Iconography Of The New Kingdom Summary

The iconography of Egypt’s New Kingdom paints a distorted picture of the Nubian people. With a clear focus on demonstrating the power of the king, and by extension Egypt itself, the iconography of the period becomes propaganda for the military prowess of king and country alike. The foreign “enemies,” like the Nubians, become oversimplified to fit the role they are given in the iconography. Michele Buzon’s article, “A Bioarchaeological Perspective on Egyptian Colonialism in Nubia during the New Kingdom” aids the reader in seeing different facets of the Nubian people. Buzon’s work demonstrates the fact that the portrayal of Nubians in New Kingdom iconography is generalized with regards to race, culture, and their interactions with the Egyptian

people.
Egyptian iconography throughout the New Kingdom portray non-Egyptians, including Nubians, in an unflattering and hostile manner. Images like the whip handle depicting a lion subduing a Nubian showcases this fact (Harrington. Lecture 10/20) by displaying a caricaturized Nubian who is being savagely attacked by a lion. These representations of Nubians can trace their origins to long before the New Kingdom (Harrington. Lecture 9/22) and the clear delineation of Nubians as “other” relates to the traditional iconography of the Egyptian king smiting the enemies of his country (Harrington. Lecture 9/10), including the Nubians. The use of this imagery in the New Kingdom expresses the militaristic nature of many of the kings in this period by drawing upon well-established symbols of the king’s military might. While these images helped to support the Egyptian king’s own image, the evidence from Buzon’s article shows that they had little to do with the reality of actual Nubians. In analyzing the remains of nine different sites, it was more difficult to classify Nubians because of the greater amount of variance in their cranial shapes as compared to Egyptians (Buzon 176). This information clearly shows that it is not so easy to create an image of the “typical” Nubian and that the caricaturized representations of these people was a method of distinguishing those who are being conquered from those doing the conquering. This argument is also supported by the fact that these civilizations did not exist in isolation from one another; migration between the two was not unheard of and the significantly less populated Nubian Kingdom would have felt a greater genetic impact from incoming Egyptians (Buzon 168), showing that ideas of Egyptian and Nubian would not have been as stark as they were shown to be.
The contrast between Egyptian and Nubian, which is found in Egyptian artwork, goes beyond depictions of race to include cultural aspects as well. In the representations of the New Kingdom, foreigners were depicted as chaotic masses of enemy savages, who opposed the orderly armies of Egypt, which can be seen in images of the king routing enemy troops (Harrington. Lecture 10/20). As a traditional people of the nine bows, Nubians were subject to this view as well. Depictions such as this were another way to mark them as a people who were wholly unlike the Egyptians, therefore making their subjugation a duty of the king. One of the most obvious ways in which Buzon’s findings from Tombos refute this idea is the prevalent use of Egyptian style grave goods found with many of the site’s burials. The people buried are linked to Egyptian customs through items such as ushabtis, which reflect Egyptian beliefs concerning the afterlife, and kohl pots, necessary items for Egyptians both in life and in death (Buzon 170-171). The widespread use of Egyptian religious iconography such as Bes and eye of Horus amulets show the intersection of the two cultures (Buzon 171). Adhering to typical Egyptian practices and customs demonstrates the fact that the mixing of these two cultures eventually had an Egyptianizing effect on some Nubians, an idea supported by that the Nubian burials found at Tombos were earlier than Egyptian style burials (Buzon 177). Although Nubians were shown as barbaric outsiders in Egyptian iconography, Buzon’s article displays that Nubians interacted heavily with Egyptian belief and culture, even adopting as their own.
The iconography of the New Kingdom also fails to provide an accurate picture of interactions between Egyptians and Nubians.

In the previously mentioned reliefs of Egypt subduing foreign forces, the orderly Egyptian troops are illustrated as civilizing their chaotic opponents; in the Egyptian view prosperity would be brought to the foreigners as they became subject to Ma’at. It is evident in Buzon’s findings that prosperity did not always follow Egyptian rule. While those found at Tombos were under the rule of Siamun, the Egyptian Overseer of the Foreign Lands, they still had to face hardship. The population of Tombos shows that nutritional stress negatively impacted both the health of the children, who died without recovering from nutritional deficiency, and the adults, whose decreased stature indicates that their growth was adversely affected by lack of food, even with an Egyptian them to help them organize their supplies (Buzon 178). This demonstrates the fact that Egyptians did not always bring the organizational skills and order that they prided themselves on bringing to other cultures. The warlike nature displayed in much of the iconography of the New Kingdom also portrays the interactions between Egyptians and other cultures, such as the Nubians, as being mainly hostile. Depictions of this nature relate back to the idea of the Egyptian king as the destroyer of foreign enemies so prevalent in the New Kingdom. The skeletal evidence at Tombos shows that the two peoples did not always interact with aggression. Tombos was populated by a mixture of Nubians and Egyptians (Buzon 176) showing that the two peoples were able to live peacefully alongside each other. Further supporting this is the fact that the remains of Tombos had low rates of cranial damage and “parry” fractures, pieces of evidence, indicating a low level of interpersonal violence among the population (Buzon

180).
The physical evidence at Tombos demonstrates that the Nubians were a much more complex people than New Kingdom iconography portrays. More varied racially and culturally than the caricatures of chaotic barbarians that were typical of this time period’s art, the Nubians had highly nuanced interactions with Egypt and its people than were represented.