02-01 Egyptian Art Old & Middle Kingdoms

My talk today is the first of two talks on Egyptian art. We think of it as monumental, mysterious and eternal. It lasted virtually unchanged for over 3000 years and to put that into perspective, we are closer in time to the last pharaoh, Cleopatra, than she was to the building of the pyramids.

The ancient Egyptians had no specific word for art as its sole purpose was to help the dead enter and survive in the afterlife not for it to be viewed as an end in itself. The images and pictures we see were the embodiment of their religion so I cannot avoid talking about it and their culture.

This talk is about the Early Dynastic period (c. 3150-2613 BCE)—the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BCE), the First Intermediate Period (2181-2040 BCE), the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) and the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1782-1570 BCE).

The next talk in this series is on the high point of Egyptian culture, the New Kingdom, which covers five hundred years (from 1550 to 1070 BCE) and included such well known pharaohs as Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Rameses II.