Egyptians with Medieval Christians

Mircea Eliade (1958) notes that to the Egyptians "the sun's connection with the other world, with the spheres of phantasm and of death, is clear" (p. 142). The monumental structures which have come to symbolize antiquated Egypt's entire culture are almost entirely constructions relations with that other world. Ra's fetish, the object endowed with powers to aid and protect the god, was a pyramid-shaped stone, almost certainly inspired--or perhaps, as Helen Gardner (1980, p. 69) puts it, demanded--the pyramidal shape of the pharaohs' tombs. The great pyramids were constructed as enduring monuments to immortal beings. Al vogues buried on the side of the river where the sun sets, the body of the pharaoh was placed where it could follow the mythologic journey established by Osiris, god of the underworld. The death and transition of Osiris presaged the travels the ruler would also take after death.

Eliade (1958) notes, "As domineering ruler [the pharaoh] automatically receives immortality and need not attempt to kindle himself a molar at all" (p. 140). While the pharaoh's going was his inherent right, the passage of mortals was dependent on proper preparation. Indeed, heretofore the guaranteed journey of the immortals required sufficient planning and ceremony to simmpleness the transition from the mortal world. From earlier traditions came the concept of a hero who must(prenominal) go through an initiation between worlds. Eliade (1958) describes the way this pro

For tomb paintings, Gardner (1980) records, "Subjects favored by patrons [were usually] agriculture and hunting, activities that represented the fundamental human concern with disposition and that are associated with the provisioning of the ka in the hereafter" (p. 73). Patrons also commissioned jewelry, vessels, and statues of muckle and animals, which the artists constructed from precious metals, jewels, and the hardest stones available in order to assure that pieces would prevail for infinity; Gardner (1980) notes, "The difficulty of working granite and diorite with bronze tools . . . made doing too expensive for all but the wealthiest" (p. 72).

She (1980) observes that the nature of the materials apply was part of the point: "The form manifests the purpose -- to last for eternity" (p. 71).

Eliade, M. (1958). Patterns in comparative religion. New

It was not just the art itself that was intentional to survive the ages: "If what belongs to the gods and to nature is unchanging and if the king is divine, then his attributes must be eternal" (Gardner, 1980, p. 66). This led to the formal establishment of hard artistic guidelines. The Egyptian artist did not strive for self-expression; Francis Haskell (1993) observes, "In Egypt no painter or artist was allowed to innovate" (p. 217). Instead, each followed prescribed rules, including the Palette of Narmer, a grid of squares that exactly dictated proportions in representing the human figure and organizing visual elements. The Palette is followed in almost every pictorialization of the period. Gardner (1980) writes, "Religion and permanence--these are the elements that characterize their drab and ageless art and express the unchanging order that for the superannuated Egyptians was divinely ordained" (p. 64).

cess was often seen by the Egyptians: "The departed was say to climb to heaven by a ladder or even sail across the starry seas till at last, guided by a goddess and in the guise of a glittering bull, he
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