Ancient Near East and Egypt

A COMPANION TO ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART Edited by Ann C. Gunter This edition first published 2019 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. The right of Ann C. Gunter to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with law. Registered Office(s) John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Editorial Office 101 Station Landing, Medford, MA 02155, USA For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at www.wiley.com. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. 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Description: Hoboken : Wiley Blackwell, 2019. | Series: Blackwell companions to the ancient world | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018016963 (print) | LCCN 2018017628 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118336755 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781118336731 (ePub) | ISBN 9781118301258 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Art, Middle Eastern. | Art, Ancient–Middle East. Classification: LCC N5345 (ebook) | LCC N5345 .C725 2019 (print) | DDC 709.56–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016963 Cover Design: Wiley Cover Image: Two impressions of PFS 93* on tablet PF 692 (reverse). Courtesy of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Set in 11/13.5pt Galliard by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Notes on Contributors ix Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii Abbreviations xix 1 The “Art” of the “Ancient Near East” Ann C. Gunter PART I Approaches and Methods of Analysis and Interpretation 1 23 2 Art and Material Culture David Wengrow 25 3 Meaning and Interpretation Astrid Nunn 49 4 Style Margaret Cool Root 75 5 Connoisseurship and Classification Eleonora Pappalardo 103 6 Visual Culture Sarah B. Graff 129 7 Technical Examination and Material Analysis Deborah Schorsch 153 vi Contents 8 Gender and Sexuality John D. M. Green 179 9 Semiotics, Reception Theory, and Poststructuralism Marlies Heinz 209 PART II Critical Terms and Concepts 231 10 Representation Dominik Bonatz and Marlies Heinz 233 11 Narrative Paul Collins 261 12 Ideology Beate Pongratz‐Leisten 283 13 Ritual Carolyn Nakamura 309 14 Agency Sophy Downes 333 15 Aesthetics Gebhard J. Selz 359 PART III 383 Materials, Media, and Artistic Environments 16 Statuary and Reliefs Claudia E. Suter 385 17 Glyptic Adelheid Otto 411 18 Religious Architecture Jean M. Evans 433 19 Palaces and Elite Houses Andreas Schachner 457 20 Rock Reliefs and Landscape Monuments Ömür Harmanşah 483 21 Reconstructing Artistic Environments Mehmet‐Ali Ataç 507 Contents PART IV Interactions with Neighboring Regions and Artistic Traditions vii 531 22 The Ancient Near East and Egypt Betsy M. Bryan 533 23 The Ancient Near East and the Bronze Age Aegean Marian H. Feldman 565 24 Near Eastern Art in the Iron Age Mediterranean James Whitley 585 PART V Intersections with Archaeology, Collecting, and Cultural Heritage 25 Archaeology and the Art of the Ancient Near East D. T. Potts 613 615 26 Cultural Heritage across the Middle East, Ancient and Modern Geoff Emberling and Katharyn Hanson 637 Index 661 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Ancient Near East and Egypt Betsy M. Bryan Introduction Egypt displayed material connections to the Near East even in the early Holocene era (ca. 9,500–7,500 BCE), as links between the Natufian culture of the Levant and the Nile Delta attest (Debono and Mortensen 1990; Hassan 2000). The drier environments of the fifth and fourth millennia document trade and exchange with both Upper and Lower Egyptian Neolithic cultures, as lapis lazuli, cylinder seals, and ceramics at sites such as Hierakonpolis, Maadi, and Tell el‐Farkha demonstrate. Indeed, the presence of cross influences in artistic motifs between Egypt, the Levant, southern Mesopotamia, and Elam is just as extensive in the late fourth millennium as in the second millennium and later. In all periods there is difficulty in isolating original sources. This complex environment of exchange characterizes the nearly three thousand years of history reviewed here through selected case studies. Image Exchange in the Fourth Millennium: Service to Technology and State Formation As many have argued, the primary means of artistic transfer must have been the trade route environment that conveyed seal technology and, more significantly here, iconography (Moorey 1987; Aruz 2013). Egypt’s adoption of A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art, First Edition. Edited by Ann C. Gunter. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 534 Betsy M. Bryan elements from the Near East in the late fourth millennium has frequently been recognized, but these icons were seldom retained. The “ruler” figure on the Gebel el‐Arak knife who wears Mesopotamian‐style garb was apparently a unique instance, for example, and the serpent‐necked felines disappeared from Egyptian elite iconography after early Dynasty 1 (Boehmer 1991; Pittman 1996). Nonetheless, the circulation of Near Eastern imagery during the later fourth millennium, including composite and fantastic figures such as griffins, sphinxes, and serpopards, has sustained scholarly attention because of associations with emerging technologies and states. During all ancient eras, griffins and sphinxes appeared throughout the Near East and the Aegean, and exhibited wide flexibility in types and styles. Both successfully remained within the corpus of divine imagery in Egypt, but the griffin displayed two basic head shapes over time. A non‐crested bird‐headed form with talons and splayed wings originated in Elam (Susa II), and carved Egyptian examples on a cosmetic palette, the Gebel el‐Tarif knife handle, a dagger from Abydos, and a Hierakonpolis ivory element— all dating to Naqada III—closely resemble this type. A second crested form from Susa appears also to have influenced Egyptian depictions on ivories from Hierakonpolis and Tell el‐Farkha (Teissier 1987: 31–32; Ciałowicz 2011a: 21). Nicholas Wyatt (2009: 30) suggested that an Egyptian griffin with non‐crested bird head and feline body may have developed independently, but his argument depends more on the image’s symbolism than on its iconography. The later Egyptian griffin has a falcon head and leonine body, and conveys the religious symbolism of the royal falcon god Horus. This form also conveyed the griffin’s solar significance as an agent of the sun god, analogous to the vengeful role of Sakhmet and other leonine deities (Eggebrecht 1977; Kamrin 1999: 86–87). Yet composite forms, including non‐crested bird heads, were an early artistic form in Egypt, as the male and female bird‐headed figures from the Naqada I–II period illustrate. Thus Egypt’s adoption of Susa‐like griffins may reflect their compatibility with preexisting imagery (Graff 2008; Hendrickx 2011: 78–80). A wingless crested female ivory griffin clutching a wine jar was discovered in Tell el‐Farkha’s Dynasty 0/1 votive caches (ca. 3200–3000 BCE) (Ciałowicz 2011a; 2011b: 60, fig. 6.9). The contents of those caches were analogous to ceramic models known from the southern Naqada culture, e.g., a bird‐headed beer‐brewer figure (Graff 2008). At Tell el‐Farkha, however, new types such as this griffin and several “uraei” cobras appear, underlining royal and solar imagery for both icons already in Dynasty 1 (Ciałowicz 2011a, 2011b; Bussmann 2011). Tell el‐Farkha’s location in The Ancient Near East and Egypt 535 the eastern Delta made it a natural trade center, and, fueled by Naqada expansionist interest in luxury import materials, styles, and objects, the ivory griffin’s form may represent a blended expression of Naqada models and Near Eastern griffin imagery (Bussmann 2011: 755–57). Yet the persistence of Egyptian griffin imagery must lie in its compatibility with specific divine symbolism. David Wengrow (2014) has recently discussed the significance of these “monsters”—griffins, serpopards, and pseudo‐human figures such as Bes and Huwawa. Although poorly attested in earlier eras, near the end of the fourth millennium griffins, sphinxes, fantastic felines, and the like traveled from east to west through the technology of seals and trade routes. Wengrow sees the