cadavers, the pourer of libations, the plasterer of tombs -- knew those rules precisely, and trusted and adhered to them.

  The Egyptians had a name for that ordered everlastingness. They called it maat. When maat appears personified, she does so as a goddess with a feather on her head. This, according to the catalogue, is what she represents: "A ruling principle of rightness, order, and justice," maat, reports the catalogue, was "believed by the Egyptians to permeate the cosmos, from the solar cycle and the annual Nile flood to the actions of individuals."

  Maat's absence is the theme of "A Fragment of a Battle Scene With Defeated Asians," a broken slab of painted limestone from the funerary temple of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, circa 2004 B.C. Nothing else on view resembles this old picture, for what it shows is chaos. The defeated soldiers tumble like dolls in a dryer. Most are pierced by arrows. The viewer cannot tell what is up and what is down. These soldiers aren't Egyptians, they're foreigners. They are not immortal, they're dying. All is in disorder. This picture is a picture of the opposite of maat.

  That quality makes Egypt's art seem gentler than that of other early agricultural societies. The dripping fang, the monstrous face, the sacrificial knife, these are often seen in Aztec art and Incan art and in ancient Chinese bronzes, as if such imagery existed primarily to scare one into terrified obedience. Egyptian art is calmer. Whether it depicts the peasant or the priest, the god-king or his squatting scribe, or the voyage to eternity, or expressions of affection, its spirit is unhurried, confident, benign.

  Where did that spirit come from?

  A thousand years before this show begins, 80 percent of the Egyptians were still hunter-gatherers. And then something happened, and 80 percent of them were farmers, and the sun was what they worshiped most, and their world had found its order, and everything was agreed.

  That system worked. And kept on working.

  Egypt, of course, was fortunate. Protected by vast deserts to both the east and west, it had the blessings of the Nile, those field-drenching floods, and only one frontier requiring vigilant protection, that on the Mediterranean sea. It's hard to believe that there wasn't some disruption, some bitterness and madness and scheming and destruction at work in ancient Egypt, but nothing so distressing is acknowledged by these artifacts. Maat reigns in this art.

  Among the finest objects shown are the paintings on papyrus, the best of which are magical, at once clear and dense and fabulous. A Book of the Dead that's known as the Papyrus of Ani (circa 1295-1186 B.C.) -- a scrolled and captioned narrative with vivid little pictures and lengthy incantations -- is 78 feet long.

  Also on display are objects made of silver, of carved and polished wood, alabaster, bronze. Here are dark-skinned pharaohs from the south, from Kush, and the heretic Akhenaten (with his thin neck and his paunch), and gods who have heads of birds, and dogs, and hippopotamuses (and even once a turtle), and earrings made of gold, and sphinxes of blue glass, and the spirit that pervades these things is stable as a pyramid. No wonder ancient Egypt flourished for so long.

  "Eternal Egypt: Masterpieces of Ancient Art From the British Museum", selected from some 57,000 Egyptian objects there.

REVIEW:  These works reveal how extraordinarily sophisticated the artistic talent of ancient Egypt was," says Sandra Knudsen, associate curator of ancient art at the Toledo Museum of Art, where an enthralling new exhibition, "Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum," opened its three-year, eight-city tour in March.

  The artwork on display runs the gamut from colossal to miniature, world famous to obscure: statuary in stone, bronze and wood, relief carvings, coffin lids, jewelry, glass, and delicate paintings on papyrus. After closing in Toledo on May 27, 2001, the show will be on view at Wonders: The Memphis International Cultural Series in Memphis, Tennessee, June 28 through October 21, and at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, November 23 through February 24, 2002. It will move on to Kansas City in April 2002 and then travel to San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago and Baltimore. The show was mounted by the American Federation of Arts in conjunction with the British Museum, with support from the Ford Motor Company. Most of the objects the British Museum loaned to the new exhibition have never before been allowed to leave its confines. With several of its galleries now closed for renovations, the museum consented to let some of its most precious acquisitions travel.

