Funerary Art Research Articles

The Creative Impulse: Innovation and Emulation in the Role of the Egyptian Artist during the New Kingdom—Unusual Details from Theban Funerary Art

The present research analyses the role of the Egyptian artist within the context of New Kingdom art, paying attention to the appearance of new details in Theban tomb chapels that reflect the originality of their creators. On the one hand, the visibility of the case studies investigated is explored, looking for a possible explanation as to their function within the tomb scenes (such as ‘visual hooks’) and offering a brief experimental approach. Tomb owners benefitted from the expertise and originality of the artists who helped to reaffirm their status and perpetuate their funerary cults. On the other hand, iconography can include examples of the innate creativity of artists, including ancient Egyptian ones. The presence of such innovative details reflects the undeniable creativity of artists, who sought stimulating scenes which were sometimes emulated by contemporaries and later workmates. Significantly, some of these innovative details reveal unusual poses and daily-life character, probably related to the individuality of the artists and their innovative spirit. In other words, the creative impulse is what leads artists to innovate. In this sense, creativity must be understood as the dynamic of the visual arts that determines constant evolution of styles.

Leaving the “Discomfort” Zone: The Correlation between Politics and New Artistic Practices at the Beginning of the 19th Dynasty

At the end of the Amarna Period, a process of political and religious restoration began. This attempt at recovery went beyond the strictly official, as the Egyptian society seemed to demand a moral reparation. It was a much-needed change that would encompass all aspects of society and it was imperative that the changes be visible. It is for this reason that visual art would be one of the main means of communication. The artistic image was the propaganda necessary to reconstruct historical memory and religious sentiment. This was most evident in the early years of the 19th dynasty, when, in addition, the need to legitimize the new royal lineage was reflected in private tombs. The Egyptian artist used art to visually consolidate these changes, and the owner of the tomb was keen to do so. This article aims to analyze the artistic changes, mainly in the private sphere, that occurred in funerary art in opposition to the religious changes that had been made during the Amarna Period and that were most evident from the reign of Horemheb until the first half of the reign of Ramesses II. Politics and art intermingled at a time when reconstructing the past and the relationship with divinity was an urgent necessity.

The face of Eurydice

AbstractEurydice could not come back to this world because Orpheus looked back at her. Persephone had forbidden this, but Orpheus disobeyed. Is there a logic for such a rule? A relief in the Archaeological Museum in Naples shows Orpheus looking at his wife after having removed a veil from her face, and the face of dead persons was a sensible element in ancient funerary art. We find two forms of hiding their face: by veiling it or by depicting the person but not the face, by leaving it unwrought. Euripides and several Roman sarcophagi depict Alcestis with her head veiled after her return to the house of her husband. On the other hand, some funerary busts from the necropolis of Cyrene show deceased women with their face flat and many sarcophagi of the Roman period are completely sculptured except the face of the buried person. The current explanation based on an untimely death cannot explain the large number of such cases; it would have been absurd to wait for the death of the customer before carving his or her portrait. There was a religious rule forbidding the vision of the face of dead persons, but it is impossible to ascertain what kind of people abided by this law and what religious stream forbade this.

Analysis of Some Aspects of Ancient Palmyra Society through Funerary Art in the Roman Period

The research sheds light on the importance of funerary art in identifying some details of Palmyra society in the Roman period, due to the important transformations that this period witnessed. It also identifys the intermixture between the local style of funerary art and Roman art that influenced Palmyra’s art at the time. This is achieved by analyzing funerary stelae scenes that have been preserved in local and international museums, and comparing them with their Roman counterparts. One notable result highlights the importance of women in society and the different roles they played, whether housewives or women of society. Palmyra’s artists were eager to depict the deceased’s work by carving some tools indicative of it. Another result elicitates the economic transformations that Palmyra society witnessed beginning in the second century AD, by depicting the Palmyra women and men in full elegance, perhaps to emphasize the prosperity that the Palmyra’s citizens had, due to the city’s increased commercial activity and robust economy. Besides local identitiy, Roman influence appeared in clothes, hairstyles of women and men, along with the use of narrative style to portray the deceased with family members in different dimensions, levels, or alone using the idea of Imagines Clipeatae