creation and replication of several monstrous forms as the product of a transformative moment: the period of state formation. Elite construction of imagery that materialized supernatural notions on behalf of the emerging state also acted to circulate such monsters within a known, trade‐bound world. Likewise, the third‐millennium movement of such monstrous figures as Taweret from Egypt to Nubia, the Levant, and the Aegean took place in similarly transformational settings, as Egypt involved itself in the greater world. Further examples might include Bes, whose extensive dissemination throughout the Mediterranean world in the second and first millennia was likewise associated with performance, fertility, and libation rituals (Teissier 1996: 78; Kaiser 2003; Nagy 2007). Despite these creatures’ supernatural nature, they were not restricted to specific sacred landscapes, which also fueled their movement (Eliade 1959). Wengrow understands them as providers of protection, an aspect that allowed them to be adopted in a variety of settings. Griffins became solar emblems in Egypt and royal hunters in the Aegean; in the Mediterranean Taweret was adopted as a female ritualist but in Syria and Nubia wielded a knife to protect the home (Aruz 2008c: 137). Hathor’s bovine symbol traveled into the Levant, but her anthropoid form with cow‐headed crown was equally common on Middle Bronze Syrian seals (Eder 1995: 97–107, 154–58; Teissier 1996: 83, nos. 148–51, 183–85). Although Hathor had numerous specific cult places outside Egypt—Byblos, Sinai, Qatna—the multivalence of the goddess as an agent and protectress of the sun god encouraged her dissemination. As Wengrow implied, protection was certainly prominent among the iconographical symbols that moved rapidly and often throughout the entire region. Ankh signs, wedjat eyes, and Egyptian royal regalia were among the elements most commonly exported into Syrian and Palestinian seals in the Middle Bronze Age, for example (Eder 1995: 146–58; Teissier 1996: 88–90). 536 Betsy M. Bryan Artistic Exchange in the Third and Second Millennia: Ideology Exported, Technique and Form Imported The active early third‐millennium trade between the southern Levant and Egypt cannot be confirmed later in the Old Kingdom. Perhaps Canaanite elites reused the palettes and vessels of Dynasties 1 and 2 as heirloom Egyptian objects. Stone bowls of cultic type, such as at Tell Yarmuth and Bab ed‐Dhra, may suggest Egyptian gifts to the local ruler (Sowada 2009: ch. 4). Yet Egypt exploited turquoise in the Sinai, and from Dynasties 3 to 6 regularly used the Horus Ways road. Egyptian objects found throughout the Near East, although often preserved in later contexts, well attest involvement in cultural and artistic exchange during the Old Kingdom (Diego Espinel 2002; Scandone Matthiae 2003). Stone vessels, in particular, occur in large numbers at Byblos; some name Old Kingdom rulers, although most were found in later levels. Karin Sowada (2009: 18–22, 128–39) has discussed the problematic and later contexts of Egyptian objects found in Byblos and the difficulties of identifying imports: materials, quality of work, definition of style, and means of transmission are all subject to interpretive error. Findspots of Egyptian inscribed stone objects in the northern Levant include more inland sites, such as Ebla, Hama, and Hazor, but only Ebla yielded a large number of originally Old Kingdom‐contexted finds. Anatolia has not yet produced objects with secure context, while the many stone objects from Crete include only a few fragments from environments contemporary with the Old Kingdom. Egypt’s deepest and most persistent nodes of contact in the northern Levant were apparently Byblos and Ebla. Commodity exchange with Byblos probably focused on wood, as reflected in materials found in Old Kingdom tombs and represented on Sahure’s Abusir causeway reliefs (Sowada 2009: 56–73; El Awady 2009). Egypt’s impressive seagoing capabilities have been further confirmed by the Red Sea port at Gawasis, where regular expeditions to and from Punt were serviced and ships were assembled for the journeys (Marcus 2007). Thus cedar may have been brought not only from Byblos, but also from Turkey’s Cilician coast (Ward 2013: 47). Textual and archaeological records confirm Egyptian imports of cedar from the northern Levant, but do not document commodities exchanged through Ebla. Since Ebla was a great textile center, Egypt may have sought various types of woven materials, but Old Kingdom records do not confirm it; nor is there a name for Ebla in Egyptian sources—and vice versa (Biga and Roccati 2012). The Ancient Near East and Egypt 537 Ebla was apparently also a major entrepôt for lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, and perhaps Egypt traded its gold: either directly, or indirectly through Byblos and its rulers (Biga 2010). Dugurasu, a toponym from the Ebla archives, has recently been identified as a Delta river port, perhaps Ro‐Hat (literally, “front door”) (Biga and Roccati 2012). Yet the quantities of lapis lazuli brought to Egypt would hardly have required whole shiploads, and envoys could have carried out the formal exchanges implied by the numerous inscribed Egyptian objects from the Ebla palace.1 In summary, throughout the Old Kingdom Egypt desired and acquired cedar and lapis as primary commodities from the northern Levant. Yet no specific artistic elements from those regions are readily identifiable within Egypt. The raw materials apparently sufficed as exotic markers. The Middle Kingdom and Middle Bronze Cultures Anatolian and Syro‐Cappadocian glyptic from the late third and early second millennium displays little or no Egyptianization; human‐headed sphinxes appear in seal impressions on Kültepe tablets but may have arrived via Mesopotamia. Yet immediately thereafter in Anatolia and Syria the numbers and types of Egyptianizing iconography virtually exploded, evidenced by figures wearing Hathoric‐type curls, lion‐styled ivories, and even a Bes plaque (Teissier 1996: 12–14; 80–81, no. 139; Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 87; Aruz 2008b). Pharaonic‐type figures wearing the Atef crown also appear in glyptic, and slightly later in Ebla’s royal iconography (Teissier 1996: 114, no. 241; Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 9). Referring to the central Anatolian ivories attributed to Acemhöyük (ca. 1900–1750 BCE), Joan Aruz (2008b: 82) remarked that they “represent an early instance of the melding of traditions,” which also formed the foundations for Hittite art. Her observation surely also characterizes the rapidly developing mixed styles that emerged in Syrian and Anatolian glyptic in the early second millennium. Beatrice Teissier (1996: 14–25) has identified glyptic workshops that employ Egyptianizing features consistent with existing styles—for example, animal or solar emblems that meld with local animal and natural forms. Egyptian themes appeared first in popular forms and later on royal seals. Ankh signs, hovering vultures, and goddesses wearing the horns and sun disk of Hathor occur on royal seals found in Kültepe and in palace contexts in Alalakh level VII, reinforcing the notion that Egyptian elements signified status for local rulers, including the positive (political?) aspects of friendly relationships (Eder 1995: 197–208).2 In some cases, images of Egyptian kings on seals—in connection with Egyptian deities, local deities, or local rulers—may imply a strong and 538 Betsy M. Bryan protective royal influence; strikingly, some Byblite rulers bear the “mayoral” title of ḥ ty‐c (Eder 1995: 54; Teissier 1996: 2, 13). Egypt may have been a source of military support for Byblos in disruptions with Ullaza in the late Middle Kingdom (Quack 1992; Schneider 2002). The Annals of Amenemhet II perhaps allude to this support in an expedition against ’I sy, possibly Ura, which some locate in northern Syria (Marcus 2007: 173); others reassert an older view that identified it with Cyprus (Quack 1996). On the other hand, the materials from ’I sy listed in the Annals were typical of metal tools and objects used in mining expeditions, rather than the large amounts of copper or northern Levantine goods mentioned elsewhere.3 Whether Egypt defended Byblos