The creativity of the ancient Egyptian in his eternal home
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Today we talk with you about the tombs of the ancient Egyptians and how the ancient Egyptian cared about the cemetery, which represents his post-Resurrection life, as the ancient Egyptian became entangled in the life after the resurrection and immortality, so he took care of the cemeteries, and we will show you how the creativity of the ancient Egyptian in building his tomb. Watch in the next lines… …….
Each tomb consists of two parts, one of which is usually underground, and the body is placed in it, whether the pit is small or several rooms dug in the rock or built of stone or other, and the second part is above the ground to indicate the place of burial of the body, whether it is very simple such as part of a palm tree or a heap Earth or a piece of stone, or composed of several rooms or a pyramid to which some temples were attached, and the oldest that we know of tombs in Egypt dates back to the pre-dynastic era and was dug in sand, gravel or desert and was rectangular or oval in shape, and since the third dynasty has developed The construction of the royal cemetery as well as the development of ordinary tombs, so they began to oil its walls built of stone with inscriptions representing daily life and after religious rituals, and the Fourth Dynasty did not come until the tombs reached a great level in engraving their walls, and their structures cut out of rock or built of stone……
‼️‼️ Cemetery location
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The ancient Egyptian chose the location of his tomb, and the construction of the cemetery was linked to the sun and its movement from sunrise to sunset. Al-Masry is considered a symbol of death and resurrection, so he built his tombs towards sunset on the west bank of the Nile, and despite that, there are many tombs built on the east bank of the Nile, but the dominant feature of building tombs was on the west bank of the Nile……
‼️‼️ cemetery planning
The ancient Egyptian used drawings and plans before starting the construction of the tomb. These drawings illustrate the work and construction. Perhaps the most famous of these drawings is the drawing of the tomb of King Ramses IV. There is a papyrus in the Turin Museum in Italy that agrees with the design of the tomb of King Ramses IV, and the papyrus referred to the stages. The cemetery has gone through since choosing the side of the hill in which the tomb was cut, and its ancient Egyptian shade is brown covered with great stretches of dots in the form of balanced red and black diagonal lines, respectively. The general shape of the drawing indicates that it is a simple design.
• There is another design for the tomb of King Ramses IX on the ostraca in the Egyptian Museum. “Cairo Museum CG 2584” and also other ostraca for one of the tombs of the nobles…
‼️‼️ The construction period of the cemetery
The construction period differs from one era to another. The reason for this is the circumstances of each era from the period of the king’s rule, so Herodotus mentioned an example of that…
1/ The construction of the Great Pyramid took about twenty years
2/ King Menkaure’s pyramid was built eighteen years
3 / The tomb of King Ramses IV took six years
4 / The tomb of the king, which was built in less than that
The tomb’s construction may not be completed due to the king’s death before its completion. The evidence for this is the tomb of King Seti I in the Valley of the Kings. It is characterized by its largeness, good decoration, the accuracy of sculpture, and the beauty of photography. There is an unadorned room. This indicates the death of the king before the completion of the construction. Its decoration, as the king was preoccupied with establishing his influence inside and outside the country…….
‼️‼️ Decorations inside tombs
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• But the question comes here, which is how the decoration was done inside the tombs, how it was carved, and how the dyes and colours used in the decoration were done, but we will talk about that in the next lines…..
• Where the decoration was done inside the tombs by levelling the walls and making the surfaces smooth, and the voids and cracks in the rock tombs were filled with mortar, sometimes with a mixture of silt and straw, or a layer of thin plaster.
Several carving methods appeared inside the tombs, by digging the outer lines and some details of the shapes on the stone, using a pointed tool, known as (Mhz).
He also finds bas-relief carving, in which the outer lines of the shapes are engraved deeply in the stone, then the bodies are formed so that they remain equal in height to the original surface.
And also the relief sculpture, in which the background is removed, and the shapes emerge from the low surface. There are uses of the types of sculpture:
Since the grooves are used on surfaces exposed to direct sunlight, they were used on the outer walls of tombs, especially their facades. As for the relief and the bas-relief, they were used to decorate the interior walls of tombs and temples, especially the relief.
‼️‼️ The colours used inside the tombs
The Egyptian tombs are characterized by the beauty of the colours on the walls, and they were simple and easy to produce from available and close materials. The group of Egyptian colours included (white, black, red, blue, green, yellow, reddish-blue, turquoise green, orange, bluish-grey, pink-brown.
• We will move on to the splendour of ancient Egyptian creativity in using dyes to decorate the walls of tombs:
Where dyes consisted of natural materials, for example:
The white colour comes from calcium carbonate or calcium sulfate, known as gypsum, and the black colour is gleaned from the carbon resulting from charcoal or accumulated soot. It was the first colour to be removed from the walls.
The different grades of red and yellow are made from naturally occurring iron oxides, especially red iron oxide and ocher (yellow didic oxide).
Blue is derived, sometimes from copper carbonate or lapis lazuli (a blue mineral).
The blue colour was caused by malachite stone powder found in nature or a mixture of malachite and calcium carbonate.
And we were preparing these colours by:
was grinding or No to powder, then the artist adds water with an ingredient extracted from natural gum extracted from local trees, including the sycamore tree (Acacia), until the colour adheres to the surface of the wall
Distribution of colours on the scenes:
Men: their body is generally painted reddish-orange
Women: They are usually coloured yellow
The rest of the different animals, birds, plants, and food items, were coloured with the colours closest to their nature. The background of the scene would be coloured in bluish-grey, white, or even black
‼️ The period of decoration and painting inside the tombs
The exact time taken is not known, and it may take from four to six months.
It was done by defining the area to be decorated and placing red guidelines to help adjust the proportions of the human figure
Then schematically draw the scene in red, then modify the red schematics to give the picture its final agreed shape with black lines
‼️ One of the most important tools used
The artist used a brush made of fine reeds tied together, or its ends were trimmed to become pointed, and he used chisels of different sizes and weights when executing scenes drawn on soft stones such as limestone or sandstone is used for deep and prominent carving.
Perhaps the artist and the owner of the cemetery participated with a group of builders and artists in choosing the topics for the cemetery through the interaction of these people and the extent of their contribution to that plan.
‼️‼️ Replacing landscapes with statues
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Scenes were replaced by statues at the end of the Middle Kingdom. Statues were for servants and craftsmen affiliated with the deceased, his gardens, livestock and ships. They were placed on wooden floors to form scenes of the same nature as the scenes represented in places above the cemetery’s walls, such as receiving livestock – carpentry and butchery work – yeast omelette and baking. People believed that manual work leads to the wealthy man in the afterlife through the servants represented in the pictures on the tombs’ walls or the statues placed with him in the burial chamber. The answering statues, which are statues of servants and slaves that appeared in the middle and modern countries, numbered in the hundreds, and in one of the tombs, there were 700 statues made of stone or Beautiful wood and bronze, often blue or green, and these statues serve the kings and the rich.