Intersectional Elements Between the Egyptian Mummy Portraits and the Beyond the Nile: Egypt + the Classical World

Introduction

The artistic works in the past have been sufficient in taking people back in the time and have an overview of the people who lived in Roman Egypt in the past millennia. These portrait paintings have helped reveal the disusing cultures that were there in Egypt between the 1st and the 3rd centuries. Furthermore, these portraits are also given people more intimate connection as they reveal their names and social status and profession. The ways these arts were created has been a secret. The artists, workshops and the industries that produced the portraits have also been anonymous. The mummy portraits are among the many artistic works that have been preserved until today. They are funerary paintings with beautiful artifacts retrieved from the traditional cultures. Beyond the Nile is another artwork that is seen to be the first to give an overview of the links between the classical world and Egypt. For this study, the discussion is meant to explore the intersectional elements between the Egyptian Mummy Portraits and the Beyond the Nile: Egypt + the Classical World.

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Egyptian Mummy Portraits

The Egyptian Mummy Portraits fall among the oldest arts that survived from the past world. These mummies are portrayed with wrappings and they appear to be quite realistic. These are portraits of the deceased and they imply a blend of the Greco-Roman culture with the Egyptian funerary beliefs (Monica et al., 813). These paintings of the deceased, also known as the funerary portraits are seen to be unique and extraordinary beautiful artifacts that have survived from the ancient world. They exist from the melding of today's technology and ritual activities used over the past in Greco-Roman cultures. These mummy portraits have remained to be a mystery and have been used as ethnographic evidence regarding the culture and the society at the beginning of the 1900 millennium.

Most of these portraits show the details regarding the deceased and also information about the status in the society as has been displayed by their opulent jewelry and the use of special materials in their creation. Other portraits are however simple in their development. The mummy portraits are used today to refer to the ancient ethnology and for fashion research (Blakemore, n.p). The element these portraits have in common is the history they preserve. Their ways are skillful and their materials rich. They are believed to be prosecutors of the western paintings which is an activity endured for more than 2 millennia.

Beyond the Nile: Egypt + the Classical World

This podcast is seen to be a towering sarcophagus for a man and it's also a medical scroll that explains the cures in Egypt hieroglyphics. It is also known to be a roman art that illustrates the scenes from the Nile. The portrait tells incredible stories regarding the preserved trade and cultural exchange between Egypt and the classical Greece and Rome. The Getty exhibition on the podcast is founded on the artistic exchange. This is the pioneer exhibition that gives an overview of the interactions between Egypt and the contemporary world. It is seen to be an unpredicted integration of the works of art done during the Bronze Age to the last years of the Roman Empire (Rothstein, 1).

The podcast is meant to show how Egypt has served as an important nexus for the cultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean where new and old artistic techniques and styles were shared. This and other artistic works have been meant to show how the craftsmen from Egypt, Greece, and Rome imitated each other's work creating cultural and artistic hybrids that came up with a single tradition. However, there is still no comprehensive exploration of the exchange between Egypt and the classical world despite this remarkable artistic production.

Similarities

One of the similarities in these two podcasts is that they are used to document and preserve history. They are created to help visitors to appreciate Egypt, Greece, and Rome as communities that traded and exchanged their religion aspects, linguistics, and traditions in a developing milieu. They also preserve the cultures and traditions of ancient Egypt. In the mummy portrait, it is wrapped with traditional hued lavender mantle (Howard, 28). These portraits have as well been used to show the deep connection between art and identity in Roman Egypt. They also show fashion for the Egyptian imagery and the spread of the cults throughout the Roman Empire.

The podcasts have also been used to display the socio-economic status of the people of Egypt during the ancient days. These portraits have been created with luxurious materials and have expensive materials. In the mummy portrait, the earrings are noted for their luxurious material. It also has a horizontal global bar suspending four gold vertical bars and they are terminating in a peal. Every aspect of the portraits also identifies the owners as people with wealth and a high social position. The fact that the arts are portraits of people from the ancient times implies that these people were important persons in the social lives of Egyptians and it's the reason their faces are used to preserve the cultures (Nicholson et al., 38).

