NEW YORK (AP) — The powerful gods of ancient Egypt gather on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
That will be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s been more than a decade since the museum’s last major Egyptian show, so “Divine Egypt” — a lavish exploration of how the ancient Egyptians depicted their gods — is a big event, as evidenced by the crowds that have packed the exhibit since it opened on October 12.
After all, there are few things that interest the museum-going public Like ancient Egypt says Diana Craig Patch, curator of Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum.
“It’s the first ancient culture you learn in school,” Patch says. “The pyramids, the mummies, The great tomb of Tutankhamun …It’s in our popular culture, our books, our movies, and now our video games.
But Patch hopes visitors will learn something deeper from “Divine Egypt,” which explores how gods were depicted by Egyptians, both kings and commoners, not just in temples where only kings or priests could go, but in daily worship by ordinary people.
The ancient Egyptian civilization lasted about 3,000 years; The exhibition, which runs until January, covers all periods and includes more than 200 objects, from colossal limestone statues to small golden statues. It includes 140 works from the Met’s collection, as well as others loaned by museums around the world.
“The divine landscape of ancient Egypt is full of gods, in fact there are 1,500 gods if you count them all,” said Patch, who led The Associated Press on a tour last week. The show focuses on 25 major deities.
Even if it was reduced to 25, the search was arduous. Materials and textual information on Egyptology are fragmentary. Furthermore, the Egyptians continued to bring in new gods, or give existing gods new roles. “This makes the scene very complex, but fascinating,” Patch says.
One goal is to show visitors that all of these images are about “how the ancient Egyptians related to their world. These gods were how they solved problems of life, death, and meaning—problems that we are still trying to solve today.”
Some highlights:
You would think that the boy king Tutankhamun, also known as King Tut, would be the star of any party, given the amazing riches the world has discovered from his tomb. But in the statue that greets visitors for the first time, from the Louvre Museum in Paris, the sun god Amun-Ra sits on a throne, presenting the much smaller pharaoh under his knees – or rather, protecting him – with his hands resting on his small shoulders. The god is recognized by his feather-filled crown, swirling beard, divine kilt and jewels – certainly the main attraction. Amun-Ra was worshiped in the Karnak temple complex; The presence of Ra in his name links him closely to the sun.
The first of five galleries, titled “Expression of the Divine,” focuses on two major deities, the god Horus and the goddess Hathor. Horus is always represented as a falcon with a double crown, signifying that he is the king of Egypt and associated with the living king. But Hathor, who represents fertility, music, and defense, among other things, takes many forms, including a cow, an emblem, or a lion or cobra head figure. In one of the statues here, she wears cow horns and a sun disk.
“These are two main ways to represent gods: sometimes with many roles, sometimes with just one,” Patch says.
This exhibition looks at the all-important Ra, whose domains are the sun, creation, life, and rebirth. Re often combines the figure with other deities. “Re-ruling the world,” Patch says, “is a source of light and warmth.”
He is presented in this room as a giant scarab beetle. “This is his morning side,” Patch says. “It is seen as a beetle that brings the sun out of the underworld and pushes it into the sky.”
Also here is a colorful bas-relief of the goddess Maat, from the Valley of the Kings at Thebes (present-day Luxor). It embodies truth, justice, and social and political order. Patch notes: “The best way to translate it today is right. It represents the world right, the way it should work.”
This exhibition explores five myths surrounding the creation of the world and its inhabitants.
“That’s one of the things I hope people start to unlearn: that the Egyptians had multiple ways of dealing with things,” Patch says of the competing myths. “I find that fascinating. They overlap.”
She stands next to a colossal limestone statue of the god Min, a headless representation of a difficult-to-define deity associated with plants, agricultural fertility, and minerals.
Only kings and priests had access to state temples to worship their gods. What were ordinary people to do?
“At festivals, the god would emerge from the temple on a sacred barge (a sailing ship), and people would come into contact with that image in the streets and ask him questions,” Patch explains.
In this room, the curators have arranged a collection of objects as if they were on a parquet. Top and center: A gleaming solid-gold statuette of Amun, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1926 from the collection of Lord Carnarvon, who was involved in the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.
Some of the most notable art associated with Egyptian gods revolves around death and the afterlife. “Overcoming death is something that royals and non-royals alike have had to deal with,” Patch says.
Among the gods in this section is Anubis, who mummifies the dead and leads them to the afterlife. Isis and Nephthys, sisters of Osiris, who mourn and protect the dead; Osiris is the judge and ruler of the afterlife.
This exhibition features the exhibition’s signature piece: a stunning statuette, on loan from the Louvre, depicting the trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Made of gold inlaid with lapis lazuli, it shows the shrouded Osiris, the falcon-headed Horus, and Isis in the sun disk and horns. Gold represents the skin of the gods, and lapis lazuli their hair.
Although this final section is about overcoming death, “I think you’ve seen that most of the show is about life,” Patch notes. “And that’s what all these gods were aiming for. Even in overcoming death, it was about living forever.”
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Associated Press video journalist Ted Shaffrey contributed to this report.