SYMBOLISM OF EARLY CHRISTIAN PRAYERS IN ROMAN, GREEK AND EGYPTIAN FUNERARY ART

The question of semantic connections between Early Christian funerary art and texts of Early Christian prayer for the dead – Ordo commendationis animae – remains controversial. Some scholars endorse the idea that iconographic programs of Roman catacombs and Early Christian sarcophagy can be traced back to the prayer. Others highlight the distinctions between them, emphasizing, that the oldest text of the Ordo commendationis animae cannot be dated earlier than the 4th century. Both the prayer and the funerary art embody the same themes of salvation and resurrection, often depicted through shared biblical heroes and narratives. Although there are inconsistencies between the biblical heroes mentioned in the prayer and the most popular characters and narratives in Early Christian art, the semantic parallels cannot be simply dismissed. This research seeks to uncover the origins of the prayer itself and propose liturgical sources that could have influenced regional traditions of Early Christian funerary iconography. Additionally, it hypothesizes explanations for the iconographic principles of several renowned Early Christian monuments.

Unearthing limestone fungal diversity: Description of seven novel species from Portugal

Stone-built heritages are found worldwide, and despite stony surfaces being considered a stressful environment with challenging conditions to overcome, research has demonstrated that it can support diverse fungal communities, fostering a unique array of peculiar yet crucial species. These species exhibit a dual nature, being both foe and friend. While these fungi play a considerable role in the deterioration of cultural heritage, their mechanisms of adaptation to unfavourable environments hold great promise for biotechnology. Despite their importance, there is limited information available about these stone dwellers in Portugal. During an experimental survey aimed at isolating fungal species thriving in a deteriorated limestone funerary art piece at the Lemos Pantheon, a national monument located in Águeda, Portugal, several fungal specimens were isolated that could not be identified as any currently known species. Through morphological characteristics and multilocus phylogenetic analyses, seven new species (Aspergillus albicolor sp. nov., Banksiophoma dissensa sp. nov., Knufia lusitanica sp. nov., Microascus lausatensis sp. nov., Neodevriesia saximollicula sp. nov., Paramicrodochium filiforme sp. nov. and Talaromyces benedictus sp. nov.) are here proposed, illustrated, and compared to closely related species. These newly discovered fungal taxa form distinct lineages independent of other previously described species and are classified into seven families across six orders within the phylum Ascomycota. This paper also provides additional evidence that stone heritages harbour a diverse range of new species, deserving additional focus in the future.

Funerary art and electroplating: history, present and future

Electroplating is the technique of producing an artifact by electroplating a metal onto a model. This manufacturing method can be applied to produce pieces with complex shapes and a wide variety of dimensions and, mainly in the 19th century, it was used to make funerary art items. This technique is also used to produce replicas of artistic items in order to safeguard them, but also to make them public through these replicas. Although electroplating is a widely used technique, galvanoplastic sculptures present a laborious restoration process due to the difficulty of electroplating only the regions of damaged deposits and the fragile core. In order to identify the main production characteristics and damage present, with a view to a possible restoration stage, the statuary from the Santa Casa de Misericórdia cemetery in Porto Alegre was studied. Samples were taken from the mould and the electrodeposited layer of statues in different states of conservation to be analyzed by metallography. It was possible to observe the structure of the electrodeposits, the width and quantity of layers deposited and the material used to make the model.

The motif of chariot races in the Ionian art at the turn of the 6th and 5th centuries BC

At the turn of the VI - V centuries BC in the funerary art and temple terracotta decoration of the cities of Asia Minor, the motif of chariot races appears. Moreover, these monuments demonstrate an impressive stylistic similarity. The author of the article tried to establish the reason for the persistent appeal to one plot by the Ionian masters in the cult and funeral spheres for a short period of time. Since the horse and chariot agons were associated with Poseidon, the author connects the mentioned plot with the sanctuary of Poseidon Heliconius at Cape Mycale. According to the hypothesis proposed by the author, chariot races were associated not only with the cult of Poseidon, but also with the Panionian games in honor of the god of the seas. This connection, according to the author, was reflected in the temple friezes depicting chariot races, which served as an important visual reference to the cult that united the member cities of the Ionian Union.

