Briefly Noted

059

Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum

Edna R. Russmann, ed.
(Berkeley: Univ. of California, 2001) 288 pp., $39.95

Who would have thought that Egyptian families during the Roman period (c. 50 B.C.–50 A.D.) sometimes kept the mummies of their loved ones at home, standing erect? Thus reports this catalogue to a traveling exhibition of Egyptian art from the British Museum (it’s at the Brooklyn Museum of Art until February 24, 2002). The volume also contains dazzling photographs of the exhibit’s sculptures, papyri, hieroglyphic texts, cosmetic objects, paintings and jewelry.

Alexandria Rediscovered

Jean-Yves Empereur
(New York: George Braziller, 1998) 256 pp., $60

Although ancient Alexandria, Egypt, rivaled Athens and Rome in size, wealth and renown, today its former splendor is largely hidden beneath urban sprawl and the waters of its harbor. French archaeologist Jean-Yves Empereur has spent the last decade performing rescue excavations in various parts of Alexandria, which was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. and then became the capital city of the Greek-Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty. Empereur has also conducted underwater excavations in Alexandria’s harbor—including the site of the Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Silent Images: Women in Pharaonic Egypt

Zahi Hawass
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000) 207 pp., $49.50

Valley of the Golden Mummies

Zahi Hawass
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000) 224 pp., $49.50

Archaeologist Zawi Hawass, director of the Giza Pyramids and field director of the Bahariya Oasis excavation, has produced two coffee-table books that explore unfamiliar Egyptological turf. Silent Images focuses on the role of ordinary women in Egyptian society—mothers, weavers, bakers and brewers—as well as the glamorous queens and aristocratic ladies who left traces of their lives on the walls of their tombs. Images of lithe girl archers, servant women grinding grain, and wives helping their husbands plow fields acquaint us with the diversity of female roles in pharaonic Egypt. Hawass’s Valley of the Golden Mummies documents what many have called the most spectacular Egyptian archaeological discovery since Howard Carter peered into King Tut’s tomb in 1922. Just five years ago, a 2,000-year-old group of tombs containing hundreds of mummies was discovered in the Bahariya Oasis, 230 miles southwest of Cairo. Hawass headed the team that excavated the tombs, revealing entire families of mummies—some wearing gold masks, others gilded from head to chest with life-like portraits painted over their wrapped faces (see Zahi Hawass, “Mummies: Emissaries of the Golden Age,” AO 03:05). Mummified children were buried with animal toys; a young bride was found garbed in her wedding finery. Since the site will remain closed to the public while work continues (Hawass estimates that the cemetery will eventually yield up to 10,000 mummies and take fifty years to excavate), this volume’s luminous photographs and informative text may give readers their only glimpse of the contents of Bahariya’s graves.

Fragment: Icons from Antiquity

Anna-Maryke
(New York: Welcome Rain Publishers, 2000) 159 pp., $35

Half of the black-and-white photographs in this book are scenes of ancient Egyptian ruins, while the rest are of Turkish and Iranian sites. Anna-Maryke, a photographer based in Sydney, Australia, exploits harsh contrasts of sun and shadow to draw our eye to architectural and sculptural details that seem to reveal the soul of these lost civilizations. Her photographs of the soaring, fluted columns in the Temple of Luxor are theatrical in their grandeur; a close-up shot of the granite calves of a striding Amenophis conveys sensual power. Desert heat sizzles from a deliberately overexposed photograph of the Colossi of Memnon (see photo of the Colossi of Memnon in Past Perfect: Sacred Shadows). Even the familiar pyramids seem more astonishing, more absurdly improbable, when viewed through this photographer’s lens.

Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum