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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
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Once again, the Met catalog of Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids is fabulous (MET below). My copy is on reserve. I'm giving you fewer references to start with now - we are into the swing of things and you can find more of your own bibliography.
Tomb of Hesira - Kathryn
Wood “A reconstruction of the panels of Hesy-re” in JARCE XV (1978)- Pretty much the only proper discussion of these panels, though it has significant problems. Useful for a very 'art historical' analysis- but how valid is it to apply this to ancient Egyptian art?
Terrace and Fischer, Treasures of Egyptian Art from the Cairo Museum, 1970. Basic description.
Mariette, Les Mastabas de l'Ancien Empire, 1976. The original publication of the tomb, but extends only to line drawings of the panels that were removed by Mariette (useful in themselves as few good pictures) and no discussion.
Reisner, Development of the Egyptian Tomb. 1936. Not much discussion of the panels themselves but mentions the tomb.
Fischer, 'Some Emblematic Uses of Hieroglyphs with Particular Reference to an Archaic Ritual Vessel' ,Metropolitan Museum Journal, New York 5 (1972). Discusses the rebus of Hesire's name in the very fragmentary panel and also some early stone bowls in similar rebus forms.
Quibell, Excavations at Saqqara 1911-12. The Tomb of Hesy. 1913. Publication resulting from the first proper excavations of Hesire's tomb.
Third Dynasty private sculpture - Müge (you can do a selection if this is too much - better to get into a few pieces in appropriate depth)
a wealth of this is in the MET catalog; see that for further biblio
The most important handicap of working on 3rd Dynasty Private Sculpture is the scholarship associated with these figures. Most of the statues that can be dated to the 3rd Dynasty were acquired by the Louvre during the 19th century, and were generally published by French scholars. Thus, most of the individual articles dealing with individual pieces/groups come in French, while more general discussions and brief descriptions are available in English, which I am citing below:
Smith, W. S. 1998 [1958] The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt (Revised by W. K. Simpson). New Haven: Yale University Press. In this survey book, Smith makes a general discussion of the 3rd dynasty sculpture with specific, yet short, reference to the statues of Sepa and Nesa in pages 35-36.
Smith, W. S. 1949. A History of Egyptian Sculpture and Painting in the Old Kingdom (2nd ed). Oxford: Charles Batey Printing. In the Chapter “The Sculpture of Dynasty III”, Smith discusses the advances in sculpture technology from the 2nd dynasty. He discusses that the private statues of the 3rd dynasty were carved out of hard stone, while there is a wide variety on the side of technical accomplishment. He ties this to the wider availability of craftsmenship to private individuals, rather than the more strict circumstances of the royal production. The Nesa and Sepa statues are treated in fair detail, as the seated Ankh with clasped hands (on pages 16-18).
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2000. Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids. New Haven: Yale University Press. This publication was invaluable for supplying the contexts of discussing sculpture in the 3rd dynasty and treating many objects in a very detailed fashion in the catalogue part in the end. There are also complete bibliographies (by 2000) associated with each object, unfortunately in French.
Museé du Louvre Website (www.louvre.fr) The Louvre webpage has catalogue information about the Nesa and Sepa statues, but unfortunately not for the Ankh statue. The information contains physical and technical details as much as questions of dating and provenance.
Statues of Rahotep and Nofret -Amanda
Harpur, Yvonne. The Tombs of Nefermaat and Rahotep (on reserve) This was by far the most useful source on these two statues, Harpur went into great detail about the artistic styles and context of works, as well as in-depth descriptions of the tombs themselves and their layouts, she also discussed the issue of Rahotep's lineage and his relationship to other well-known nearby tomb owners, this is also where the black paint on the footstool was interestingly enough compared to "earth" which was not brought up by any other authors on the subject. Suitable comparisons to Nefermaat's tomb were also presented as well as her view that the Nofret statue was always meant to be in Rahotep's chapel, rather than hers in the northern section. The titles of Rahotep and Nofret that are written in hieroglyphs were also derived from this source.
Robins, Gay. The Art of Ancient Egypt. Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. Robins presented these statues from an art historical approach, giving rich descriptions of their compositions, their use of color and the significance of the iconography found on these statues, much of the information on the styles of dress, the wigs and material used by the sculptor came from this source.
Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. This was also a useful source coming from the art historical paradigm, most useful in presenting relevant comparanda such as the statue of Khentet-ka and her child, comparisons of Rahotep's stance to that of Djoser, and couples statues such as those of Iai-ib and Khaut and Katep and Hetepheres that help put the statues which may or may not have been intially intended to go together in a broader context.