Expanding the Microcolonial Black Fungi Aeminiaceae Family: Saxispiralis lemnorum gen. et sp. nov. (Mycosphaerellales), Isolated from Deteriorated Limestone in the Lemos Pantheon, Portugal.

With an impressive ability to survive in harsh environments, black fungi are an ecological group of melanized fungi that are widely recognized as a major contributor to the biodeterioration of stone cultural heritage materials. As part of the ongoing efforts to study the fungal diversity thriving in a deteriorated limestone funerary art piece at the Lemos Pantheon, a national monument located in Águeda, Portugal, two isolates of an unknown microcolonial black fungus were retrieved. These isolates were thoroughly studied through a comprehensive analysis based on a multi-locus phylogeny of a combined dataset of ITS rDNA, LSU, and rpb2, along with morphological, physiological, and ecological characteristics. Based on the data obtained from this integrative analysis, we propose a new genus, Saxispiralis gen. nov., and a new species, Saxispiralis lemnorum sp. nov., in the recently described Aeminiaceae family (order Mycosphaerellales). Prior to this discovery, this family only had one known genus and species, Aeminium ludgeri, also isolated from deteriorated limestone. Additionally, considering the isolation source of the fungus and to better understand its potential contribution to the overall stone monument biodeterioration, its in vitro biodeteriorative potential was also evaluated. This work represents a significant contribution to the understanding of the fungal diversity involved in the biodeterioration of limestone heritage.

Modernizing Sculpture: Print Culture and the New Discourse on Sculpture in China, circa 1880–1929

Abstract Much of the current scholarship on the art of China in the 1910s and 1920s focuses on artworks, art academies, and art groups that were associated either with traditional Chinese painting (guohua 國畫) or with oil painting (youhua 油畫). By contrast, other mediums such as sculpture have rarely been discussed by scholars of modern Chinese art. Similar to guohua, the association of which with lofty literati values and imperial eras was hotly debated at the beginning of the Republic of China (1912–1949), the art of sculpture – a category that has long been considered as funerary art, craft, or decorative art – and its relevance to modern China was also discussed by artists and intellectuals at that time. In early twentieth-century China, sculpture eventually gained a new status within the fine arts. This article argues that one important factor that promoted the changing perception of sculpture in the public sphere was the blossoming print culture and its connections with photography and exhibitions in Republican China. Print materials such as newspapers, newspaper supplements, pictorial magazines, and exhibition catalogs/pamphlets promoted the process of modernizing sculpture.

Tombstone of Sultan Oways Jalayeri and its Inscription

The village of Shad-abad, located at the foot of Sahand Mountain in the south of Tabriz, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, is known for the impressive Medieval cemetery in which the tomb of Sultan Oways ibn Hasan ibn Hosayn ibn Aqbuqa ibn Ilka ibn Jalayer (1338–1374 CE), the second ruler of the Jalayirid dynasty (1335–1432 CE), is located. This tombstone is of particular importance as no other gravestones of Jalayirid Sultans or their predecessors have otherwise been documented. This research limits itself to studying Sultan Oways' tombstone by focusing on its content and layout in contribution to further future research. Observations suggest that the scheme of the rectangular headstone in Sultan Oways’ tombstone is derived from funerary art associated with stone works in neighboring Caucasia that are replicated in local cemeteries in eastern Anatolia and Northwest Iran, in combination with an oblong horizontal footstone.

