Ancient Egyptian art

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c. 3100 BC – 30 BC · Africa · architecture, sculpture, painting, literature · origin: Hierakonpolis, Upper Egypt

Art for eternity: a strict canon of proportion, frontal poses, stone meant to last millennia

How to recognise it

• Shoulders frontal, head and legs in profile
• Figures laid out on a canonical grid
• Statues striding left foot forward
• Hieroglyphs woven into the image
• Pyramids, pylons and papyrus columns

Why it emerged

Pharaohs were gods and tombs were houses for eternal life, so images had to stand in for the body and offerings. A unified Nile state kept temple workshops running for millennia, and the canon barely changed.

Examples

Narmer Palettec. 3100 BCA king smiting a foe: Egyptian pose and canon already fully formedPyramid of Djoserc. 2670 BC · ImhotepThe first pyramid and the oldest large stone building — six steps highGreat Pyramid of Gizac. 2580 BC–2560 BC146 m — the world's tallest building for ~4,000 years; the last surviving WonderNefertiti Bustc. 1345 BC · ThutmoseFrom Thutmose's Amarna workshop: a brief break from canon towards a living portraitMask of Tutankhamunc. 1323 BCGold, lapis and glass; found in 1925 — the face of 20th-century Egyptomania

More in this style

• c. 1550 BC Book of the Dead
• c. 1264 BC–1244 BC Abu Simbel temples

Meanwhile elsewhere

• Megaliths Europe
• Mesopotamian art Middle East
• Aegean art Europe
• Shang and Zhou bronzes Asia
• Olmec art Americas
• Nok terracottas Africa
• Ancient Greek art: Archaic and Classical Europe
• Scythian animal style Eastern Europe & Russia
• Hellenistic art Europe
• Ancient Roman art Europe
• Gandhara art Asia

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