militarily as early as the reign of Amenemhet II is uncertain, but the seals’ use of Egyptianizing symbols to connote the Egyptian ruler’s friendly protection does suggest a positive and influential presence in Lebanon and Syria during Middle Bronze II. Amenemhet’s reign may have been crucial for Egypt’s renewed involvement with the Levant, arguably maritime‐based and more extensive than previously (Marcus (2007: 170–73). The Annals’ toponyms and expedition information indicate a form of port‐to‐port shipping that called at cities from Ashkelon to Dor, perhaps originating in Tell el‐Dab‘a and ending at Byblos and environs. Byblos and Qatna have yielded royal statuary of earlier Dynasty 12, but whether it arrived through trade or gift exchange is unknown. Other archaeological evidence supports a commercial relationship particularly stemming from the type of maritime shipping described above. In Egypt itself, for the first time, an interest in displaying interaction with the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean emerged (Altenmüller and Moussa 1991; Doumet‐Serhal 2013). The Tod Treasure was found in four copper alloy boxes inscribed with the cartouches of Amenemhet II (Figure 22.1). Deposited beneath the floor of the Tod Temple as a votive offering to the god Montu, probably by this ruler, the treasure has been known since 1936. The numerous silver vessels, flattened and folded to fit the chests, are not Egyptian in origin; their curved, swirling, and fluted sides have been compared with Aegean (primarily Minoan), Anatolian, and north Syrian forms (Fitton 2009a, with bibliography). Technical analysis suggests several original sources (Fitton 2009b: 64–65). Given the vessels’ thinness and perfunctory workmanship, Genevieve Pierrat‐ Bonnefois (2008: 66) concluded that the silver served as material rather than object, the vessels comprising a form of ingot. Mari letters of similar date appear to allude to silver vessels as a medium of exchange, she noted, their form and decoration identifying the place of manufacture. Yet the strong stylistic connections linking the Tod Treasure silver vessels with Aegean ceramic forms and the Anatolian settlement at Kültepe return the discussion The Ancient Near East and Egypt 539 Figure 22.1 Bowls, cups, and jewelry from the Tod Treasure. Tod, Montu Temple; Dynasty 12, reign of Amenemhet II (ca. 1919–1885 BCE). Silver; h. 3.3–9.3 cm; dia. 7.7–15 cm. Musée du Louvre E15128–15318. © Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN‐ Grand Palais / Christian Decamps / Art Resource, NY. to Egypt’s involvement with both regions, as reflected in the Anatolian ivories. Along with 153 silver vessels were a few silver and gold objects, a group of Mesopotamian and Anatolian lapis lazuli seals, and some raw stones and beads (Quenet et al. 2013). Aegean objects, such as a steatite plaque and a silver pendant depicting spiders and a bee, represent finished pieces apparently included equally for figural form as for materials (Aruz 2013). Because of their small size, the cylinder seals may have been appreciated instead as raw stone. But from the Egyptian perspective their sealing function may have identified their source—a perspective that could embrace all the incised stone objects, thereby increasing their symbolic value. Nevertheless, nothing in the treasure (or the Annals) identifies the contents as gifts from foreign rulers, booty, or even trade items. The varied sources point instead to acquisition through the manner of maritime exchange outlined above, and must have been felt appropriately to represent the world that Montu had opened to Egypt (Pierrat‐Bonnefois 2008, with further references). Elite objects from other Middle Kingdom contexts document import of both artistic forms and techniques. The best known example is the necklace associated with Princess Khnumet’s burial at Dahshur, dated to later Dynasty 12. Christine Lilyquist (1993: 36–37) has identified the type of granulation on the Khnumet pendants as north Syrian in source but partly Cretan in inspiration, while Yvonne Markowitz and Peter Lacovara (2009) believe that foreign artisans produced the jewelry in Egypt. All acknowledge affinities between the bird pendants from the Khnumet find and the hanging “owl” pendants in the Aigina Treasure, and Egyptian cultural appreciation for 540 Betsy M. Bryan Aegean forms. The Tell el‐Dab‘a gold pendant showing two confronting dogs standing on horizontal bars with incurving ends likewise represents a stylistic cross‐over with the Aigina Treasure (Schiestl 2009). Dynasty 12 royal pectorals depict the king in mirror images, trampling as a falcon‐headed griffin or smiting in anthropomorphic form (Benzel 2008). Replacing the Egyptian ruler with dogs represents a substantive semantic change, and a comparison with the “master of animals” pendants from the Aigina Treasure suggests strong interactions. Although some scholars recognize a southern Levantine source for the Tell el‐Dab‘a piece, recent opinion revives attribution to Aegean and Anatolian influences (Aruz 1995; Benzel 2008; Schiestl 2009). Clearly, Egypt’s commercial involvement in the eastern Mediterranean was strong at least from early Dynasty 12, as was interest in artistic forms and technical innovation from the Near East via the Levant (Lilyquist 1993). Likewise, Egyptian objects found in coastal Lebanon and Syria, and inland at major palace centers, affirm Egypt’s interest in the Levant as a commercial partner. Egyptianized seals and scarabs best document exchange with the southern Levant (Eder 1995; Teissier 1996: 15–22; Ben‐Tor 2004). The Late Bronze Age and the Egyptian New Kingdom Egypt’s cosmopolitan New Kingdom saw a newly reconstituted state commit to its role in the greater world, both south and north. Although initially artistic exchanges were both reactive and receptive to foreign influence, as Dynasty 18’s rulers succeeded in eastern arenas Egyptian artisans became proactive and adaptive. Egypt’s “ownership” of art forms, regardless of their place of origin, was proclaimed in two‐ and three‐dimensional art, jewelry, and eventually architecture. The “foreignness” still apparent in Near Eastern‐influenced Hyksos objects, such as the diadem of a princess decorated with a stag protome and gazelle heads interspersed with eight‐pointed stars, was subsumed into more traditional Egyptian forms and either fused into Egyptian iconography or treated as an emblem of northern cultures now associated with Egypt (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 64). The animals are motifs more common in Anatolian and Syrian imagery than in Egypt during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: nos. 106–7). The eight‐pointed stars, which also appear in jewelry from Tell el‐‘Ajjul in the southern Levant, are considered symbolic of Astarte and Ishtar. The relative chronologies of the Ajjul hoard and the Tell el‐Dab‘a diadem are uncertain. But Tell el‐‘Ajjul demonstrated elite wealth in tombs of the late Middle and early Late Bronze eras, and is now a likely candidate for the Hyksos stronghold Sharuhen.4 The Ancient Near East and Egypt 541 Christine Lilyquist (1993: 32, 55–57) discerned close connections between the Hyksos‐era diadem, the Tell el‐‘Ajjul and Megiddo gold objects, and the treasure of Ahhotep, dating the ‘Ajjul hoards between 1600 and 1400 BCE. She identified the granulation and glass in the Ahhotep jewels as unquestionably Canaanite in workmanship, contemporary with the ‘Ajjul and Megiddo jewels, suggesting that they could have been acquired from ‘Ajjul or, alternatively, taken from Tell el‐Dab‘a. But specialists disagree on the workmanship of the Hyksos‐era goldwork from the southern Levant and Egypt, debating its artisans’ artistic home (Arnold 1995: 15; Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: 116). The Ahmose Axe and Dagger Joan Aruz and Peter Lacovara recently argued for Egyptian manufacture of the axe and dagger from the burial of Queen Ahhotep, with foreign (chiefly Aegean) influences (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: nos. 67–68; for the axe, see Figure 22.2). They considered the “niello”‐like technique on the dagger’s blade, into which gold wire was set to outline animals and insects, to be a Dynasty 12 innovation, observing that in the Aegean gold cut‐outs were used instead. Yet only one Middle Kingdom object combining “niello” with gold wire is known, whereas in the Levant multiple elite weapons (including the sword of Ip‐shemu‐abi of Byblos) exhibit the technique (Wildung 1982; Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 30). Using wire instead of cut‐outs may have been an Egyptian technique, but here both appear: the cut‐out method on the axe blade, the wire technique on the dagger. Figure 22.2 Axe of Ahmose. Thebes, tomb of Ahhotep; Dynasty 18, sixteenth century BCE. Gold, electrum, copper alloy, semiprecious stones, wood; 47.5 × 6.7 cm. Luxor Museum JE 4673. Photograph courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reproduced with permission of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. 