Ex-voto en forme de “modèle de sculpteur”

Art Historian, Curator in the Egyptian department in Brooklyn and Professor of Egyptian Art at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York, Bernard V. Bothmer was one of the most important experts in Late Egyptian art. He spent his entire life recording, dating and redefining the methods of understanding Late Egyptian sculpture, an effort that culminated in the creation of the Corpus of Late Egyptian Sculpture, a collection of detailed notes, high quality photographs and negatives currently held at the Brooklyn Museum. In 2008 the Università degli Studi di Milano purchased Bothmer’s private archives, a collection of notes for his classes and lectures, papers delivered at conferences and seminars, detailed dossiers on museums and Egyptian collections around the world, drawings and about 10,000 photographs. During the doctoral research I am currently conducting at the Scuola Normale Superiore, which focuses on a comprehensive study of Ptolemaic private portraiture, I had the chance to look at Bothmer’s private archives in Milan. Among the documents, I have identified two unpublished papers focusing on one of Bernard V. Bothmer’s main topics of interest throughout his scholarly career: the depiction of the individual in Egyptian art. Through the study of the unpublished papers in his private archives which focus on realism and Ptolemaic portraiture it is possible to detect the development of the scholar’s thought on Ptolemaic sculptures characterized by realistic facial features. The aim of the present paper is to outline, with the aid of both published and unpublished documents, the development of Bothmer’s thought on one of the main issues of Ptolemaic art, namely Ptolemaic portraiture.

Cahiers Égypte Nilotique et Méditérranéenne / Access Archaeology, 2023

Current Research in Egyptology 2022. Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Symposium, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, 26-30 September 2022. The present volume collects thirty-two papers on various topics from the history of Egyptology to archaeology and material culture, from the Predynastic to the Roman period, through history and epigraphy, as well as new technologies.

Knowledge of the beginnings of the Egyptian Empire is severely limited by a lack of both inscrip-tional material and architecture. Little survives from this time other than mortuary constructions, mostly tombs, and enclosures for celebrating the heb-sed ceremony. Nevertheless, a number of mostly small representations of early monarchs survive, providing important evidence for the role played by the kings of the earliest days of a newly established realm as well as the increasing development of portraiture as a method of achieving immortality and being worshipped. We also offer our opinion that the duration of the Archaic Period is from Dynasty 0 to the end of Dynasty 2, and that the onset of Dynasty 0 is approximately 3250 BC and that it ends between 100 and 150 years later. Furthermore, we analyze two statues from Dynasty 2, one of which has been incorrectly called modern, and the other mistaken for a later king because of a usurper's re-inscription. For many, particularly laymen, the history of Egypt begins with Dynasty 4, the so-called " Age of the Pyramids, " but a recent renewal of interest in the Predynastic and Archaic Periods, largely sparked by excavations in Abydos, Hierakonpolis, Tell el-Farkha, and other early sites in Upper and Lower Egypt, has largely altered this conception. The discovery of many elite tombs, along with numerous artifacts, has made it evident that while our knowledge of that era is growing apace, much remains for us to learn. Although some historians have attempted to establish a chronology for the earliest rulers of ancient Egypt, we are unaware of any comprehensive study of their three-dimensional images. Because these objects divulge important information about the status of the subjects, as well as the social history at the beginning of the empire, we believe it important to catalogue as many as we can identify and attempt to determine the meaning of their poses, garb, headdresses, and attributes. In some cases, they are depicted with a female companion—a valuable source of information about the role of women at the beginning of an organized Egyptian society. We are certain that our list is incomplete, with many of the potential candidates unpublished or unrecognized. The beginning of the Fourth Millennium BC witnessed the onset of two parallel and sophisticated civilizations, the Naqada Culture in Upper Egypt, and a lesser known, but probably equally complex society in Lower Egypt. 1 The latter area is relatively unexplored since intensive agricultural development, building activities, and a high water table have made excavation difcult in much of the Delta. Highly organized and rened, the Naqada Culture's achievements include the development of writing needed to support a newly born administration, and superlative examples of art such as decorated pottery, intricately carved ceremonial ivory knife handles, and commemorative greywacke palettes. These objects

Representation, Narrative, and Function, 2014

حولیة الاتحاد العام للآثاریین العرب "دراسات فى آثار الوطن العربى", 2021

Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections