MELBOURNE, 16 July, 2024: Ancient Egypt to me was always Pyramids and Mummies. Until, I decided to write a review of the current National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV) greatest ever exhibition “Pharaoh’ – a peep into the 3,000 years old Egyptian civilisation’s 500 works, including monumental sculpture, architecture, temple statuary, exquisite jewellery, papyri, coffins and a rich array of funerary objects, the exhibition unpacks the phenomenon of pharaoh, those all-powerful kings claiming a divine origin.
The Britannica describes a ‘pharaoh’ as the “royal palace in ancient Egypt”, “It was never the king’s formal title, though, and its modern use as a generic name for all Egyptian kings is based on the usage of the Hebrew Bible.”
As me and my colleague Siddarth Maitrak, stepped into the Part 1 of the exhibition, it was like being propelled into the past through a real Time Machine, maybe a perfect reverse scenario from H. G. Wells, ‘The Time Machine (1895). Like a dream becoming true, we were in ancient Egypt, three millennia back from now. Exhibit after exhibit was a treat as we wondered how much Egyptian antiquity was popular, seeing the crowds at the exhibition. In fact, at some exhibits there were queues and skipping them looked impossible.
Part 2 of the exhibition, no doubt, had much more. The feeling was what it meant to be a Pharaoh. The glimpses of skilful craftsmanship with so much of real life in ancient creations is mesmerising. I bet, if you have no idea of ancient Egyptian history, this exhibition will make you to attain that historical knowledge.
This is the single largest ever exhibition of Egyptian antiquity in Australia, curated for the NGV by the British Museum as part of the Victorian Government’s Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series.
Spanning from the 1st Dynasty (c.3000 BCE) to the Roman period (3rd century CE), Pharaoh explores the fascinating lives, myths and images of the successive rulers of ancient Egypt through meticulously crafted examples of art, design and architecture. The works on display were commissioned by and celebrate some of Egypt’s most famous kings and queens, including the boy king Tutankhamun; Ramses II and QueenNefertari; Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza; as well as foreign leaders such as Alexander the Great.
Outstanding examples of sculpture, statuary and art featuring the iconic image of the pharaoh include:
- At just over 5 centimetres wide, the earliest object in the exhibition is a small ivory label depicting King Den of the 1st Dynasty, shown as a powerful ruler subduing his enemy with physical force. Even at this early period, c.3000 BCE, the pharaoh is depicted in a characteristic pose with royal regalia, an image that continued to be used by pharaohs for the next three millennia.
- A superbly carved green siltstone Head of Thutmose III, one of ancient Egypt’s most successful military pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty who expanded Egypt’s empire to its greatest extent. Wearing the tall white crown of Upper Egypt and cobra (uraeus) – the consummate symbol of royalty – the head presents the timeless image of the Egyptian pharaoh.
- A larger-than-life limestone statue of Ramses II (c.1279-1213 BCE) depicts one of ancient Egypt’s most famous kings as a high priest, making offerings to appease the gods in his capacity as the gods’ representative on earth. Ramses II was one of Egypt’s longest ruling pharaohs who had numerous wives, is said to have fathered more than eighty children and commissioned a vast number of temples, monuments and statuary for his own self-glorification.
- The Seated statue of Pharaoh Sety II, c.1200-1194 BCE, a grandson of Ramses II, is the most complete sculpture of a pharaoh in the British Museum’s collection to survive from ancient Egypt, offering audiences a rare chance to experience the exceptional craftsmanship of Egyptian sculptors.
Highlights of the exhibition include a number of works depicting ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses, including a group of ten impressive lion-headed statues representing the goddess Sekhmet (c.1350 BCE). Sekhmet was the goddess of war and pestilence, and the pharaoh Amenhotep III commissioned hundreds of statues of this goddess for his mortuary temple at Thebes in an effort to appease her. The display constitutes one of the the largest groupings of Sekhmet statues from the British Museum’s collection ever to be on display at one time.
The exhibition evokes the grandeur and monumental scale of ancient Egypt through large-scale statuary and architecture, including a limestone wall from an Old Kingdom mastaba tomb standing nearly 2.5 metres high and over 3 metres wide, elaborately carved with hieroglyphic texts and depictions of the tomb owner seated in front of offering tables.
An enormous granite statue of a lion, weighing approximately 3 tonnes, features hieroglyphs around its base which refer to the lion as a symbol of the almighty pharaoh”. The statue also bears the remains of the cartouche of Tutankhamun, who added his name when he became pharaoh (around 1336 BC), illustrating the importance of dynastic succession for the ancient Egyptians. Also on display is a rare fragmentary sculpture of the torso of Tutankhamun, in which his cartouche has been erased and replaced with the name of his successor, Horemheb.
Revealing the centrality of jewellery and body adornment in life and the afterlife in ancient Egypt, the exhibition includes a comprehensive display of more than 180 examples of ancient jewellery, including necklaces, amulets, girdles and rings made from gold, silver, electrum, faience and semi-precious stones. Featuring some previously unexhibited works and constituting the largest loan of ancient Egyptian jewellery in the British Museum’s history, the pieces on display reveal the highly sophisticated craftsmanship and skill of Egyptian makers.
A unique section of the exhibition looks at the highly skilled craftspeople who cut and decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Personal objects on display in the exhibition, including limestone fragments inscribed with notes and artistic sketches offer an in-depth insight into the everyday lives of these ancient craftspeople and their families. One particularly poignant work in the exhibition, a fragment with the drawing of a donkey’s head, reveals the artist’s skill at capturing the essence of the animal through a few bold strokes.
The NGV and The British Museum have for existing Egyptologists, historians and the new enthusiasts a hefty (267 pages) hard copy catalogue to refurnish once you reach home and realise you missed some pieces of ancient Egypt. It is divided into seven chapters starting with an Introduction and ending with an Afterword. The excellent catalogue edited by Marie Vandenbeusch is available at the NGV shop, has all the images of exhibits, descriptions, history, sources, and much more. The sixteen contributors extensively analyse and explain the historical ambience in the context of the displayed objects. The catalogue deserves a seperate review, as it is no less than the exhibition.
This exhibition, no doubt, has brought the Pharaoh’s to Australia. Still, how much Egypt relates to them is good to know. The last chapter in the catalogue, ‘Afterword: Modern Egypt – Inheriting Roles’ by Youssef Rakha, is analytically superb.
” The rhetorical claim that ‘we are the decedents of the pharaohs’ or that we command ‘7000 years of civilisation’ is certainly a cornerstone of Egyptian public discourse. Yet the idea that those unknown people might inhabit us in any real sense is so unusual it is actually quite startling. For the average Egyptian, figures from Muslim or Christian traditions feel much closer and more relevant than the ancient gods and heroes. Pharaoh, in Islamic as much as Christian tradition, is the despot who expels Moses and the God-fearing Jews from the land, and most Egyptians will more readily identify with those ‘foreign’ slaves than with the princes and priests who subjugated them,” says Youssef Rakha.