542 Betsy M. Bryan Both methods were likely used throughout the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, but when they were introduced is uncertain (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: nos. 148, 171). The axe blade’s iconography typifies the manner in which imported imagery was received and embraced in the Hyksos and early Dynasty 18 eras. On one side, the blade with niello‐like black shows a gold cut‐out for Ahmose’s cartouches and two registers beneath (see Figure 22.2, left‐hand side). In the upper register is a classical Egyptian icon appropriate to a battle axe—the king smiting, wearing the traditional shendyt‐kilt of kingship and an early form of the khepresh, or “blue” crown. In the lower register is a cut‐out gold griffin of an Aegean type with comb, neck curls, and upraised wings. The two images recall Dynasty 12 pectorals that showed the king in anthropomorphic form smiting Asiatics (Amenemhet III) and in hieracocephalic griffin form likewise smiting (Senwosret III) (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: 105, fig. 34; Wyatt 2009). Yet despite the strong Aegean influences, the griffin was imported into both the Levant and Egypt in the late Middle Bronze Age palace environment. In glyptic Levantine griffins display non‐Egyptian forms, with comb, horns, and upraised wings—details also present on an ivory plaque from Anatolia (Lilyquist 1993; Teissier 1996: 148–50; Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 69a, b). We should therefore wonder whether the Aegean form on the axe blade alluded to Crete or instead to Ahmose as an Egyptian solarizing griffin, styled as at contemporary and earlier palaces at Thera, Alalakh, Tel Kabri, and Miletos (Lacovara and Aruz 2008; Bietak 2013; Pfälzner 2013).5 On the blade’s opposite side are three registers of gold cut‐outs inlaid with semiprecious stones (see Figure 22.2, right‐hand side). These are recognizably Egyptian motifs, with an unexpectedly serious message. Above, the kneeling deity is the “Heh” god holding in each hand the hieroglyphs for “year,” the combination meaning “millions of years.” In the middle, the vulture and cobra goddesses sit in baskets atop plants of the south and north and portray “Nekhbet and Wadjet, mistresses of Upper and Lower Egypt.” In the lowest register is a sphinx as the god Aker: specifically not royal. The brow lacks a uraeus, and the sphinx, which holds a head in its hand, has a curved divine beard. Here the blade’s three registers represent the cosmic cycle of “millions of years” above, the land of Egypt on earth, and the world below, to come. The Aker god appears in a manner transitional from its early form (a piece of land with heads on either end) and its later, double sphinx form that guarded the horizon (Hornung 1975). With the introduction in the Second Intermediate Period of the Book of the Dead, Aker assisted in the solar fight against Apophis and Seth: an appropriate allusion on an axe of Ahmose. The Ancient Near East and Egypt 543 This iconography is sophisticated and original, and must represent a highly knowledgeable Egyptian design, which precludes its manufacture in an entirely non‐Egyptian setting. Tell el‐Dab‘a was likely a repository of traditional Egyptian religious knowledge, as indicated by the scribal palette of Atu given to him by Auserre Apophis (Bourriau 2000: 180–82). Atu is described as “a scribe of Re, whom Thoth himself instructed” (Helck 1983: 57). Auserre is “greater than any king who protected the lands, the limits, and everyone who beheld him, the living image of Re upon Earth” (Helck 1983: 58).6 The domain of this king is not the expected Nile Valley’s “two lands,” but the lands outside. The Ahhotep jewels’ distinctively Canaanite techniques should probably be attributed to craftsmen trained in Levantine goldworking and employed inside Egypt, as seems to have been the case later in Dynasty 18 (Lilyquist and Brill 1993: 43). The Ahmose axe was a ceremonial object that signaled a warrior. Early Hyksos burial assemblages frequently included weapons made of tin‐bronze (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 66; Lacovara and Aruz 2008). Yet by the end of Dynasty 15 the daggers and axes in the burials of Tell el‐Dab‘a elites were ceremonial in form and made of copper, perhaps indicating a less warlike social hierarchy (Bourriau 2000: 202). Thus Ahmose’s weapon does not reject the prevailing cultural norms of his Hyksos predecessors, but its iconography is strongly Egyptian. The hybrid Egypto‐Levantine motifs recognized on Hyksos scarabs (Ben‐Tor 2004) and on a dagger belonging to a follower of Auserre (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 65) display the tastes of a rapidly changing elite culture stretching from the Delta to Megiddo, which coexisted in the Nile Valley with traditional Egyptian religion and iconography (Bourriau 2000: 182). Levantine gold techniques were absent from other objects dating to Ahmose’s reign, and Lilyquist (1993: 55) proposed that a pectoral in his name contained glass that was Egyptian in technique and material, sharing elements with glass from the reign of Amenhotep I (Lilyquist and Brill 1993: 23–24, fig. 23). Egyptianization of elite artistic production can be observed throughout the craft domains, from technology to iconography and style. The flying gallop is a well‐known and attested motif adopted into Egyptian art either directly from the Aegean or via the Levant (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 68). The gazelle heads, as seen on the Hyksos gold diadem, were adapted for Egyptian female royal and elite headdresses (Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 64). They appear, for example, on a diadem from the tomb of the foreign wives of Thutmose III and on paintings of the daughters of Menna and Pairy in Theban tombs 69 and 139 (Lilyquist 2003: 154–61). 544 Betsy M. Bryan The International Context of the Late Bronze Age Helene Kantor (1956) observed that Late Bronze Age artisans combined Mycenaean and Canaanite motifs and styles on ivories in such an identifiable manner that the same forms were still part of artistic vocabularies several centuries later. She distinguished northern Levantine styles that fused Syrian and Aegean art, and southern Canaanite ivories that were principally Egyptianizing. Commenting on Mycenaean ivories, Emily Vermeule ([1964] 1972) noted interactive influences between the Greek mainland and the Levant. She did not perceive an art style that broadly appealed to elites because it combined elements, but one that was largely Mycenaean with some Orientalizing aspects borne by the ivory’s eastern origins. William Stevenson Smith (1965: 107) suggested that an international style had developed early in the Late Bronze Age; like Kantor, he saw it as representing fused motifs from several regions in smaller, more portable art forms. The ivories and other mobile arts from the eastern Mediterranean remain a focus of cross‐regional art styles in the Late Bronze Age, and Egypt participated in the production, consumption, and exchange of such styles. Recent scholarship has focused attention on the royal gift exchange mentioned in the Amarna‐period diplomatic correspondence as a backdrop to the development of extra‐regional styles of ivories, metal vessels, and jewelry. Yet there is no consensus on the definition of such styles or the degree to which they might directly