Roma, Sepolcreto della via Ostiense: le pitture murali e la loro conservazione. Tecnica, modalità decorative, cronologia

Along via Ostiensis, near the St. Paul’s Basilica, an important part of a roman cemetery was digged up in 1917 during roadworks and now it is still visible. This funerary area, where the most common typology is a small familiar building (columbarium), was dated from the 2nd century B.C. to 3rd-4th century A.D. At the end of the archaeological survey, only a little part of the funerary area was restored, provided with a covering and opened to the public. Elegant paintings of natural and mythological elements decorate most of the tombs, in some cases also connected with stucco decorations, and they constitute one of the most significant testimonies of the funerary art in Rome. Actually, an interdisciplinary research is focused to the study of the painted decorations, with the analysis of the painting technique and the pigments used. Moreover, based on the study of the successive restorations carried out during the twentieth-century and actual conservative state of the funerary building decorations, the investigation of the degradation phenomena of these architectural surfaces is in progress, in order to the monitoring, the maintenance and the conservation of these important frescos.

Mankind’s Socio-Cultural Development: Thanatological Perspective

The article substantiates some methods and perspectives of cultural thanatology as an integrative part of cultural history within the anthropological field. While general history is usually concerned with individual events, cultural (pre-)history uncovers common beliefs and everyday culture. Culture here is both a materialized form of the mass consciousness embodiment and a dynamic complex of creative information exchange between individuals and with the surrounding landscape. A common field for cultural (pre-)history is the worldview (mentality) of a particular society, its outlook, and common knowledge. The spectrum of the death and afterlife ideas is usually a significant amount of it.The paper presents some thanatological observations of social-cultural context.● Afterlife mapping can be traced chronologically: the idea of the Land of the Dead obviously started due to the first Epi-Paleolithic long-distance migrations and the primitive sedentism. This was also the time when permanent structured burial ritualism arose. One can clearly trace the concept of “inextricable realm of tangled paths,” later associated with spiral-like labyrinth and mirror symbolism, contributing to the imagery of the Otherworld. The sky also became the stage for ancestors’ mythological deeds and location for their households.● Almost all traditional societies shared beliefs in an active concentrated incorporeal (spiritual) essence, commonly referred to as “soul”. A polarity in the perception of afterlife is revealed, displayed in ornitomorphic as typical soul receptacles.● Tomb symbolism was closely connected with rebirth and metamorphosis. Funerary structures were usually strongly connected with the ancestor cult, so they could include a feasting hall, representing a kind of “inn”. More importantly, tumuli and grave-chambers were often the liminal places of initiation. Therefore, the authors also draw attention to the concept of liminality.● Societies with an epic type of worldview such as the Vikings, Celts, Scythians and other nomads, had unique mental models that fell somewhere between the “mythological” and “rational” mind. Their epic heroes’ adventures were also the ancestors’ ascent. Therefore, when using a comparative-iconological method to analyze their funerary art objects, we should keep this in mind and consider its profound ideological influence.● A comparative analysis of mature posthumous fate concepts, such as those of ancient Geeks, Indo-Iranians, Chinese, or Maya, generally reveals afterlife trial motifs as a sign that the corresponding society has reached the level of “Axiality,” as seen by Karl Jaspers. We claim that Jaspers’ “axial” cultural features do not indicate a universal “phase” but rather a certain state of civilization development. The socio-cultural vector in this context aims to stimulate and transform human personality. At the core of “axiality”, there lie the specific changes within the cultural space of certain societies, which mainly lead to personality transformation and a general individualization of the worldview.So, “axiality phase” should have revealed the boundary changes of human consciousness. Thus, we attempt to investigate such changes through the prism of comparative cultural-historical thanatology, using a multidisciplinary approach.

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Paradise Lost: Gold Coins from the Underworld

In 2011, the Mongolian and Kazakhstan joint expedition, dates approximately to the seventh century (A.D. 650–670), excavated a tomb of Shoroon Bumbagar, decorated with a wall painting, in Bayannuur sum of Bulgan province. The structure of the Shoroon Bumbagar tomb, murals and burial objects clearly exhibit tastes of nomads who resided along the Silk Roads and the Steppe Route. Comparing to funerary art traditions in East Asia such as Chinese and Koguryo mural tombs, it represents nomadic culture as well as the broad interactions from Byzantine Empire to China. With wall paintings and burial objects, this newly excavated mural tomb in Mongolia reveals significant information about the cultural exchanges between nomads and settled people along the Silk Roads. The burial objects excavated from the tomb include male and female figurines, either standing or riding on a horse, two tomb guardian figures, two tomb guardian animal figures, animal figurines, gold and bronze objects, fragments of a golden floral crown ornament, and Byzantine coins of the Emperor Heraclius, dated around the 630s. It is certain that the remarkable new findings from the tomb would bring a new perspective in the study of the history of tombs and demonstrates cultural exchanges and transmissions of the funerary arts of Asia along the Silk Roads.

