Who knows their Egyptian Pantheon?

P

Patentleathershoes

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Normally that answer would be....Me.

But I am stuck. Maybe Lin knows?

I have rephotoed my Egyptian gown finally on the mannequin, and after a year of owning it and not selling, I have decided that it will become property of my mannequin. (unless i bring it out in the fall.). (or actually, it will be a year in May). I just had to have it when i found it last year.

Okay....I know seated is Akhnaton. The two little people are the children Tutankhamen and (now I don't know how to spell her name but) Ankhasamun (Ankh'a-Samun??) who was the sister/bride. Behind is the obelisk.

And of course, Anubis is in there too. Perhaps giving archer lessons or tapping A. on the arm to go to the underworld with him. The sun is symbolic of Aknhaton's switch in imperial (or more properly empirical) religion to that of the monodeity, symbolized by the sun, the sun god, and eschewing the multi-charactered traditional Egyptian pantheon.

Now this is where I am stuck (aside from the spelling of Miss A's name)...who is the archer? It looks like it is supposed to be Akhnaton again... I am unaware of any specific archer in the egyptian pantheon. I am also assuming the figure under the sun is just representative of the religion and not supposed to be anyone in particular, and an invention of the fabric designer not thinking people would think that much about it, but in hieroglyphics, et al, everyone was always somebody even if they were not anybody important. And I would think if they took the care to portray the others, then...?

Queen Nefrititi is nowhere to be found on this dress either disguised as a man which was typical after the death of A. or in usual form.

Anyways, there is the too involved/overintellectualized clothing question for the day.

Chris

tut4.jpg


egyptdress.jpg
 
Oh, Chris, I love that gown... I've eyed it up so many times...

My vote (for what it's worth, I've only indirectly studied Egyptian iconography) is that it's the pharaoh again.

You frequently get figures repeated in the kind of frieze composition this was probably borrowing from.

Also, the god is helping him draw the bow, which is a kind of 'the god is favourable/helps me conquor etc.'

You probably know? the kind of Egyptian conquest ideology of 'the nine bows' - found in a stereotyped title given to the king, showing military supremacy over a group of enemies is 'lord of the nine bows'.

A similar concept was used all over the Middle East, but I wonder whether it's quite closely related to the image of the king drawing his bow here.

L (nerd)

(off to look at it again - it should sell shown on your Guinevere-y manni)
 
p.s. I'm not sure about those two little figures being the children.

When I see that iconography of people approaching the throne with their hands raised like that, I see subject peoples acknowledging the king's power. It's actually borrowed in Mediterranean iconography later too.

Remember, size of figures in Near Eastern/Egyptian iconography is more often than not used to show status rather than age/type of person. It just means the subjects are 'little' in the presence of the king's overlordship.

(nerdier)
L
 
I was thinking more that they were subordinate to him versus age alone, and Tut and whastshername would have been hierarchically and not just merely in age subordinate to him and owed their riches/frame/and mostly existence to him. If there were just one or 12 I might not have considered them, but because there was the two, that's why i thought of them....... maybe "2" is symbolic as well...I am familiar with 3's and 7's and all that...

But wouldn't it be ironic that it would be the "helping him conquer" thing and he was the one who did away with the pantheon, et al. And Anubis is an interesting choice for that anyhow, unless when they designed the fabric they were just thinking "who would the average person recognize" and they were down to Anubis, Bastet, and maybe a more traditional image of King Tut, and they didn't want to be trite with Tut, but digured that Bastet while a little bit sort of known was not nearly as widely recognized as Anubis.
 
<i>If there were just one or 12 I might not have considered them, but because there was the two, that's why i thought of them....... </i>

Yes, I see how you might want to read that, Chris, but (and this is where the annoying art historian hat goes on) it looks like it's more to do with the designer's selection of small bite-size figures than with an intentional indication of who they are.

So, he wouldn't select 7 subject peoples, because in his fabric design, 7 would be a long string of figures amongst small, mixed groups of one or two.

See, I'd be ready to accept these were supposed to be royal offspring of two sexes if they had distinctive robes/attributes (and were distinguished from each other) or crowns. But they're both exactly the same and perhaps even based on semi-naked figures wearing only kilts.

Also, the king in front of them is in the act of throwing his spear over their heads - it's kind of a military set up rather than a dynastic one, as far as I can see.

It'd be really interesting if the designer made this dress thinking of that Akhenatun 'impiety' story of turning away from the traditional pantheon.

Incidentally, the dimmest nodes of my brain that faintly remember some lectures I had to sit through as a Teaching Assistant are signalling to me that the story of Akhenatun's (sp?) religious folly might be regarded as more illusion than reality nowadays. But I might easily have misremembered.

Are there any more scenes that you have detailed shots of that aren't shown here? It's a really interesting dress.
 
The symbols shown basically repeat over the whole dress. As you can see, in the far right of the picture, barely visible is the edge of another obelisk.

Duh! (on the subjects) of course if it was supposed to be a girl one would be dressed differently. how daft of me.

Hmmm...and if it is a miliatary set up, here in my mind my brain is now working in another direction. Wondering if it were just a general statement of pharoah-prowess or related to a specific event.

And again, maybe i am giving it more historical merit than it really has...the person could have had a boss that said "okay...do something with egyptian people on it..." and they just picked things, but then again you would probably see the more common King Tut, cats, etc...maybe Horus would figure in as well...
 
I am just thinking of this dress again (too bad I am the wrong shape for it!!!!). I think you are right about the manni doing it justice. Her tall and lean shape is really best suited to it versus the half girl.
 
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