  Perhaps the most famous of all Egyptian illustrated texts is the Papyrus of Ani (c. 1200 B.C.)—a 78-foot scroll acquired by the British Museum's flamboyant Sir E. A. Wallis Budge at Thebes in 1888. One of the many highlights of the exhibition, the scroll is of a genre known today as a Book of the Dead—a compilation of text and illustrations to help the deceased in the afterlife. Such scrolls were often buried with well-to-do citizens. The show's curator, Edna R. Russmann of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, notes that works like these were not a sign that Egyptians were obsessed with death and dying but rather a kind of magical passport to a comfortable future.

  Thanks to the disciplined creativity of its artists, generation after generation, the grandeur of Egypt can still astonish us today, as it must have astonished the world thousands of years ago.

 

  REVIEW:  Perhaps more than that from any other time or region, the art and culture of ancient Egypt has attracted the attention of the general public. To many "Egypt" signifies our search into a mysterious and wondrous past-cities lost under the sands, tombs filled with gold and the mummified remains of the dead, pyramids said to hold unknown secrets, and scrolls revealing powerful spells, written in a bold hieroglyphic script only decipherable to a few. Undoubtedly it is our longing for these mysteries that fuel the audiences for movies like "The Mummy", Discovery channel specials, as well as blockbuster traveling exhibits, the most famous of which, featuring objects from King Tutankamen's tomb, set off a "King Tut" craze around the world.

  If you are looking for another glitzy, sensationalistic view of the Egyptian world, however, Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum will not be it. Due to an unparalleled opportunity made possible by the renovation of the British museum and organized along with the American Federation of Arts, the exhibit features some of the most important works from one of the most important collections of ancient Egyptian material in the world. It is thus not surprising that the exhibit emphasizes these works as "masterpieces" of Egyptian art rather than focusing on ancient objects as evidence for everyday Egyptian life, as was the case for the highly successful exhibit on view at the Brooklyn Museum five years ago, Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt. What is surprising, however, is that despite containing mostly "great" works, often of royal figures, the exhibit remains scholarly in tone. There is gold here, along with elaborate papyri scrolls, and towering colossi figures, but they are meant to inform as much as be admired.

  Arranged in chronological order, the exhibit spans over 3,000 years of continuous development in Egyptian art. It takes a careful observer to distinguish the changes in Egyptian art styles over this long timeframe, however, as one of the hallmarks of Egyptian culture is its reverence of tradition- "evolution" in Egyptian art includes much looking to the past and deliberate archaism. Thus, it is only by noting such details as the strong, broad features and characteristic back-less stool that one can ascribe the seated figure of the royal shipbuilder Ankhwa (fig.1) to the early Old Kingdom period (Dynasties 3-6; ca. 2686-2181 BC). We can see a similar simplicity and sturdiness in the Fourth Dynasty statue of a woman, who, although she once wore a gold necklace and bracelet (as evidenced by rough surfaces remaining on her chest and arms), has such a strong, athletic figure that scholars theorize that even royal women were accustomed to physical labor in this early era (fig.2).

  The stockiness of these early Old Kingdom sculptures can be compared to more elegant figures made of wood from the late Old Kingdom exhibited near-by. Along with their longer, slender bodies and oversized heads with large, staring eyes, figures from this period can be recognized by in an unusual departure--both women and men are shown completely nude, without the usual Egyptian status symbols of clothing and jewelry. A particularly fine example of this Sixth Dynasty style in Egyptian art is the ebony statue of Meryrahashtef--a lithe male figure, striding so that every muscle is clearly depicted with youthful vigor.

  After the Old Kingdom period, unified political power in Egypt collapsed and regional art styles reigned. Finally, King Mentuhotep II reunified Egypt and heralded the early Middle Kingdom (Dynasties 9-11; ca. 2160-1985 BC), a time of unprecedented strong, centralized government. A sandstone head of Mentuhotep II from his funerary temple at Thebes clearly is meant to impress the role of the King in this newly unified Egypt; he wears both the white crown, a symbol of Upper Egypt, and the uraeus cobra, an emblem of royalty denoting his ability to "strike down" his enemies. Despite such formidable regalia, Mentuhotep's wide-eyed expression is open and youthful, serious without being stern.