Funerary Art of Ptolemaic Alexandria as a Model for an Early Christian Iconographic Cliché

The subject of the study – the phenomenon of cultural appropriation of Ancient pagan iconography by Early Christian art – is approached through the funerary art of Ptolemaic Egypt. The study aims at tracing back the origin of an important Early Christian scene – Jonah under the Gourd Vine – by methods of semiotic analysis and historical contextualization. In the 3rd–4th centuries AD it used to be the most popular Biblical subject throughout the Roman Empire. Some scholars argue that a mythological scene of Endimion’s dream, often carved on Late Antique sarcophagi, served as a model for visualization of the story of the prophet. However, this hypothesis does not explain the origin of the gourd vine motif, which is yet another iconographic sine qua non detail of the Jonah resting scene. Before the ‘birth’ of Early Christian art the motif had appeared just once – in Wardian necropolis of Alexandria. The gourd was first mentioned in Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made by Alexandrian Jews in the 3rd century BC. It substituted another plant originally mentioned in the Hebrew text. Both the Bible translators and Alexandrian painters had been well familiar with the gourd that was seemingly largely cultivated in Alexandrian suburbs. At some point of the city history Alexandrian painters adopted the pagan visual cliché for visualization of the Old Testament episode, and the new iconographic cliché was lately imported by Roman and provincial Christian milieu.

Love is Blind! in Byzantium The Blind Cupid Figure in Byzantine Art Through The Middle Ages

Antik dönem sanatında çok sevilen Eros, yetişkin rollerini oynayan tombul oğlanlar veya kanatlı/kanatsız putti imgeler şeklinde, circus konulu tasvirlerde, dövüş, her türden av ve kovalamaca sahnelerinde, sarkofaj konteksinde cenaze sanatında, sıkıcı tarımsal faaliyetleri neşeli ve heyecan uyandıran aktivitelere dönüştüren yaramaz çocuklar olarak tasvir edilmişlerdir. Bu uygulamaların Bizans sanatında devam ettiği görülür. Kimi zaman bağ bozumu sahnelerinde, euchariste (ökariste) bağlamında ya da öteki dünya ile ilişkilendirilerek cennete giden yolda görev alarak kristolojik sembolizm dâhilinde kullanılmışlardır. Erken Hristiyanlık dönemi katakomp resimlerinden Ortaçağın sonuna kadarki çeşitli Bizans eserlerinde yer alan Cupid figürünün ikonografisi iki kavramı barındırır: Tanrı aşkı ve dünyevi aşk. Etimolojisi ile bir Hıristiyan adaptasyonu olarak karşımıza çıkar zira sevgi/aşk anlamına gelen eros kelimesinin -dini ya da profan kavramsal bir yer edinmesi küçük aşk tanrısını ikiye bölmemiş zaten geçmişte de aşkın her türlü yüzünü temsil etmesi ile kişilere yabancı bir figür değildir. Hıristiyan metinlere nüfuz eden Θείος Έρως (İlahi Eros) kavramını Tanrı ile insan arasındaki sevgiyi anlatmanın bir yöntemi olarak kullanır; öte yandan manastır pratikleri figüre simgesel yaklaşım göstermiş, zengin dini metin ve figüratif içeriği ile dini sanatta sıradışı uygulamalar ortaya koymuştur; seküler edebiyatta ise başlıca konusu aşk olan destan ve romanslar incelendiğinde ulaşılan belirgin özelliklere sahip bir eros tarifine rastlanmış, bu tarifin ortaya konan sanatsal üretimler ile örtüştüğü görülür. Bizans sanatının farklı dönemlerine tarihlenen metal, fildişi, mozaik, dokuma, elyazma resmi ya da fresko gibi farklı ürün gruplarına ait örneklere yansıyan tasvirler figürün kavramsal boyutlarını yansıtır. Ancak Aşk Tanrısı Cupid -ya da diğer isimleriyle Eros veya Amor- Helenistik ve Roma sanatında hiç kör temsil edilmemesine karşın, Bizans Sanatında sıra dışı bir körlük örneği gösterir. Bu araştırma yazısı, çok-tanrılı geçmişin hatırasını taşıyan bir figürün ağır başlı Bizans kültür ortamında, dinin tüm ağırlığına rağmen anlamını devam ettirmesi sürecinde üstlendiği kavramlar uyarınca ortaya konan sanatsal temsillerinin ikonografisi üzerine bir çalışmadır.

