SUNKEN
CITIES: EGYPT'S LOST WORLDS
The
artifacts were rescued from deep in the waters off the coast of Egypt
When
earthquakes and high tides came to the Mediterranean area 1200 years ago, Egypt
lost two great seaside cities into the depths of the water. Very busy workers in the last seven years
have been recovering thousands of artifacts.
The result is a traveling exhibition called the "Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds."
Now the exhibition for the first time is in America at the St. Louis Art
Museum.
Even
the names of the cities had been lost to historians. Now we know not only their names but are awed
by the richness of the combined Egyptian-Greek culture that had existed there.
The largest city was
Thonis-Heracleion where much of the trade with Greece was carried out. This is where the new Pharaoh would come to
be legitimized by the Gods. Nearby was Canopus, a city that drew pilgrims from
all around the Mediterranean to its many shrines.
We
arrived in the morning to find the exhibit already crowded. The tickets gave entry times so they could
control the large number of people eager to see the unusual display that had
already been to the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, the British Museum in London,
and the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.
A movie introduced us to what we were to see by taking us to the depths
of sea four miles off the coast of Egypt where we got to watch the divers
discover the treasures that seeming lay randomly in the muck and sludge of the
bottom. It took seven years of
underwater excavation led by Franck Goddio, president of the European Institute,
for Underwater Archaeology to gather the artifacts for this exhibition.
The Sacred
Bull Apis, when Apis Bull died all of Egypt morned.
We were about to see excavated material that included
colossal statues, inscriptions and architectural elements, jewelry and coins,
ritual objects and ceramics.
Continuous films were playing on
screens around the exhibition about the underwater world where the artifacts
were found. In the film they would find
an object, examine it and bring it to the surface. On the wall nearby the TV
screen we would find the discovered object on display.
The earliest statues found were done
in the Egyptian style, leg forward, arms to the sides. Over the years of interaction the Greek
influence became apparent: more body movement, more expressive faces, and hair
styles were different. But something
else was happening-- the Egyptian Gods were beginning to blend with the Greek
and taking on other names.
For example, the Egyptians
worshipped Hapy, the God of the Nile flooding. Based on Hapy the Greeks created and venerated
Neiles. Neiles had thick curly hair, a
heavy beard and wore a himation, a kind of cloak.
Some artifacts are more striking
than others. One is the life-sized
statue of the sacred Bull, Apis, who represented the god Ptah, a powerful
oracle and source of prophecy. A real
bull was chosen by the priests as a representative, and when he died the nation
mourned.
A section of the exhibition focuses
on the Osiris, God of the afterlife,
that introduced me to some new information about him. There had been an annual water procession
between Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus commemorating the murder and resurrection
of Osiris.
Several of the statues show Osiris waking from
the dead. One of them has him on his
stomach with his head just raised as he comes back to life. The figures of Osiris were often made of
symbolic ingredients, such as soil from the Nile River. These figures were then used during rituals
that recreated and celebrated the god's death, dismemberment, reassembly, and
resurrection.
The rituals were to insure the yearly flooding
of the Nile, so necessary for the life of Egypt. The overlap of his murder and resurrection with
our own Christian story startled me.
The exhibition will be at the St.
Louis Art Museum until September 9. Visitors are charged for entry to the
exhibition except tickets are free on Friday's. The museum is open until 9 pm.
Osiris, God
of the Nile, shown in his rebirth.
No comments:
Post a Comment