 

  The kings of the later Middle Kingdom (Dynasty 12; ca. 1985-1795 BC) moved their capital from Thebes in southern Egypt to Lisht in the north, thereby further solidifying their control over the country but also exposing them to the archaic art styles still prevalent in the northern regions, such as the sturdy muscularity evident in a depiction of Sesostris I. One of the most famous statues from the Egyptian collection of the British Museum, portrays King Sesostris III with a muscular, young physique but the somber, tight-lipped expression of a mature and weary monarch. This may reflect the notion that kings must be strong and forceful, but also bear a heavy burden of responsibility, as expressed in Middle Kingdom poems.

  After a time of decentralization, Egypt was again unified under the reign of King Ahmose, who expelled the foreign Hyksos from the land, thus beginning the New Kingdom. A small burial statue is one of only three extant figures known to depict this important king, and the only one that is complete (fig.3). Often considered the "imperial age"of Egypt, the New Kingdom is marked by the increasingly elaborate costumes and adornment of the elite, and the creation of sophisticated temples and burial monuments. The exhibit features several impressive "colossal" sculptures from the reign of Amenhotep III (ca. 1390-1352 B.C.). One is a red granite lion, originally from the Amenhotep III's temple at Soleb (but restored and reinscribed by King Tutankhamun), who sits in the relaxed, cross-legged pose of one assured in his power, probably reflecting the absolute rule of the king. A head of Amenhotep III himself, wearing the red crown of lower Egypt and the uraeus, has the same confident, serene expression-the face of a ruler who dared to proclaim himself a god on earth.

  Specific displays focus on the creativity and artistic heights achieved during the New Kingdom. Several objects provide information about the work of Egyptian artist/scribes. These include a scribal palette with depressions for reeds and pigments, several practice sketches, and a slab inked with the grid which served as the painter's guide. A papyrus shows several scenes, including one of a lion and antelope happily playing a board game (fig.4), while nearby a fox, hyena and wild cat herd goats and geese, which appear to satirize human nature and may be the earliest known political cartoon. Another whimsical piece is a cosmetic vessel held aloft by a young, nude woman (fig.5). A display of jewelry attests to Egyptian skills in goldworking, as well as the apatropaic powers ascribed to various animals and symbols.

  Of course, no exhibit of Egyptian artifacts would be complete without mummy covers and other burial paraphernalia. A concept that is emphasized in Eternal Egypt is that a large proportion of Egyptian art was created to help the deceased live on in the afterworld. Coffin lids, for instance, were often covered in images of rebirth and eternal life, such as sun disks and scarab beetles. The dead were also richly arrayed on their journey to the afterworld, often covered in gold (fig.6). Shabtis (also called shawabti or ushabti) are small statuettes , usually only 4 to 9 inches in height, which are were placed in Egyptian tombs to serve as laborers for the deceased. Although holding the agricultural tools (hoe and seed basket) which symbolize her willingness to perform physical labor, and inscribed with a spell to impel her to work, a 19th Dynasty shabti of a woman with fashionably clinging gown, heavy kohl-painted eyes, "lipstick" and wig appears to be attired more for a night on the town than a day in the fields.

  Art during the Third Intermediate (Dynasties 21-25; ca. 1069-656 BC) and early Late Period (Dynasties 25 and 26; ca. 716-525 BC) imitated the earlier styles, poses and costumes of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, although sometimes combining these in new ways. Such archaism, as seen in the standing figure of Tjayasetimu, attests to a deliberate attempt of later (often foreign) kings to associate themselves with early, golden ages of a unified Egypt.

  By the Ptolemaic period, Egypt was solidly part of the larger Hellenic world. Although much of Egyptian culture was "westernized," other traditions lived on. The Ptolemies were often depicted as pharoahs, a means of associating themselves with the long history of Egyptian rulers. Even during the Roman period, some of this essential "Egyptian" character was retained. The remains of the dead were still mummified, but in a far different manner than before, while the elaborate cartouches and gilded masks gave way to wooden panels painted with naturalistic portraits of the deceased (fig.7). As evident in the works on display in this exhibit, however, it the strong preservation of tradition that attracts us to the mystery of "eternal" Egypt.