Differences

One of the differences between the two podcasts is that the mummy portraits have been much focused on the culture while Beyond the Nile has been focused on showing trade concerns of the ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In the mummy paintings, Herakleides portrait has been curved using the tempera method that shows a young man wearing the gold wrap (Corcoran et al., 38). The gold in the wrap significantly shows the social class of the ancient people and the wealth they possessed. The inclusion of the birds within the wrapping in the painting also sends a message on the social position of Herakleides was during his time. It is a sign that he was an educated person or may have been associated with the cult of worship of the god Thoth or a priest of the Thoth. Most of its message has been on the culture of the people and the social position of the people in the paintings in the past.

Beyond the Nile is focuses more on the period from the start of the 2000 BC when Egypt developed trade contacts with Crete and mainland Greece. During the Bronze Age, Egypt transacted with the Minoans and Greece and the portrait highlights the interstate gifts and buys goods from the time. Egypt exported certain objects to Greece and copied locally. The sculptors from Greece were influenced to curve their first big stone after having sight of the Millennia-old culture of monumental portraits in Egypt. Beyond the Nile implies that the trade between Egypt and Greece resulted in them sharing certain ideas that were then transferred to the arts and paintings (Jeffrey, 32). Another difference between this artwork and the mummy portrait is that Beyond the Nile has also been focused more on displaying the links between Egypt and the classical Greece and Rome. It shows how most of the things and aspects are seen in Egypt are as well seen in Greece and in Rome since the artworks and paintings from these regions share many mutual things.

Conclusion

These portrait paintings have helped reveal the disusing cultures that were there in Egypt between the 1st and the 3rd centuries. They have also given people more intimate connection as they reveal their names and social status and profession. The Mummy portraits are portraits of the deceased and they imply a blend of the Greco-Roman culture with the Egyptian funerary beliefs. They exist from the melding of today's technology and ritual activities used over the past in Greco-Roman cultures. Beyond the Nile is also known to be a roman art that illustrates the scenes from the Nile. The portrait tells incredible stories regarding the preserved trade and cultural exchange between Egypt and the classical Greece and Rome. It shows how the craftsmen from Egypt, Greece, and Rome imitated each other's work creating cultural and artistic hybrids that came up with a single tradition. Although the two podcasts have been seen to have common elements, there are notable differences. The mummy portraits have most relations on the cultural aspects of the ancient Egypt where most of its carvings revolve around the cultures of Egypt in the past years. Beyond the Nile has been seen to have much focus on the trade element where most of its paintings reflect on the trade interactions between Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Bibliography

Blakemore, Erin. "Are You My Mummy? Rare Portraits Reveal the Faces of Egyptians Who Died Centuries Ago." The Washington Post, 2018.

Corcoran, Lorelei H, Marie Svoboda, and Marc S. Walton. Herakleides: A Portrait Mummy from Roman Egypt. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010. Print.

Ganio, Monica, et al. "Investigating the Use of Egyptian Blue in Roman Egyptian Portraits and Panels from Tebtunis, Egypt." Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing, vol. 121, no. 3, Nov. 2015, p. 813

Nicholson, Elizabeth G, Janine Pibal, Nick Geller, and Michelle Thies. Cleo and Cornelius: A Tale of Two Cities and Two Kitties. , 2018. Print.

Rothstein, Edward. "'Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World' Review: A Cross-Cultural Journey Begins." Wall Street Journal - Online Edition, 2 Apr. 2018, p. 1.

Spier, Jeffrey, Timothy F. Potts, and Sara E. Cole. Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World. , 2018. Print.

Wolinsky, Howard. "Latest Tech Unravels Mysteries of Egyptian Mummy Portraits." Science News, vol. 193, no. 4, Mar. 2018, p. 28.