Ancient Egypt (Hand-Out 2)

How Ancient Egypt shaped our idea of beauty
1) Complete the first part of the text with the correct word using prefixes and suffixes.
Pop __________ is steeped in CULTURAL

images of smoky-eyed
pharaohs and their queens.
Were the ancient __________ EGYPT
insufferably vain – or are we
SIMPLE
_________ projecting our own
_________ onto them? VALUABLE
Alastair Sooke investigates.
By Alastair Sooke
4 February 2016
Walking around Beyond Beauty, the new exhibition organised by ____________ (CHARITY) foundation
the Bulldog Trust in the neo-Gothic mansion of Two Temple Place in _______________ (CENTRE)
London, you would be forgiven for thinking that the ancient ____________ (EGYPT) were
________________ (SUFFER) vain. Many of the 350 exhibits, drawn from the overlooked collections of
Britain‟s _______________ (REGION) museums, consist of what we would call beauty
________________ (PRODUCE), of one sort or another.
2) Complete the following part of the article with the verbs in the correct form.
There _______ (be) dinky combs and handheld mirrors made of copper alloy or, more rarely, silver.
There ________ (be) siltstone palettes, carved to resemble animals, which ____________ (use) for
grinding minerals such as green malachite and kohl for eye makeup.
There ______ (be) also pale calcite jars and vessels of assorted sizes, in which makeup, as well as
unguents and perfumes, could be stored. Then there is a scrap of human hair that ___________
(suggest) the ancient Egyptians commonly _____________ (wear) hair extensions and wigs.
And, of course, there are lots of striking examples of Egyptian jewellery, including a string of beads,
decorated with carnelian pendants in the shape of poppy heads, found in the grave of a small child
wrapped in matting. In short, ancient Egyptians of both sexes apparently ________ (go) to great lengths
to touch up their appearance.
Moreover, this ________ (be) just as true in death as it _______ (be) in life: witness the smooth, serene
faces, with regular features and prominent eyes emphasised by dramatic black outlines, typically painted
onto cartonnage mummy masks and wooden coffins.
Yet, for modern archaeologists, the ubiquity of beauty products in ancient Egypt __________ (offer) a
conundrum.
On the one hand, it ______ (be) possible that ancient Egyptians ________ (be) besotted with superficial
appearance, much as we _________ (be) today. Indeed, perhaps they even set the template for how we
still ____________ (perceive) beauty.
But, on the other, there ______ (be) a risk that we could project our own narcissistic values onto a
fundamentally different culture. Is it possible that the significance of cosmetic artifacts in ancient Egypt
went beyond the frivolous desire simply to look attractive?
3) Complete the third part of the article by circling the correct option.
Sensibly sexy
This is which / what / that many archaeologists now believe. Take the common use of kohl eye makeup
in ancient Egypt – the inspiration for smoky eye makeup today. Recent scientist / science / scientific
research suggests that the toxicity / poisonous / toxic, lead-based mineral that formed its base would
have had anti-bacterial properties when mixed with moisture from the eyes.
In addition, the heavy / height / weight application of kohl around the eyes would have helped to reduce
glare from the sun. In other words, there were simple, practical / practice / hard reasons why both men
and women in ancient Egypt wished to wear eye makeup.
It‟s the same with other ancient Egyptian „beauty products‟. Wigs helped to reduce the risked / risk /
riskers of lice. Jewellery had powerful symbol / symbolic / symbolical and religious significance.
A fired clay female figure, depicting an erotic dancer, excavated at Abydos in Upper Egypt and now in the
exhibition at Two Temple Place, is embellished with indentations that were meant to represent tattoos. Of
course, in ancient Egypt, tattoos probably had a decorative / decoration / decorate purpose.
But they may have had a protecting / protection/ protective function too. There is evidence that, during
the New Kingdom, dancing girls and prostitutes used to tattoo their thighs with images of the dwarf deity
Bes, who warded off evil, as a precaution against venereal disease.
“The more I try to understand what the Egyptians themselves understood as „beautiful‟”, says
Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley, “the more confusive / confusion / confusing it becomes, because
everything seems to have a double purpose. When it comes to ancient Egypt, I don‟t know if „beauty‟ is