  REVIEW:  The Egyptians had a knack for making death look almost appealing. The post-mortem image of Satdjehuty, a high-ranking woman at the court of Ahmose circa 1500 B.C., is serene and beautiful. Well, who wouldn't be, with a face framed in gold and the rich blue of lapis lazuli?

  The painted plaster mask that adorned Satdjehuty's mummified body is part of a traveling exhibit of Egyptian art on display at the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria, Canada, through Oct. 31. The belief was that mummy masks and other elaborate accoutrements symbolic jewelry, amulets, even mummified animals helped the dead merge with Osiris, god of the afterlife, and thereby live forever.

  Whatever their fate in the great beyond, the Egyptians did achieve an immortality of sorts through their art, judging by the collection on loan from the British Museum of London, pieces of which range from 2,000 to 5,000 years old. The collection includes 144 artifacts representing 3,000 years of Egyptian history. Museum representatives call it the most important traveling exhibit to hit the Northwest since King Tut came to Seattle in 1978, and in fact it spans a longer time frame. Victoria is the second to last stop on the collection's 11-city tour and the only place it will be shown in the northwestern United States and Canada.

  Mary Murray of Camas, who recently visited the exhibit, said she has been fascinated with Egypt since seeing King Tut in New York. "I was an art major in school, and Egypt was always a special draw for me." She was glad to be able to share the B.C. exhibit with her daughter, Maggie.

  Much of the artwork was acquired by the British Museum during the 19th century. Museums around the world collaborated with the Egyptian government on archaeological projects to salvage priceless artifacts. In return they received a portion of the finds. Such collaboration continues today. Other items came from private collectors, mostly British government officials, who bought them or received them as gifts. Construction of a new wing at the British Museum left the collection temporarily homeless. Rather than letting the items gather dust in storage, curators decided to send them on tour.

  If you think you have trouble with airport security, imagine transporting three jumbo jets of invaluable cargo including a stone lion weighing 2-1/2 tons across the Atlantic. Picture uncrating and monitoring an inventory that includes items as small as the six-inch, colored glass "bolti" fish that has survived intact for the past 4,000 years. The real, live bolti, native to the Nile, shelters its young in its mouth and is a symbol of rebirth.

  The British Museum collection is insured for $600 million.

  "That doesn't mean anything to us, because we can't replace any of the objects," said Neal Spencer, a curator of Egyptian art at the British Museum, who has helped escort the pieces around our continent and install them in their temporary homes.

  John Robertson, chief of design at the Royal B.C. Museum, took a year to prepare for the collection's arrival two weeks prior to the exhibit's July 10 opening. He studied Egyptian tomb art and visited other stops on the tour, including Chicago's Field Museum, which has a similar "footprint." He hired a structural engineer to make sure the floors and walls could accommodate the weight of the massive stone panels, figures and heads that once adorned the walls and columns of ancient tombs. And in the days leading up to showtime, he slept very little.

  "It's been part of our collective consciousness now for about a year," said Robertson. "It's been the most challenging exhibit we've had to design."

 

  The objects seem quite at home in the dimly lit exhibit hall featuring a deep blue, star-studded ceiling in the style of ancient tombs. The eight rooms lead visitors on a chronlogical journey through Egyptian history, from the days of the first pharaohs circa 3000 B.C. to the unraveling of the empire on the Nile and its subsequent absorption circa 30 B.C. into the Roman Empire. One of the earliest pieces is a small ivory statuette of a king circa 3000 B.C. The burden of leadership seems to weigh heavily on him, as the large conical crown presses on his ears. One of the newest pieces is a portrait of a woman from the Roman period (circa 160 A.D.). Her clothes, jewelry and hairstyle mark her as a cosmopolitan lady in touch with the Hellenistic fashions of the day.

