>
> 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.
No, I understood you perfectly well.
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.
No, the culture itself does that. And AE -/= Sub-Saharan African culture.
Europeans don't have
> more right to study and understand Egypt or
> identify with it than modern Egyptians or other
> Africans.
No one said that.
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.
NO.
If you are teaching Art History, you look at as many artistic traditions as you can. There is a clear connection between AE art & that of the Classical world. There is no such connection bewteen AE art & that of Sub-Saharan Africa. From an Ah perspective, AE falls well within the Western tradition.
>
> > 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.
>
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.
I never said they didn't.
I quoted the greasts sculptor who has ever lived about the method for obtaining a good likeness via sculpture. ALL portraits of Nefertiti have a set of features which permit us to recoignise her--long neck, fine nose etc. When we find an Amarna era image that strays from those conventions we have a difficult time identifying the woman.
One individuals preference
> in terms of the features that can be called
> 'beautiful' and 'realistic' should not
> be the measuring stick for reconstructing mummies.
AMEN.
> 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.
Who was it that asked if we really wanted to see the 'grinning face of the mummified queen, she who was living in beauty for ever and ever'?