relate to royal diplomacy (Aruz 2008a, 2008c; Caubet 2008). Marian Feldman (2006) acknowledged the eastern Mediterranean and Near East as a cradle for various Levantine art styles with an elite consumership, but she also argued for a cross‐cultural style without discernible points of origin that could create a shared body of luxury gifts for the Great Powers of the day. Redefined as an “international artistic koine,” her small group of elite objects represented a supra‐cultural concept of shared (royal) exclusivity. Subjects were frequently animal or hybrid‐beasts, vegetation, and agriculture—themes and motifs found throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Egypt—yet the addition of the donor’s name should have identified the source.7 But no connection between the supra‐regional style presumably created for gifting and diplomacy has been made with items mentioned in the Amarna correspondence. And even within this small, exclusive group, some objects clearly belonged not to the royal or palatial sphere but to the temple, and were associated with nonroyal donors. Both inscriptions and depictions on the Tell Basta treasure vessels demonstrate that the objects were not royal exchanges but ritual temple vessels donated by elite personnel and produced in a workshop in the eastern Delta (Lilyquist 2013: 270). The themes of fishing and riverine husbandry The Ancient Near East and Egypt 545 on the dish naming one Amy were appropriate in Egyptian iconography for decorating ritual drinking vessels in the temple of Neith. The scene also has close parallels among the Tell el‐Far‘ah ivories, themselves deeply influenced by Egyptian motifs and thus culturally explicit (unlike Feldman’s koine group) (Bryan 1996; Fischer 2011: 196–208; Fischer and Wicke 2011). There is nonetheless general agreement that artistic contact was constant, and motifs moved even more swiftly through regions and eras than previously. Egypt and the Reception of the Near East After the expulsion of the Hyksos, direct contact with the Near East was intermittent until the sole reign of Thutmose III, as the material record also reflects. Lilyquist and Brill’s (1993) investigations of early glass indicated that Hatshepsut’s reign was pivotal for glass amulet and bead production in Egypt, but imports of Mittanian and Assyrian glass vessels may have continued after the reign of Thutmose III. A small, handled glass jug naming that king combines shapes and motifs from Egypt and the Levant and was perhaps commissioned to import for the ruler (Roehrig, Dreyfus, and Keller 2005: no. 34). Despite an expedition to inland Syria by Thutmose I, nothing suggests persistent Egyptian military interest in the Levant until the famed siege of Megiddo in Thutmose III’s twenty‐third year. During the ensuing fifty years, however, Egypt established control over the southern Levantine city‐states and a patchwork of vassal states in modern Lebanon and Syria. As a result, extra‐regional movement of artists, seen already in the Middle Bronze palace environment, was intensified by various means, including war captives and elite artistic commissions (Lilyquist 2013). Just as Thutmose III may have more easily acquired glass vessels from Nuzi or Tell Brak, perhaps as a result of the wars glassmakers were brought to Egypt to produce and instruct others in their craft (Lilyquist and Brill 1993: 9–11). Until at least late Dynasty 18, however, glass vessel production depended on imported ingots and rods, frequently mentioned in Amarna letter exchanges (Rehren and Pusch 1999; Nicholson and Henderson 2000: 195–96). Yet after core‐ formed glass technology was transferred to the Nile Valley non‐Egyptian vessel shapes soon disappeared, perhaps by the reign of Thutmose IV. Could this have been a deliberate hegemonic statement regarding technological ownership? Glass technology apparently remained under royal control during Dynasty 18, and it was thus within the state’s power to eliminate foreign shapes (Nicholson and Henderson 2000: 196). Adapting glass vessels to Egyptian style in no way signaled a lack of interest in foreign luxury arts: multiple Amarna letters specify the status of such exotica (Liverani 2008: 166). Representing foreign objects as prestige gifts 546 Betsy M. Bryan to the ruler is characteristic of elite tomb chapel paintings in mid‐ to late Dynasty 18 and was probably inspired by actual royal audiences, such as that described for Akhenaten in the elite tomb of Huya (Davies 1905: 9, pl. XIII; Darnell and Manassa 2007: 131–36). Similarly, Thutmose III’s Annals specified the foreign origin of some presentation and plunder goods. Booty from Megiddo, for example, included “a large amphora in the workmanship of Syria (Kharu) … and of ebony worked with gold, a statue of that enemy who is there, its head of lapis [lazuli]” (Sethe 1907: 666–67; Lichtheim 1976: 34). Nonetheless, as Mario Liverani implied, the setting of an exchange or acquisition was just as significant as the objects’ exotic nature. A gift exchange among great rulers was a formalized context that added status to the products of both donor and recipient, while ceremonies displaying booty or tribute relegated the presentations to symbols of vassalage. In fact, Egyptian appreciation for actual foreign objects is not easy to assess, given the paucity of known examples. Lilyquist (1999a, 2005, 2013) proposed a group from the tomb of Tutankhamun, but none preserves a donor’s inscription. To assess the level of knowledge of or respect for foreign cultural elements, we must look for ways in which Egyptian art adapted specifically foreign motifs. An interesting example is the military award called “the lion,” given during Thutmose III’s Syrian campaigns. Represented as a combination of two confronting gold lions framing a more traditional gold fly, it appears in two Theban tombs (TT 200 and 92) spanning the reigns of Thutmose III and early Amenhotep II (Bryan 2001; Binder 2008). The soldier Amenemheb (TT 85), who described his activity during the Syrian Eighth Campaign of Year 33, twice received this award (Bryan 2000: 74–76; Redford 2003: 168–72). The lion was, of course, a royal animal for the Egyptians, and lions accompanied the king on the battlefield. Thus a brave soldier was a “lion on the battlefield” in proxy for the king.8 Yet the award’s particular attachment to the Syrian campaigns, when the Mittani rulers were themselves engaged, may also be relevant. The king may have wished in awarding his soldiers to transform the Mittani king’s own logo, for the seal of the Mittani king Saushtatar, contemporary with Thutmose III’s campaigns, consisted of two facing lions enclosing a winged disk with eagles on the back of the lions (see Figure 21.3 in Ataç, this volume). The overall design has much in common with the lion and fly pectoral. Yet for centuries the iconography of the winged disk and confronting leonine forms had been imagery available for elite art in the Near East (such as the pectoral of Senwosret III mentioned earlier). Thus the award’s deliberate resemblance to the Mittani seal can only be suggested. Another motif with non‐Egyptian origins became a symbol for the protection of pharaonic power in later Dynasty 18. The Aegean griffin had The Ancient Near East and Egypt 547 appeared in the Levant and Egypt earlier in the Bronze Age, but it reemerged in Egyptian art after the reign of Ahmose (see above). Occasionally it was replaced by the female sphinx with uplifted wing wearing a headdress associated with Egyptian and foreign goddesses. The earliest examples date from the reign of Amenhotep III. Adapted from the Aegean griffin with raised wing, this image resonated both within Egypt and throughout the Near East in the Late Bronze Age (Helck 1955; Eggebrecht 1977; Bryan 1996: 69–73; Aruz, Graff, and Rakic 2013: 185, fig. 12). Within Egypt in particular, this sphinx replaced a simple lion at the side of Horemheb’s royal throne on his statue now in Turin (ca. 1300 BCE) (Bryan 1996: 70). Like the leonine goddesses Sakhmet and Tefnut and their counterparts, the female winged sphinx acted to protect the sun god and his earthly representative, the Egyptian ruler. Part of an ivory openwork inlay from Megiddo dated 1300–1100 BCE, probably belonging to a local ruler