Dodson, Aidan and Ikram, Salima. The tomb in Ancient Egypt: royal and private sepulchres from the early dynastic period to the Romans. London ; New York : Thames & Hudson, 2008. This source was most useful in discussing the tomb itself, which was important when situating these statues in their proper contexts, the renovations of the tomb, the general layout and materials used in construction, the walling up of the serdab and conversion of the chapel into the former were all presented in this source, as well as the reliefs found in Rahotep's chapel and the existence of two chapels (one in the northern and southern areas of the tomb, presumably for him and her). Also contained a brief discussion on the function of these statues as recipients of offerings to the kas of the deceased.
Smith, William Stevenson. The art and architecture of ancient Egypt. 3rd Edition, New Haven : Yale University Press, 1998.
Arnold, Dorothea. When the pyramids were built: Egyptian art of the Old Kingdom. New York :Metropolitan Museum of Art : Rizzoli, c1999. These two sources were most valuable for their background material, not in the depth of detail that Harpur and Robins provide, but useful nonetheless, it was interesting to read about these in a more general context in Old Kingdom private life of the 4th dynasty rather than the very specific studies by other scholars who only focused on this tomb and its contents. Also contained nice pictures of different angles of the statues and lots of relevant contemporaneous comparanda.
Tomb of Nefermaat and Itet (this one is very cool but will be a bit long) - Oliver Weerasinghe
Petrie Medum
Harpur The Tombs of Nefermaat and Rahotep (on reserve) As Harpur is only discussing the tombs of Nefermaat and Rahotep, about half this book is devoted entirely to the details of Nefermaat's tomb. Harpur covers the construction method, decoration, burial practices, and excavation of the tomb. A fantastic source for either of these two Meidum tombs. Or for that matter for anyone interested in old kingdom private tombs.
MET - Although the essay on old kingdom private burial does mention Nefermaat, it is only in passing. The essay is far more informative for those looking at the Giza cemeteries.
Slab stela of Wepemnefret and comparanda - Peter
Der Manuelian Slab Stelae and references
Statue of Hemiunu - Emily
Dorothea Arnold, "Relief of Hemiunu's Face" in Met Catalogue, pp. 232 - 233.
Jan Assmann, "Preservation and Presentation of Self in Ancient Egyptian Portraiture" in Studies in Honor of William Kelly Simpson, vol. I (1996), pp. 55 - 81 (Discussion relevant to 4th Dyn. objects pp. 55 - 63, 79 - 81).
Marsha Hill, "Hemiunu Seated" in Met Catalogue, pp. 229 - 231.
Friedrich Junge, "Hem-iunu, Anch-ha-ef und die sog. 'Ersatzköpfe'
Bettina Schmitz, "Statue des Wesirs Hem-Iunu" in Das Alte Reich: Ägypten von den Anfängen zur Hochkultur (2009), pg. 56.
Regine Schulz, "Überlegungen zu einigen Kunstwerken des Alten Reiches im Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim" in Kunst des Alten Reiches (1991), pp. 119 - 131.
"Sitzstatue des Hemiunu" - entry on Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim site (http://www.rpmuseum.de/index.php?id=322)
VIDEO at bottom of page.
Meresankh III tomb - Mike Bohl
Dunham The Mastaba of Queen Mersyankh III A very thorough analysis of Meresankh's tomb with many pictures and line drawings. Some of the conclusions between the first two chapters seemed contradictory when trying to assign the tomb to an exact reign, but it offered evidence for both possibilities. Th book lacks any background on mastabas from the period in general or what kind of cult would go on here, it was pretty much just focused on the layout and reporting the decorations inside the tomb.
A 4th Dynasty private tomb of your choosing (should be decorated at least minimally, should not be Meresankh III) - Julia
consider Khufukhaf in Simpson The Mastabas of Kawab, Khufukhaf I and II
Roth "Social Change in the 4th Dynasty" in JARCE 1993
Reserve heads - Oren
Pridham thesis- This was honestly the most effective source that I used for this project. In addition to her own very interesting conclusions, Julie does a great job summarizing the positions of other scholars to deal with the reserve statues. More so than other sources, she also provides a great deal of genral background, which was greatly appreciated.
Lacovara, Peter (1997). "The Riddle of the Reserve Heads". KMT: 28–36: I found this a solid, succinct summation of Lacovara's views on the Reserve heads
Reisner, George A. (1915). "Accessions to the Egyptian Department during 1914". Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 13 (76): 26–36. http://www.gizapyramids.org/pdf%20library/bmfa_pdfs/bmfa13_1915_29to36.pdf. --A somewhat useful source, although less so because Reisner only treats the reserve heads briefly and does not comment extensively on the corpus as a whole.
Pair statues - pick two from the MET catalog or elsewhere