The Smithsonian National Museum: African and Egyptian Artifacts - Essay Example

The Smithsonian National Museum: African and Egyptian Artifacts s In the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History there are two separate sections on different floors made for African and Egyptian culture. Firstly, it may seem strange, because both African countries and Egypt are situated on African continent. Yet historically, culture of West and Central Africa, rarely South Africa was considered as African culture, while Ancient Egyptian civilization was developing separately. O’Connor says, “Egyptian civilization was in fact peculiarly resistant to outside influence, but many ancient people, including Africans, borrowed from it” (1971). Among others who borrowed from Ancient Egypt tradition were also Ancient Greeks, the beginners of Western civilization, and Arabs, whose culture is commonly considered as the Middle East culture (O’Connor, 1971). Thus, despite African and Ancient Egypt cultures share the same continent, the two cultures differ. African culture generally, seems more connected to a nature. For example, African ceremonial clothing (Figure 1) is primary made from natural floral materials and looks like a bush. On black mannequin there is some kind of yelm, made from a dry rush plant, which supposed to cover the whole body of oracle or sacrifice. His human identity isn’t visible in such clothing, because his ceremonial mission is more important. Two other issues of the clothing have also a ceremonial destination: a headwear made from natural floral materials and seashells, and a stick, decorated the same way with a headwear. Even more natural and joyful African culture seems, when looking at African dolls (Figure 2). They differ strongly, even from each other, despite they often belong to the same African region. Some are made from wood, and focused on sex and religious characteristics of a woman, other ones are made from soft materials and different bright pieces of texture. It should be mentioned, that all dolls have individual face characteristics, despite that faces may look unnatural (big mouth, schematic eyes, etc.). It’s mostly noticeable when comparing African dolls to Egyptian Shabti statues, which also look like dolls (Figure 5). Despite Shabti statues too have individual faces, and those faces look more proportional than ones of African dolls, generally Shabti look less individual. They have the same ceremonial posture (standing front-wise with crossed arms), similar schematic haircuts and clothing. Being a part of a well-known Egyptian funeral cult, Shabti statues symbolize servants of a dead master. However, the most attention is paid on a dead person him/ herself. For a dead body there were individual ceremonial coffins (Figure 4), made from wood and painted with bright colors. Much attention was paid on conveying the individual image of a dead person, because in the afterlife he/ she should be recognized, and continue to live the same, but eternal life. Coffin itself was decorated with ceremonial paintings and specific spells which supposed to protect a dead body and soul during the afterlife. The Ancient Egyptian culture is a culture of a text, especially of a well-known Book of the Dead. Therefore, other tomb paintings were covered with ceremonial texts similarly to the described Coffin. On Figure 6, there is a tomb painting with spells, cut from wood. This particular text describes a dead woman’s Earth life, and gives her personal characteristic (“I was kind to my mother” and etc.). The individual image isn’t colored, but as well as on the Coffin, there is a row-wise information arrangement. This row-wise arrangement of information is also a characteristic for a 19th century African painted artifact from Figure 3. The picture illustrates a historical battle, in which Menelik II, the Ethiopian Emperor, takes part. The battle is painted on canvas with most colorful palette, and is “readable”: each row describes different events in a chronological order. It’s most interesting to observe this particular picture from Figure 3 when thinking of a Western painting of the same time. In 19th century there were classical and realistic traditions of painting, which had developed a skill to portray people in almost photographic manner. There also were impressionists in France who exploded undertones of colors at the latter half of 19th century. Yet this African painting of 19th century looks more similar to Egyptian Ancient tradition. Somehow Africa had managed to keep the ancient cannon, and Western artists of 20th century (modernists) were inspired by this original and natural African tradition (Murrell, 2008). As for the Ancient Egyptian cultural tradition, it has become truly cross-cultural and cross-time issue. First thing which crosses mind is the amount of horror movies, filmed in present days about mummies and Coffins. Ancient Egyptians’ focus on funeral ceremonies and on afterlife existence made their cultural tradition look creepy for modern viewers. Despite its valuable input in West and African cultural traditions, and in the Middle East (specifically, Arabic) writings, Coffins, mummies and images of dead bodies are hard for perception. Thus, my experience of Egyptian culture was generally creepy. Despite the discussed artifacts, in the museum there were real mummies of ancient Egyptians, and it was unpleasant to look at them. Naturally, they served as a proof of ancient Egyptians’ funeral skills and could tell a lot about Egyptian civilization, but nevertheless, they were scary. For this reason I was trying to focus on others, more joyful artifacts (the discussed colorful Coffin, and Shabti statues). Due to the general funeral mood of the culture, it was very hard to appreciate how skilled were ancient artists, and how detailed and individual were faces of statues they made, and how informative were ceremonial paintings and writings. However, I appreciated the English translation of tomb writings which museum workers had made. Experiencing African culture artifacts was a much pleasant activity. In African culture natural soft materials prevail, and artists explore a lot of plants. I loved brightness and individuality of African dolls which were looking naturally and hand-made. Most of the artifacts were made from wood, and looked quite primitive as they were made by children. Generally, African area of the museum was more joyful than Egyptian one. Yet there were some creepy artifacts in African section too. One of them, a ceremonial clothing of shaman I have decided to discuss to counterpoise something to a general scary mood of Ancient Egyptian culture. However, despite the mystery which strange dolls, ceremonial clothing and a big cocoon (also presented in the museum) bring to a viewer, African culture expresses much more love of life than Ancient Egyptian one. In the light of the above said, this difference seems to me the key characteristic to separate two discussed culture from each other. Ancient Egyptian artifacts were things primary used in funeral service, and thus, convey the dying mood. They also are quite schematic because they were made with a view of Book of the Dead. In its turn, African culture artifacts retrieve the inspiration from African nature and convey bright colors and a mysterious mood. Despite most of African artifacts too have a ceremonial destination, this culture seems full of life and joy, especially in comparison to Ancient Egyptian one. References Murrell, D. (2008). African Influence in Modern Art. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm O’Connor, D. (1971). Ancient Egypt and Black Africa – Early Contacts. Expedition, Fall, p. 2-9. Retrieved from http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/pdfs/14-1/ancient.pdf Appendix Figure 1. Ceremonial Clothing, Africa. Figure 2. Dolls, Africa. Figure 3. Battle of Adwa, Africa. Figure 4. Coffin, Egypt. Figure 5. Shabti statues, Egypt. Figure 6. Tomb Painting, Egypt. Read More