in contact with the Egyptian hegemony, illustrates Levantine emulation of this imagery (Bryan 1996: 69–73; Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008: no. 84). Although we cannot know whether the iconography’s ideological force was identical in Megiddo and Egypt, Canaan’s vassal network surely encouraged city‐state rulers to employ Egyptian‐styled imagery (Fischer 2011: 196–208; Oren 2012). Megiddo’s reuse of this foreign‐influenced Egyptian icon exemplifies the cross‐ fertilization of art forms that we witnessed already in the late Neolithic. Thus definitively to associate the resultant image with a particular culture or ethnicity may be less important than putting it in its proper social, technological, and functional context (Gunter 2009: 91–106). For example, the often‐discussed ivory bed inlays from Ugarit have frequently been associated with the diplomatic context of the Amarna era or earlier (Feldman 2002: 16). The panels, from a late thirteenth‐ or early twelfth‐century context, are rendered in an Egyptian style but include many elements of Ugaritic royal and religious ideology (Heltzer 1982: 178–85; Feldman 2013). The Egyptian style betrays an awareness of later Dynasty 19 portrait traits, such as the long ski‐slope brow and nose shape and the long ovoid eye with convexly carved eyelid above—elements that developed together, particularly in the reign of Ramesses II (1279–1212 BCE). The mobility of artists is relevant here, for a cuneiform text attests that the ruler of Ugarit asked Merneptah (or more likely his successor Seti II) to send an Egyptian sculptor to Ugarit to create a statue of Merneptah (Lackenbacher 1995; Safronov 2013). The request was refused or delayed, and carpenters were offered instead (Scandone Matthiae 2000). The ivories might better be understood as a work for the Ugaritic royal household and its ideology (Heltzer 1982). 548 Betsy M. Bryan The Tell Basta Treasure (Figure 22.3) and the ivories from southern Canaan also help narrate how Egypt was changing at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The primary Egyptian residences of Dynasties 19 and 20 were in the eastern Delta, leading to the Levant and Egypt’s vassal network. Tell Basta’s two finds of vessels and jewels appear to have been made in mid‐ to late Dynasty 19 (ca. 1230–1200 BCE), produced by artisans either themselves Levantine or trained in their techniques. Lilyquist (2012: 33–38) demonstrates that at least some of these objects were dedicated by elites whose spheres of operation were in the Levant; she believes that both artisans and patrons were of foreign origin. The treasure’s decorative patterns, also seen on the Late Bronze Age ivories from Tell el‐Far‘ah, Megiddo, and elsewhere, represent communication during later Dynasty 19 between Egyptian Delta cities and the southern vassal and city‐states (Gubel 2000a; Fischer 2011: 205–8). Figure 22.3 Repoussé bowl decorated with marsh scenes, agriculture, farming, husbandry, and wine‐making activities. Tell Basta; Dynasty 19 (thirteenth–twelfth century BCE). Silver; dia. 20.7 cm. Rogers Fund, 1907. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 07.228.20. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Ancient Near East and Egypt 549 Yet the Tell Basta vessels also tell another story, representing the beginning of trends that occur through the first millennium BCE. The vessels’ largely Egyptian motifs include numerous depictions of watery settings and riverine activities, appropriately used to decorate cult vessels for temples—for Bastet at Tell Basta but also, according to one inscription, for the goddess Neith of Sais. These were drinking and pouring vessels for a festival such as the Festivals of Drunkenness (Lilyquist 2012: 20–21; Bryan 2014). In addition, they were donations by specific elite patrons apparently involved in duties external to Egypt. In many cases their names and titles were inscribed on the vessels. Lilyquist (2012: 34–41) suggested a direct link in use and style between the Tell Basta vessels and the later “Phoenician” vessels; she also noted a connection with early first‐millennium faience chalices. Moreover, these temple vessels represented a large amount of gold and silver placed in temple treasuries and therefore exempted from deposit in the tombs of these same elites. The end of the New Kingdom brought economic deprivation, and tomb‐robbing—even in the Valley of the Kings—was widespread, if not indeed conducted by the heads of government themselves. The deposit of wealth in burials began to focus on temple environments, perhaps because of their relative security compared with the cemeteries (Taylor 2010). This shift, in concert with a new political configuration in the north, led to changing patterns of Egyptian involvement with the Near East. Interconnections in the First Millennium BCE During the period between 1070 and 664 BCE, “the influence of Egyptian imagery, and of imagery inspired by Egypt, exceeded the country’s political weight and its importance as a trading partner” (Hill 2014: 198). The dissemination of Egyptian‐styled images on ivories, metal vessels, and amulets spread throughout the Levant, Assyria, and across the Mediterranean (López Castro 2006), not through Egyptian state involvement with production centers but as a consequence of Neo‐Assyrian imperial reconfiguration of new conquests in western Asia (Gunter 2009: 100–2). Nonetheless, ivories with Egyptianizing motifs display contemporaneous visual elements: for example, a plaque from Arslan Taş with squatting divine child figures flanked by winged protective deities (Gubel 2000a, 2000b). The imagery of the squatting divine child, identified with the king in cultic divine triads throughout Egypt’s temple landscape, was common to Dynasties 21 to 25 (Hill 2014). Others argue that the precise iconography resulted instead from Phoenicians residing in the Delta, or perhaps mobile craftsmen moving in and out of the area (Gubel 2000a). Perhaps both factors were at play. 550 Betsy M. Bryan The broad dissemination of Egyptian visual culture is commonly attributed to exchange, with goods carried by merchants and sailors who moved around the eastern Mediterranean. Gregory Mumford (2007: 145–55) has thus explained the archaeological record of the Levant, suggesting that after the campaigns of Dynasty 22, trade—especially Phoenician trade—was the primary means of moving Egyptian and Egyptianizing objects. But he offers no evidence for such trade in the Iron 2 period corresponding to Dynasties 22 to 25, relying instead on the literary text of Wenamun written around 1050 BCE (Lichtheim 1976: 224–32). Textual references to Egyptian items in the Levant include Neo‐Assyrian inscriptions that record various means of acquisition, but not commercial trade (Gunter 2009: 125–54). Biblical references cannot be accepted as historical documentation other than in a general manner, so the archaeological remains provide the best evidence. Yet these data do not help establish how objects from Egypt reached the Levant. Between the tenth and seventh centuries Egypt was ruled by kings referred to generally as Libyan, from families that emerged from tribal groups from the west who settled in the Delta, and then by Kushites who conquered and merged Egypt with Sudan (Hill 2014). Despite their origins, these rulers behaved publicly much as their predecessors had for thousands of years: following campaigns against foreign regions, they made temple donations to display their relationship with the gods. Shoshenq I, perhaps the king who sacked the Temple of Jerusalem in the tenth century BCE, celebrated his campaign before Amun‐Re of Karnak, and several immediate successors also sent expeditions to the Levant (Mumford 2007). Near Tell Basta, a large donation inscription recorded every gift the king (apparently Osorkon I) had given to Egyptian temples. It lists quantities of precious metals and lapis lazuli, and approached half a million Troy pounds of silver, in addition to gold (Breasted 1906: 362–66). Although such temple donations and expedition accounting was typical of Egyptian monumental records, such detailed donation records seem to have intensified, as the Harris Papyrus of Dynasty 20 attests (Grandet 1994). When in the