2023-07-28 04:00:08
An international research team involving scientists from the CNRS, Sorbonne University and the University of Grenoble Alpes, as part of a vast research program coordinated with the Ministry of Antiquities of Egypt and the University of Liège (L’ Université de Liège is a university in Belgium located in …), highlighted creative freedoms in the production of two Egyptian funerary paintings, dated around 1,400 and 1,200 years before our era. These works, published in PLOS ONE on July 12, reveal artistic phenomena unobservable to the naked eye and hitherto unpublished.
Portrait of Ramses II in the Tomb of Nakhtamon (c. 1200 BCE). The headdress, the necklace and the royal scepter were retouched during its creation.
© LAMS-MAFTO, CNRS
In the Egyptian language, no word is known to designate art. The civilization of ancient Egypt, on the other hand, is too often perceived as being extremely formal in its expression and the work of painters working in funeral chapels does not escape these prejudices.
An international and interdisciplinary team led by Philippe Martinez and Philippe Walter, CNRS researchers, has nevertheless revealed gestures and pictorial practices hitherto unknown because they are difficult to perceive. By studying the representation of Ramses II in the tomb of Nakhtamon and the paintings of the tomb of Menna among the hundreds of tombs of nobles in Luxor, they discovered the traces (TRACES (TRAde Control and Expert System) is a veterinary health network of …) of alterations made during their design.
Thus, the representation of Ramses II has been greatly modified: the headdress, the collar and his scepter have been significantly retouched and yet invisible to the naked eye. In a worship scene from Menna’s tomb, the position and color of an arm have been changed. The pigments used, in particular for the color of the flesh, are different from the first version, which demonstrates the need for subtle changes whose primary usefulness is still very difficult to affirm. At the request of the sponsor or following an evolution of his own project (A project is an irreversible commitment of uncertain result, not reproducible to …), the painter or “drawing scribe (A draftsman is a person practicing drawing. The drawing resulting from the work of a…)”, might thus bring his personal touch to conventional motifs.
The scientists were able to make this discovery thanks to new portable imaging and chemical analysis technologies allowing them to study the works on site, without damaging them. Colors modified by time (Time is a concept developed by human beings to apprehend…) and their physico-chemical evolution have lost their original reality, but chemical analysis and numerical representation (An information digital (in English “digital”) is information…) in 3D carried out by the team using photogrammetry (Photogrammetry is a technique that consists of taking measurements in a…) and macro photography should make it possible to restore their color and change our own perception of these masterpieces that we too often think are eternal and unchanged.
This study demonstrates that pharaonic art and its conditions of realization were certainly more complex and changing than previously thought. The next mission of the scientists will be to analyze other paintings in search of new traces of the know-how and intellectual identity of scribe-drawers from ancient Egypt.
Reference
Hidden mysteries in Ancient Egyptian paintings from the Theban Necropolis observed by in-situ XRF mapping.
Philippe Martinez, Matthias Alfeld, Catherine Defeyt, Hishaam Elleithy, Helen Glanville, Melinda Hartwig, François-Philippe Hocquet, Maguy Jaber, Pauline Martinetto, David Strivay and Philippe Walter.
PLOS ONE, July 12, 2023.
1690592963
#Secrets #Egyptian #painters #revealed #chemistry