the right word to use.”
To complicate matters further, there are eye-catching exceptions to the general rule whereby elite ancient
Egyptians presented themselves in a stereotypically / stereotypical / stereotypic „beautiful‟ fashion.
Consider the official portraiture of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senwosret III. Although his naked torso is
athletic and youthful – idealised, in line with earlier royal portraits – his face is careworn and cracked with
furrows. Moreover his ears, to modern viewers, appear comically large – hardly an attribute, you would
think, of male beauty.
Yet, in ancient Egypt, the effect wouldn‟t have been funny / fun / funnier. “In the Old Kingdom, kings
were god-kings,” explains Tyldesley, who is a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester. “But by the
Middle Kingdom, kings [such as Senwosret] recognised that things could crumble and go wrong, which is
why they look a bit worried.”
“The big ears are telling us that this king will listen to the people,” she adds. “It would be wrong to take his
portrait literally and say he looked like this.”
4) Complete the fourth part of the article with the correct word (there is only one possibility)
Queen of the Nile
Why, then, do we continue to associate ancient Egypt ________ glamour and beauty? “We still find
ancient Egyptian civilisation very seductive,” agrees Tyldesley, _______ believes that this is due _____
the afterlives of two famous Egyptian queens: Cleopatra ______ Nefertiti.
Ever since antiquity, following the Roman conquest _____ Egypt, Cleopatra has _________ known as a
paragon of beauty. Meanwhile the discovery, _____ 1912, of the famous painted bust of Nefertiti, now in
Berlin‟s Egyptian Museum, turned ____ little-known wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten into a pin-up of the
ancient world.
Yet, says Tyldesley, _______ has written a biography of Cleopatra and is researching a book on Nefertiti,
there is irony to the fact __________ these two Egyptian queens now resonate as sex symbols.
For one thing, explains Tyldesley, “Cleopatra ______ given us the idea that ancient Egyptian women
were all beautiful, but we don‟t actually know what she looked _________.”
In her coinage, Tyldesley says, “Cleopatra had ____ big nose, a protruding chin, and wrinkles – not what
most people would call beautiful. You could argue ________ she appeared on her coins like that _____
purpose, because she wanted _____ look stern, and not particularly feminine. But _______ Plutarch, who
never met her either, said that her beauty was in her vivacity and her voice, and not in her appearance.
Yet we have decided that she was beautiful and that she has to look like Elizabeth Taylor. I think that the
idea of Cleopatra, rather than Cleopatra herself, _________ influenced us.”
5) Read the last part of the text and write the highlighted sentences using the word or words
between brackets. You can’t change the meaning of the original sentence.
As for Nefertiti, Tyldesley points out that her bust is not typical of ancient Egyptian art: “It‟s an unusual
statue in that it‟s got all the plaster on and it‟s colourful – a lot of the artwork we have is more stereotyped
and less personal-looking than that.” (ALTHOUGH)
Moreover, the moment when the bust was unveiled in Berlin – in 1923 – was crucial to its reception.
„Egyptomania‟ was in the air, following the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun the previous year, and
Nefertiti‟s angular, geometric appearance chimed with fashionable taste. (AFTER) “She‟s very modern-
looking, very Art Deco,” says Tyldesley. “So everybody seemed to like her. It‟s hard to find anybody who
didn‟t think that Nefertiti was beautiful.(BEAUTY)”
During the ‟20s, the bust of Nefertiti also benefited from the power of the mass media to turn her into a
star. “A hundred years earlier, without newspapers or the cinema, that wouldn‟t have happened,” says
Tyldesley. “She would have gone into a museum and nobody would have made the fuss they did.”
She pauses. “I wonder whether the fact that Nefertiti was put on display in Berlin as a major find actually
influenced what we saw. After all, beauty, as we know, is in the eye of the beholder.(BEAUTIFUL)”
*Alastair Sooke is Art Critic of The Daily Telegraph

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How Ancient Egypt shaped our idea of beauty

Pop __________ is steeped in CULTURAL

Queen of the Nile

*Alastair Sooke is Art Critic of The Daily Telegraph

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