Ancient Egyptian Art Essay

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Question #8 Life, chaos, harmony and death are aspects that played a strong role in the belief system of the ancient Egyptian people. These aspects focused on the belief of Gods and Goddesses as well as guidelines that affected how ancient Egyptian people lived their lives. Due to these themes having played a role in the ancient Egyptians lifestyle, many symbols, illustrations and works of art were created to go against the aspects of chaos. Countering the idea of chaos, there are works of art that are seen to symbolize the focus on how the ancient Egyptians tried to achieve a harmonious and balanced life by how they viewed their actions and lifestyle choices. Ancient Egyptian art that focus on symbolic images of their belief system are seen …show more content…

On the left side of the illustration stands a man, known as Hunefer, walking in hand with Anubis, the god of cemeteries (Stokstad 2014: 77). This scene depicts the assumed first stage of entering the afterlife, the soul of a person being lead by Anubis. The next scene introduces a scale with the image of weighing the heart of the soul (Class Lecture, 10/4/16). This imagery of weighing a person’s heart can be recognized as the use of the Gods of chaos and balance and which aspect the soul of an ancient Egyptian focused their lifestyle (Stokstad 2014: 77). Following the flow of the illustration, the eater of the dead, Ammit, is near the scale; Ammit would presumably eat the soul of the deceased if the scales were in flux (Class Lecture, 10/3/16 and 10/31/16). This illustration featuring Ammit and the scales can provide the description of how an ancient Egyptian lived their life. The third scene focuses on Horus presenting Hunefer to the God Osiris (Class Lecture, 10/5/16). This third scene can be recognized as the symbolic imagery of Hunefer being accepted his spot in the afterlife for an everlasting life with the Gods. This illustration focuses heavily on continuing the belief of living for an everlasting life as well as presenting instructions for an ancient

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