mid‐eighth century the Kushite king Piye (Piankhy) defeated the city of Memphis that housed the great temple of Ptah, he turned all the treasuries and granaries over to that temple as an endowment, thus solidifying his role as legitimate ruler who offers to the gods (Lichtheim 1980: 76). The regional state wealth at Memphis was thus retained through deposit in the temple of Ptah, while the personal wealth of defeated Delta rulers was taken to Nubia. The temple could function as a protected setting for the administration of wealth, as the inscriptions cited attest. The burial of those goods, if it may be considered a form of storage, was best protected within temple precincts. The tombs of Dynasty 21 and 22 kings and family members in the temple The Ancient Near East and Egypt 551 precinct of Amun at Tanis contained large amounts of gold and silver in the form of burial goods—wealth stolen from royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings and largely refashioned for the Tanite rulers (Reeves 1990). Ultimately, we see the rulers of the earlier first millennium accounting for, moving, and tracking wealth in the form of precious materials, undoubtedly due to its finite nature. Temples provided a means of storing and protecting amassed wealth for the rulers, but elites also made donations of valuable materials throughout the sanctuaries of Egypt (Hill 2014: 199). In particular, small‐scale bronze statues were dedicated in large numbers by rulers and elites alike, and the figures’ small size enabled donors to provide gifts in large and small shrines as well as in memorial chapels for saints and even in foreign sanctuaries such as the Heraion on Samos (Davis 2007; Gunter 2009: 150–53). Indeed, the increasing prominence of goddess cults in Egypt during the early first millennium, like Bastet at Tell Basta, encouraged intentional networking with temple institutions elsewhere, such as Greek sanctuaries of Hera and Athena. Following Ingrid Strøm, Ann Gunter (2009: 150–54) has argued persuasively that Egyptian finds from sanctuaries in Greece and the eastern Aegean represent groups and types of objects whose symbolic valences and ritual uses were known by the cult personnel. Kousoulis and Morenz (2007) have argued similarly for Rhodian donations by Saite rulers and elites. Rather than votive gifts, they were cult implements used within a broad network of goddesses’ temples from Egypt to Samos to Argolis. Archaeological evidence in the Levant may reflect a similar process. The presence of divine amulets of Egyptian type in nearly 10 percent of all grave assemblages of the Iron 2b period may well indicate that, as in the contemporary Greek sanctuaries, these objects were used by knowledgeable consumers who acquired the amulets for religious purposes. The decline of Egyptian objects later in the Iron 2b period perhaps reflected the western growth of the Neo‐Assyrian Empire (Mumford 2007: 169; Gunter 2009: 34–49). Thus the mechanisms for transferring objects from one region to another should not be assumed. A study of Egyptian documentation for merchants in external trade in the Late Bronze Age and later demonstrated that the title šwty referred to agents of exchange between institutions, whether internal to Egypt or outside (Römer 1992). Wenamun, although not designated as šwty in the story, represented the temple of Amun‐Re, and his title “elder of the portal” was held by a šwty in the Chronicle of Osorkon. In numerous instances the title is associated with the name of a temple, and such officials acted to effect exchanges on behalf of two or more noncommercial institutions. The production and dissemination throughout the early first millennium world of large numbers of amulets, figurines, and shabtis may have been the province of temples. 552 Betsy M. Bryan The Statue of Darius and Egypt in the Achaemenid Era (ca. 525–330 BCE) Egypt’s role as a dominant power in the ancient world underwent a reversal during the first millennium. Conquered over a period of eight hundred years by Sudanese, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans, the Nile Valley had only a few short‐lived native dynasties (26, 28–30, for example). Yet the kings of Dynasties 26 and 30 nonetheless involved themselves in external politics and behaved at home like traditional pharaohs, building monuments and sponsoring the arts. When the Achaemenid king Cambyses defeated Egypt in 525 BCE, he and later Darius took control of a vibrant elite culture whose activities on behalf of their rulers, their gods, and themselves were monumentally celebrated on statues and stelae that were dedicated in temples from the Delta to Aswan (Baines 1996; Bassir 2013). The most famous example is the statue of the chief physician and admiral Wedjahorresnet (Figure 22.4). Its form and text serve to demonstrate how Egypt’s artisans had maintained the ability seen at the beginning of Dynasty 18 to receive foreign elements, incorporate, and even re‐Egyptianize them. The statue of Darius (Figure 22.5) serves as an excellent comparison for this process. Wedjahorresnet had served under the last Saite pharaoh, Psamtik III, then became an advisor to Cambyses, for whom he created an appropriate Egyptian ruler’s titulary. Finally he became chief physician to Darius, whom he apparently followed to Susa (Moyer 2006). After his return to Egypt, Wedjahorresnet carried out restoration activities in Egyptian temples and scriptoria, and his statue dedicated in the temple of Neith at Sais bears a famous set of inscriptions. John Baines (1996) has persuasively argued that the viewer and reader of the statue’s texts would learn primarily of Wedjahorresnet as the stabilizer of Egypt, a role normative to kings, but often preempted by elites during periods of weakened kingship. Although he spoke of his important functions on behalf of the Egyptian and Persian kings, Wedjahorresnet presented himself holding a naos, as a pious servant of the deity in dedicatory pose. This statue type had retained its cultural meaning throughout centuries of defeat and foreign rule. Wedjahorresnet had worked to maintain that meaning by helping Persian rulers perform traditional pharaonic roles, such as the taking of a titulary and the renovation of temples. Yet Ian Moyer (2006: 245–46) has observed that despite the statue’s traditional Egyptian form and inscription, it shows the physician wearing gold bracelets of a Persian style, and the inscription states that he received gold ornaments from all his lords. The chief physician referred to these gifts as awards, such as the “lion” discussed earlier. Perhaps the Persian king’s participation in a gift redistribution was a means of securing loyal fealty, so The Ancient Near East and Egypt 553 Figure 22.4 Statue of Wedjahorresnet. Sais; Dynasty 27, reign of Darius, year 3 (519 BCE). Basalt; h. 96 cm. Musei Vaticani, Museo Egizio 22690. Photo Vatican Museums. that the exact valence was not identical in Susa and Sais. Yet Wedjahorresnet portrayed as identical the acts of his Saite and his Persian ruler. The chief physician’s statue was carved from the same stone as the superb Darius statue found in Susa (see Figure 22.5). The greywacke from the Wadi Hammamat in Egypt’s eastern desert was a preferred material for royal and elite statues from the Old Kingdom onward, but especially in the Saite era (Yoyotte 2010). The over life‐sized royal statue was made of Egyptian stone 554 Betsy M. Bryan Figure 22.5 Statue of Darius (522–486 BCE). Susa, monumental gate east of Palace of Darius. Granite (graywacke); pres. h. of statue 51 cm, base 104 × 64 cm. Photograph courtesy of French Archaeological Mission in Susa. and carved in Egypt using Egyptian sculptural techniques. Yet its form and inscriptions made it, as Henry Colburn (2014) observes, “art of the empire,” meaning that it communicated Achaemenid royal ideology in a style that deliberately and carefully combined the styles and iconographies of the far‐ flung empire. The result was an ideological appropriation of all regions over which the Persian king ruled, in a manner similar to, but less violent than, Neo‐Assyrian imperial art (Briant 1999: 105–6; Colburn 2014). Achaemenid influence in Egypt’s traditional elite and monumental environment remained minimal, although