Visual representation and state development in Egypt

Abstract

In Predynastic representations, strongly stylised animals and plants with symbolic values occur. The astonishing craft smanship by which some objects were decorated shows that the artisans were capable of producing almost any kind of representation they would have desired. Therefore, if a representation is stylised, this should be intentional. One of the most important reasons for the stylisation will have been the fact that the artisans did not want to render the exact image of one individual animal, but on the contrary the general idea and characteristics of the animal. Another reason for this mode of representation was to allow double interpretations, or more exactly to combine originally independent ideas into new symbols. They will become a kind of labels, which can be used in different contexts. Th is mode of representation occurs from the very beginning of the Naqada culture and continues throughout the whole of it. Changes will certainly have occurred during this period of nearly a thousand years, but a number of basic iconographic elements continued to be used. Some of them were integrated into formal Egyptian art, others were not and disappeared from the artistic record. A close relationship can be observed between bovines (principally the bull), birds (originally probably the ostrich but from the Naqada III period onwards mainly the falcon), the hippopotamus and the so-called “Naqada plant”. But human representations are the central element around which this visual language is built. From the very beginning of the Naqada I period, semantic representations of military victory are attested while an iconography related to the aft erlife is shown on the Naqada II Decorated pottery.