A Cross-cultural Comparison of Tomb Murals from the Etruscans and the Kingdom of Goguryeo

The Etruscan civilization on the Apennine Peninsula (ca. 900 - 27 B.C.) and the kingdom of Goguryeo on the Korean Peninsula (ca. 37 B.C. - 668) were separated by time and space. Nevertheless, they share an interesting aspect of their culture in common which is the creation of murals in the chambers of mounded tombs. These murals provide important insights into the lifeworld and the perceptions of the afterlife for both civilizations.&#x0D; The present study compares the themes of the murals from the Etruscans and the kingdom of Goguryeo in order to ascertain similarities and differences in their pictorial language. Whilst the differences may be simply explained by cultural differences, the similarities may point to commonly shared or universal values and modes of representation in early state formations. As can be demonstrated there is a range of themes that occur in both civilizations such as depictions of the tomb owners, banqueting scenes, hunting, processions and many more. The juxtaposition of the funerary art from both civilizations reveals also a few peculiarities which may be unique for each cultural sphere. In case of Goguryeo this is the depiction of star constellations and for the Etruscans the representation of sex scenes.&#x0D; It is being argued that the similarities in the scenes can be explained by common social and behavioral factors. These are for instance the performance of an ancestor cult, a strong affiliation to elite distinction and the creation of a group-related identity.

Mourning and non-ordered religious behaviour in the tombs of Philip the Bold, John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria

Abstract The tomb of the Burgundian duke Philip the Bold in Dijon, designed by the Haarlem-born sculptor Claus Sluter, holds a key position in the development of Western funerary art, especially on account of the lively and moving depiction of the cortège of weepers around the tomb. In this monument it is they who provide an example to their beholders – namely, how to mourn the deceased ruler. Not only do these expressive statuettes encourage the viewer to pray for Philip’s soul, but they also evoke the actual funeral liturgy of the duke. While the clerical mourners move in a single direction and form a procession, the lay figures seem to move more freely, directing themselves towards the tomb’s onlookers and stimulating them to pray for Philip’s afterlife. This conflation of transitional and everlasting rituals expresses a duality in late Gothic attitudes towards death.

The Chinese jade carving art before the 3rd century AD

This work is devoted to the study of the development and evolution of ancient Chinese jade art up to the 3rd century A.D. In ancient Chinese society, jade served not just as a decorative element, it performed the function of personal identification and communication. This study analyzes the origin and technical characteristics of jade art, as well as the artistic characteristics of different themes in different periods (From a technical point of view, the most popular in the manufacturing of jade products was the deep engraving of yinke, used to create decorative elements of products, carving or relief), the development of jade art is evidence of the historical development of China, it is closely related to it is connected with the theocratic political regime of the ancient state. The main conclusion of this study is that the author confirmed that the Chinese jade culture has a profound influence on the artistic style of jade, analyzing the characteristics of jade in different periods, and ideology is one of the important factors influencing the development of jade. The novelty of the research lies in the article that the author emphasizes the culture of "funerary jade" in the development of Chinese jade art, and "funerary art" in Chinese jade culture. At the same time, author emphasizes the importance attached to "people", which may be of interest to specialists engaged in the relevant research areas.