Khazar-khum Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> :roflmao
>
> You know why?
>
> Just try teaching an Art History class and
> explaining to people that the AE are not modern
> African-Americans. Teh Afrocnetric tendrils have
> gone very deep, and if you persist in violating
> that PC rule, you will eventually get to take
> 'sensitivity training'.

But you missed my point. Ancient Egyptians were not trying to measure up to the social paradigms of a country called America that only came about almost 2000 years after dynastic Egypt passed away. Africans have the right to identify with Egypt as much as Europeans have the right to identify with Greece, even though all Europeans are not Greek and all Africans are not Egyptians. The opinions of people from thousands of miles away from Egypt don't determine whether ancient Egypt was African or not. Europeans don't have more right to study and understand Egypt or identify with it than modern Egyptians or other Africans. Therefore, if you are teaching AE art history and not teaching it from an African perspective, then the problem is with the curriculum not the students.

> As for likeness, the great Bernini once said that
> you could not get a real portrait of a man simply
> by making him white; you had to exaggerate the
> most beautiful or handsome features & suppress
> the negative to get a true likeness. Thutmose
> obviously knew this & employed it with
> Nefertiti.

Art is subjective, science is not. All the artwork from Egypt is beautiful
regardless of the color it is in. Therefore, all the various portraits of
Nefertiti have to be considered as art, especially those in the Amarna style,
which obviously shows that those AE had different perceptions of beauty than
some do today. So it is not unusual to admire one piece of art for its features.
But that subjectivity has nothing to do with science. One individuals preference
in terms of the features that can be called 'beautiful' and 'realistic' should not
be the measuring stick for reconstructing mummies. The facts at hand, meaning the
mummy itself, should be the measuring stick. But, unfortunately, since we don't
have her mummy, we are stuck admiring the various pieces of art that survived.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2007 07:19AM by Doug M.