  One of the most magnificent pieces is the red granite Lion of Amenhotep III (circa 1390-1352 B.C.). To ancient Egyptians, the lion represented royalty and power. This noble beast is one of a pair donated to the museum in 1835 by a British explorer. It has been reinscribed with the names of several kings, including the most recent, Tutankhamun.

  The collection includes a papyrus panel from the "Book of the Dead," dramatically depicting the Egyptian view of the afterlife. No peaceful, friendly journey is this. The jackal-headed Annubis, guardian of the underworld, is shown weighing the heart of the deceased, a scribe named Ani, to see if he's fit to pass into eternity. Travel through the underworld was seen as a series of menacing challenges. The "Book of the Dead" which is not a book by our definition, but a series rolls of papyrus sometimes up to 20-feet long lists spells, charms and instructions for a safe journey.

  If it sometimes seems that the Egyptians were obsessed with death, says the British Museum's Spencer, consider that the artifacts we have today are those that were made to last an eternity.

  "It's not clear how much of a preoccupation it was," said Spencer, who compares Egyptian tombs to Britain's most affluent cemeteries. Only Egypt's richest 1 percent kings, priests, scribes and other nobility received the elaborate treatment after death designed to assure immortality. The rest, it appears, could just go to H-E-double hockey sticks.

    READER REVIEWS: 

  REVIEW:  The British Museum has a stunning collection of ancient Egyptian art works and with its renovation work the loan exhibition that was called 'Eternal Egypt' came into being. This book is a superb catalogue of that exhibition. Logically designed in chronological order so as to show the development of Egyptian art, as well as its reference to religion and higher spirituality. It is lavishly illustrated with art that still inspires awe.

  It is a well written book for art lovers, those interested in Egyptology as well as those with a more scholarly need ~ with its referencing and backup information of the artifacts. The contributors are scholars held in high regard and esteem ~ specialists in their chosen fields and it shows. A really great reference book ~ not only of the 'Eternal Egypt' exhibition, but of a great collection in a great museum.

  The opening chapters, putting the art into historical perspective as well as the museum's place as one of the three greatest collections of Egyptian art and artifacts leads the reader, with interest, into the core study of the book ~ the art its self. A great book worth its price.

REVIEW:  This is the catalog from a traveling exhibit from the British Museum. I wish that I had been aware of this exhibit when it came through the Midwest region of the US. This is a beautiful book, with spectacular color photographs. The text is probably the even better. The one regret I have, about which some people will think that I am crazy, is that the photographs are not in black & white and done with a large format camera. I always compare any photographs to the incredible photographs done by Harry Burton back in the 1920's.

 

  REVIEW:  A great companion to a great exhibit. Russmann takes initiative to explore art and the evolution of it through the three thousand years of history.  She and the other writers do a good job of describing much history, culture, and art to be found in each object.  To simply confront one of these pieces for a quiet moment in the gallery and stare across the centuries.  It is an amazing sensation of being just a bump along the long road of history.

REVIEW:  (I saw this exhibit and it was so impressive. Spent hours looking at everything. At the time, it was in the Pyramid in downtown Memphis, TN. And altogether so atmospheric. I still use the mousepad for work. A reminder of my first great love. Anthropology.

REVIEW:  I love this book. Everything is explained along with the pictures. A must for art lovers, the British Museum have compiled a very useful research book.

REVIEW:  This book is a feast for the eyes. The pictures are great.

  I always ship books Media Mail in a padded mailer.  This book is shipped FOR FREE via USPS INSURED media mail (“book rate”).  All domestic shipments and most international shipments will include free USPS Delivery Confirmation (you might be able to update the status of your shipment on-line at the USPS Web Site ) and free insurance coverage.  A small percentage of international shipments may require an additional fee for tracking and/or delivery confirmation.  If you are concerned about a little wear and tear to the book in transit, I would suggest a boxed shipment - it is an extra $1.00.  Whether via padded mailer or box, we will give discounts for multiple purchases. International orders are welcome, but shipping costs are substantially higher. 

