Day 22 - Two sisters from the Amarna period
February 13, 2018
Gallery 121 contains objects from the Amarna period (ca. 1350-1335 B.C.), and while I cetainly would not be able to identify all of them as having that provenance, the graceful limbs, rounded chins, and elongated fingers are highly distinctive.
My hands-down favorite is a fragment of a delicately painted relief, about 14 inches long and 9 or 10 inches high. It shows a young woman and a young girl. The older figure's head is in profile, while her body faces us, calling attention to her high, rounded breasts. Her left arm is extended protectively and affectionately around the shoulder of the young girl. While the gaze of the older figure is outward, the young girl looks up at the older one. Her right arm is raised, but I can't tell whether she's holding the older one by the elbow or her hand is simply raised in a lively gesture, as if the sculptor had captured the pair when the younger one was animatedly telling the older one about something that had just happened.
The two appear to be related. Their hairstyles are somewhat similar- long braids - although it appears that the back of the younger girl's head has been shaved. They both have prominent, though delicately modeled, collar bones.
But what is the relationship? The tenderness of the interaction makes me think it's a young mother and her daughter. Maybe I'm also predisposed to think that because I'm reading a book about a young mother. Or maybe I'm thinking of my own mother, whose two-year yahrzeit was two weeks ago. How old, I wonder, were Egyptian royals when they married and started having children?
My hands-down favorite is a fragment of a delicately painted relief, about 14 inches long and 9 or 10 inches high. It shows a young woman and a young girl. The older figure's head is in profile, while her body faces us, calling attention to her high, rounded breasts. Her left arm is extended protectively and affectionately around the shoulder of the young girl. While the gaze of the older figure is outward, the young girl looks up at the older one. Her right arm is raised, but I can't tell whether she's holding the older one by the elbow or her hand is simply raised in a lively gesture, as if the sculptor had captured the pair when the younger one was animatedly telling the older one about something that had just happened.
The two appear to be related. Their hairstyles are somewhat similar- long braids - although it appears that the back of the younger girl's head has been shaved. They both have prominent, though delicately modeled, collar bones.
But what is the relationship? The tenderness of the interaction makes me think it's a young mother and her daughter. Maybe I'm also predisposed to think that because I'm reading a book about a young mother. Or maybe I'm thinking of my own mother, whose two-year yahrzeit was two weeks ago. How old, I wonder, were Egyptian royals when they married and started having children?
But the caption says that the relief depicts two princesses, Akhenaten's daughters. In any case, it's a loving, and lovely, image.
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