some private monuments from Memphis display Persian attributes and may have been commissioned for foreigners (Wasmuth 2010). Thus while personal ornament was a common way to identify clients and others in the Neo‐Assyrian period and in official The Ancient Near East and Egypt 555 Achaemenid art, to the Egyptian viewer Wedjahorresnet’s bracelet visually confirmed his connection to the Persian rulers (Gunter 2009: 170–73; Colburn 2014). Yet in its elements of similarity with the Darius statue, Wedjahorresnet’s statue suggests a manipulation of the king’s official portrait. Darius wears an Achaemenid court robe with draped but stylized folds and carries an Elamite dagger. In one hand he holds a cylinder, “in keeping with Egyptian sculptural practice” (Colburn 2014: 86). The flower in his proper right hand is not Egyptian, and of course he wears shoes, a Persian feature. The Egyptian artisans have placed the cuneiform inscriptions (DSab) along the lower folds of the robe, and hieroglyphic inscriptions on the belt, the garment folds, and the top and sides of the base. The statue base utilizes iconic Egyptian images of fecundity figures tying together the plants of Upper and Lower Egypt on the front and the rear, although those images are normally placed on the sides. The small figures on the sides of the base are distinguished by clothing and attributes as peoples of the Achaemenid Empire; their arms are raised in a gesture that in Achaemenid art indicates support of the king (Roaf 1974: 74; Colburn 2014: 787). The closest Egyptian parallel may be the altar of Taharqa at Gebel Barkal in Sudan, where on front and back fecundity figures also tie the plants of Upper and Lower Egypt, and Taharqa appears four times holding up the heavens as the god Shu (Porter and Moss 1952: 220). While the sculptors of Darius’s statue could have known other monuments, the altar could be recognized as a model for the statue base. Ultimately, the statue should be seen as an Achaemenid imperial portrait with Egyptian forms, innovatively designed and sculpted by Egyptian artisans. How, then, might Wedjahorresnet’s statue have utilized the royal statue? Both are carved from Egyptian greywacke. Both depict the subject in a striding pose with a central focus for the viewer at waist and below, where Wedjahorresnet holds the naos and Darius folds his left arm above the dagger at his belt. But to the Egyptian viewer the unique element on the chief physician’s statue is the inscription on the front of the figure, which is carved on the garment in vertical columns. Beneath the elaborately pleated and draped robe closing above breast level the inscriptions that Baines labeled B and b cover the garment three‐dimensionally, and are intended only to inscribe the clothing; at the back, the inscription stops at the top of the garment. The columns here uniquely create garment pleats, and Wedjahorresnet’s figure is thus inscribed on his formal garb, just as was Darius’s. There is no parallel for this approach to the inscription, and even the best parallel for the Persian clothing and accoutrements, the Ptahhotep statue now in Brooklyn, places the inscriptions in a traditional Egyptian fashion, as a surface covering (Bothmer 1960: 76–77, figs. 151–53). 556 Betsy M. Bryan Yet, seen from the front of the statue, the naos texts, as Baines noted, are traditional in form and content; and because the columns are a typical Egyptian way of treating inscriptions, the truly innovative approach to the garment nonetheless re‐Egyptianizes the foreign approach. Wedjahorresnet’s statue thus emulated that of the Persian king, and its inscriptions did likewise (Baines 1996). After centuries of conquest by outside powers, the Egyptian elites and their artisans continued to adapt Egyptian art to current circumstances and create new Egyptian art forms. Conclusions Over some four millennia, Egypt was influenced by and influenced the arts of the ancient Near East. During the period of state formation in the late fourth millennium, artisans utilized for Egypt’s elite imagery current in Sumer and Elam, as well as the Levant. By the time of the centralized kingship in early Dynasty 1 (ca. 3100 BCE), borrowed images, such as griffins and serpent‐necked felines, were adapted to perform as Egyptian cultural symbols. Symbolism exported from Egypt to the Levant in the third millennium and later was equally employed to represent regional relationships with the Nile Valley rulers. The more cosmopolitan nature of the Late Bronze Age, encouraged by the imperial powers of Egypt, Mittani, Hatti, and Assyria, resulted in more exchange of image vocabularies, and some have identified true “international styles” during this period. Clearly Egypt influenced Levantine elite art and was itself far more receptive to foreign artistic technologies (glass and goldworking), but also continued to express imported forms in Egyptian terms, as seen in the adaptations to the flying gallop borrowed from the Near East and Aegean. In the first millennium new forms continued to appear in Egypt under Persian influence, as the statue of Wedjahorresnet demonstrates. Yet throughout the period the Near East and Egypt continued interconnections through donations at religious centers. Through such exchanges their artistic forms were maintained, respected, and even replicated by others. NOTES 1. Compare the amounts of lapis mentioned in the Amarna Letters—including dowry and wedding gift lists—where a greeting gift might include two to four minas of lapis lazuli, about 1–2 kilograms (Heltzer 1994; Moran 2002: nos. 1–65). The Ancient Near East and Egypt 557 2. Eder (1995: 9–10, 22–23) proposes synchronisms with the high chronology he uses. 3. For example, the ’I sy expedition brought back 125 deben of new copper, while the expedition to the Lebanon region brought back 15,961. 4. The Autobiography of Ahmose of Ebana refers to Ahmose’s siege of Sharuhen after the Hyksos were expelled (Lichtheim 1976: 13). 5. Possibly also Tell el‐Dab‘a, although the excavator assigns all the frescoes to Thutmoside Dynasty18. 6. Helck’s (1983: 57–58) translation differs significantly from the one Bourriau (2000: 181) cites, in which Thoth’s scribal function is attributed to Auserre, but the text does not so indicate. Despite lacunae, the beginning clearly describes Atu as the “scribe of Re.” 7. Kim Benzel (2013) applied a similar methodology in interpreting metal plaques with female body elements, widely distributed in the Levant and eastern Mediterranean. Her analysis eliminated the divine identities represented on the plaques, emphasizing instead the sexuality of the female anatomy. 8. Maiherpri, a foreign soldier who served Thutmose III and was granted burial in the Valley of the Kings, has as his name the epithet “lion on the battlefield” (Lilyquist 2005: 62–64). GUIDE TO FURTHER READING Artistic connections within the Near East, Egypt, and the eastern Mediterranean have been the subject of major exhibitions and accompanying catalogues in recent years. Aruz, Benzel, and Evans 2008 and Aruz, Graff, and Rakic 2013 are invaluable sources for the study of Near Eastern arts in communication. For those interested in Bronze Age technologies the contributions by Christine Lilyquist listed in the References will be highly useful, particularly Lilyquist 2012. Gunter 2009 analyzes the various types of networks that characterized first‐millennium artistic exchanges. Feldman 2006 offers a challenging approach to the Late Bronze Age cosmopolitanism. REFERENCES Altenmüller, H., and A. M. Moussa. 1991. “Die Inschrift Amenemhets II. aus dem Ptah‐Tempel von Memphis. Ein Vorbericht.” Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 18: 1–48. Arnold, D. 1995. “An Egyptian Bestiary.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 52: 1–71. Aruz, J. 1995. “Imagery and Interconnections.” Ägypten und Levante 5: 33–38. Aruz, J. 2008a. “The Art of Exchange.” In Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C., eds. J. Aruz, K. Benzel, and J. M. Evans, 387–94. New York. 558 Betsy M. Bryan Aruz, J. 2008b. “Central Anatolian Ivories.” In Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C., eds. J. Aruz, K. Benzel, and J. M. Evans, 82–90. New York. 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