    Most international orders cost an additional $12.99 to $33.99 for an insured shipment in a heavily padded mailer, and typically includes some form of rudimentary tracking and/or delivery confirmation (though for some countries, this is only available at additional cost). However this book is quite heavy, and it is too large to fit into a flat rate mailer.  Therefore the shipping costs are somewhat higher than what is otherwise ordinary.  There is a discount program which can cut postage costs by 50% to 75% if you’re buying about half-a-dozen books or more (5 kilos+).  Rates and available services vary a bit from country to country.  You can email or message me for a shipping cost quote, but I assure you they are as reasonable as USPS rates allow, and if it turns out the rate is too high for your pocketbook, we will cancel the sale at your request.  ADDITIONAL PURCHASES do receive a VERY LARGE discount, typically about $5 per book (for each additional book after the first) so as to reward you for the economies of combined shipping/insurance costs.  Your purchase will ordinarily be shipped within 48 hours of payment.  We package as well as anyone in the business, with lots of protective padding and containers.

    All of our shipments are sent via insured mail so as to comply with PayPal requirements.  We do NOT recommend uninsured shipments, and expressly disclaim any responsibility for the loss of an uninsured shipment.  Unfortunately the contents of parcels are easily “lost” or misdelivered by postal employees – even in the USA.  That’s why all of our domestic shipments (and most international) shipments include a USPS delivery confirmation tag; or are trackable or traceable, and all shipments (international and domestic) are insured.  We do offer U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail, Registered Mail, and Express Mail for both international and domestic shipments, as well United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (Fed-Ex).  Please ask for a rate quotation.  We will accept whatever payment method you are most comfortable with.  If upon receipt of the item you are disappointed for any reason whatever, I offer a no questions asked return policy.  Send it back, I will give you a complete refund of the purchase price (less our original shipping costs).

 

  Most of the items I offer come from the collection of a family friend who was active in the field of Archaeology for over forty years.  However many of the items also come from purchases I make in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) from various institutions and dealers.  Though I have always had an interest in archaeology, my own academic background was in sociology and cultural anthropology.  After my retirement however, I found myself drawn to archaeology as well.  Aside from my own personal collection, I have made extensive and frequent additions of my own via purchases on Ebay (of course), as well as many purchases from both dealers and institutions throughout the world - but especially in the Near East and in Eastern Europe.  I spend over half of my year out of the United States, and have spent much of my life either in India or Eastern Europe.  In fact much of what we generate on Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay goes to support The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, as well as some other worthy institutions in Europe connected with Anthropology and Archaeology.

    I acquire some small but interesting collections overseas from time-to-time, and have as well some duplicate items within my own collection which I occasionally decide to part with.  Though I have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, my primary interest is in ancient jewelry.  My wife also is an active participant in the "business" of antique and ancient jewelry, and is from Russia.  I would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from me.  There is a $2 fee for mailing under separate cover.  Whenever I am overseas I have made arrangements for purchases to be shipped out via domestic mail.  If I am in the field, you may have to wait for a week or two for a COA to arrive via international air mail.  But you can be sure your purchase will arrive properly packaged and promptly - even if I am absent.  And when I am in a remote field location with merely a notebook computer, at times I am not able to access my email for a day or two, so be patient, I will always respond to every email.  Please see our "ADDITIONAL TERMS OF SALE."

 

TRANSLATE
Arabic Chinese French German Greek Indonesian Italian
Hindi Japanese Korean Swedish Portuguese Russian Spanish
  • Condition: NEW. See detailed description below.
  • Material: Paper
  • Pages: 288 pages
  • Format: Hardback

PicClick Insights - HUGE Pix Ancient Egypt Art British Museum Jewelry Sculpture Cosmetics Painting PicClick Exclusive

  •  Popularity - 6 watchers, 0.0 new watchers per day, 2,446 days for sale on eBay. Super high amount watching. 0 sold, 1 available.
  •  Best Price -
  •  Seller - 5,439+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.

People Also Loved PicClick Exclusive