Experiencing Ancient Thebes

May 15, 2006

Luxor is the Europeanized version of the Arabic al-Uqsur, meaning "the palaces." This city was known by quite a different name in ancient times.. one with a little more resonance: Thebes. This was the capital of New Kingdom Egypt, and the successive rulers and high officials added building after building, grave after grave, to the landscape. Even within a single structure such as the immense Karnak temple, what remains for tourists to walk through is the result of additions and alterations. I would love to be able to give a specific meaning to the experience of walking through the temple.. but there are many meanings here.. and overlapping meanings..

A visit to Luxor resembles a visit to present day Washington DC.. where one is also confronted with a dense symbolic landscape. Washington does not either offer a single interpretive key for its monuments and museums.. its cultural landscape. We know that America has changed over its brief two centuries of history. America in the 30s was not the same as it is today.. nor were either of these the same as America at the end of the 19th century. Yet each of these epochs are represented in Washington. That is easy enough for us to understand.. since it is our own history. Although ancient Egyptian society was conservative, change was nevertheless constant.

I think the comparison with Washington also foregrounds some of the choices that a tourist can make when experiencing these ruins. If the American that presents itself in Washington is multiple, then a person has the chance to pick and choose the elements that he or she finds most interesting. The ruins of Thebes offer a tourist some similar options.. a similar chance to selectively view an ancient city.

One element not to be underestimated in Egyptian art is the presence of aggressive war motifs. Here is a large representation from a pylon at Karnak of a king smiting his enemies.. whose heads are joined by a forelock of hair. Victories on the battlefield were a confirmation of a king's greatness. That greatness is translated into monumental representations of the king.. the embodiment of the state and society.

This monumental quality in Egyptian representations is surely a major reason for the continued fascination with its remains. Huge images of the king overlook an entrance. Huge stone columns, larger in diameter than any tree I know of except sequoias or Redwoods, tower over the visitor. The modern tourist likes to be awed and to imagine the wealth and time it took to construct something.

The details also bear looking into though.. and I think if ancient Egyptian art were just huge, it would still not hold the same wide interest. We like the hieroplyphs, and the unique visual language that developed in here long ago.

And occasionally there are beautiful and unique scenes that catch the attention. There are pictures of dancing girls in a private tomb, there is the care with which braided hair has been rendered in stone.. and sometimes even scenes of natural beauty. The above picture of birds and bushes came from an enclosure in the rear of the main Karnak temple.. and I promised myself that I would find out more about this room and why it received such delicate carvings of natural subjects.

In my own way I am arguing for two things. First, for a piece of art to be interpreted, it requires knowledge of the historical context.. a difficult but by no means impossible task when it comes to New Kingdom Egypt. Who built the structure or addition.. and what were the political concerns that could lead us to understand its contemporary significance? The individual representations above can make sense.. be given an historic meaning.. only after this work is completed. —An effort glided over by the tour guides.

At the same time, there is a place for simple enjoyment. The girl whose photo heads this blog is a wonderful example of the simple pleasure that can come from looking at Egyptian art.. and represents the process of selection at work. The question becomes: what is the Egypt that appeals to me? And the answer may not be what the ancient kings, with their deeply inscribed hieroglyphic names, would have liked. What appeals to someone may in fact be the bottoms of those imposing columns, with their repeating patterns and designs. I almost think that if these ancient kings had known that we were less interested in their names and deeds than their simple designs.. they might have erased everything but their names.. "there, now you must look at me!".. but such was not the case. It is one of the joys of ancient art that we can look wherever we please.