الفهرس 
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Abstract
The art of ancient Egypt mostly related to the policy, it was also affected by the periods of invasion, though the Egyptian culture along its history followed some fixed artistic bases and traditions, this did not prevent the foreign influences. Egypt adopted some foreign artistic ideas and inventions during its growth stages and during the utmost of its flourish and greatness. This influence started from the civilization of Mesopotamia, which resulted from the trading relationships at that time, this influence, especially the Asian one, lasted during the Imperial age. All the foreign artistic imports always confirmed the greatness of Egypt and its political, literary and artistic sovereignty over those countries, this is due to the authenticity of the Egyptian ancient civilization, which could absorb all those strange artistic elements and could form them and present them in an innovative style.
- By the end of the New Kingdom Egypt has transformed into a new historical phase where the ancient Egyptian art was affected by the new political events. This can be known through the Egyptian art which is undoubtedly considered a clear mirror of the third intermediate period where it reflected to us the transition of the political life from the hands of the Priest Kings to the hands of Libyans and then from them to the Nubians, Persians and Greeks.
- The ancient Egyptian art succeeded very much during the Saite period to revive the spirit of the Egyptian art after focusing on the arts of the past. It also succeeded to revive the artistic styles of the three ancient Kingdoms during the ages of the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms. This is due to its clear fear of the influence of the arts of the foreign countries on the ancient Egyptian art especially the Libyan and Kushite arts in addition to some characteristics of the ancient Persian and Iraqi arts.
- The arts of those periods depended on combining, in the same time, between the old traditions of the Egyptian art and showing the new artistic spirit, which influenced the community because of integration with the coming culture.
- The Egyptian community realized the importance of its predecessors’ cultural heritage so that the coming culture could not make it abandon its ancient traditions, whether artistic or religious.
- The face features were cared of by the artists of those periods as they were formed accurately and skillfully. There was much care for the sensual features that in turn express different feelings on faces.
- The artist succeeded in carving the physical muscles of the chest and arms or in showing the bones of the skull sometimes, so that the statues looked as if they are alive. Sometimes the knee bones and the toes were formed.
- We can say that those periods were the time of the return of the soul to the ancient Egyptian art, this is proved by the appearance of many new inventions which weren’t found before or after in the art, it created relatively new situations in the Egyptian culture. It was the time of the real renaissance, which can be called the period of revival and rebirth of the ancient Egyptian civilization. A new artistic style appeared which was collected between the idealism of the Old kingdom and the realism of the middle kingdom and also many arts of the new Memphite style which was characterized with reviving the ancient Egyptian art along its different times in terms of cloths, poses and ornaments.
1. Libyan Influences:-
The clear effect of these foreign countries on the life of Ancient Egypt including art made the ancient Egyptian understand that these countries form a clear danger for Egypt and its arts. On the other hand, Libyan could peacefully control the country for two centuries but left few effects on the ancient Egyptian art may be because of their involvement in the Egyptian society to the limit that they became completely Egyptians. Anyway, the Libyan artistic effects can be restricted to what follows: -
• In spite of the rarity of the Libyan effects on the Egyptian sculpture, the Libyan kings are attributed to develop some Egyptian arts first of which is the metallic statues.
• Some new artistic features appeared on the statues, which are related to the Libyan Dynasty, such as the pierced ear lobes and the elegance of statues carving.
• The bodies have become tall, bellies have become thin, body parts have become elegant and polishing is very accurate, these trends demonstrate that the Egyptians begin to change the canon for body proportions from those emphasized in earlier art.
• Sculptors followed the idea of three-dimensional treatment of the body, which is an invention of that period.
• The curl of hair for Tehno is the same as the uraei over the Pharaoh’s head.
• The art works witnessed nothing new during the Libyan age, instead of developing the arts, the old and traditional artistic models were used again.
2. Kushite Influences:-
The Kushite statues had in common a number of characteristics that can be considered as signs, which cannot be ignored. These characteristics clearly refer to their Nubian origin and distinguish them. They, in addition to cloths, crowns and ornaments tools, form the total counted Kushite Influences on the Egyptian sculpture and they can be restricted to what follows: -
• Depicting Kushite kings with face features that included a wrinkle on the cheek extending above the nostrils and known as ”The Kushite Fold”. This fold had many shapes and formed, with the low part existing down the eye, full prominent cheeks that give the Face an appearance that suggests obesity.
• The heads of the Kushite kings mostly look round, the eyes are sometimes middles–sized, eyebrows are straight and horizontal at the root of the nose, the forehead is mostly sliding upwards and the nose is short with wide holes suggesting a wide appearance of the nose.
• The mouth is Carved in a small horizontal style, but a big size of the lips gave it a wide and a little prominent shape, the chin looked short and round and sometimes it’ slided down towards the thick short neck.
• It is noted that the Kushite kings wore most of the traditional Egyptian crowns except the blue one may be because of it is relative modernity in addition to its relation to Victory and coronation which contradicts the desire of Kushite kings who looked for the religious elements that support their existence in Egypt.
• The Kushite Kings added their local artistic characteristics to the traditional Egyptian crowns like the dual Kushite uraeus, the tongue which accompanied the white and red crowns. Moreover, they added new crowns like the ”Kushite Beret” which disappeared as a royal sign by the end of the 25th Dynasty, in addition to another crown which is strange in shape and more likely is from an Egyptian origin in addition to its relation to the Egyptian God ”Anhur-Shu”. It is also attributed to them adding the sun disk over some crowns, which belong to an Egyptian origin as well.
• No change occurred on the royal clothes during the time of the 25th Dynasty, the Clothes were represented in the short kilt, but a new style of clothing is attributed to them, that is that is a pectoral or a coat decorated with two Eagles having crisscrossed wings. Though it really appeared in Egyptian monuments, some people suggested that it dates back to the time of the 6th Dynasty and maybe earlier.
• Decoration with some ornaments which are composed of traditional Egyptian elements but they didn’t appear in the Egyptian monuments before the time of the 25th Dynasty, moreover no trace of an Egyptian king found wearing such ornaments; this included the Ram’s Head Amulet which was used as a necklace. Earrings were few, it is noted that the bracelets of the arms and wrists were rarely depicted. The last ornament invented by the Kushite Kings is the ram’s crooked horn centered around the ears.
• The statues of elite or great people are divided into two types: -
- First one resembled the statues of the old and middle Kingdoms.
- Second one resembled the statues of Kushite Kings either to satisfy them or because the Royal works are the ideal artistic models which have no better equivalent.
• Though Kushite Kings made a remarkable prosperity in the Egyptian art, the artistic styles disappeared by the fall of the 25th Dynasty only few of these Styles remained in some artistic examples during the following dynasties.
3. Persian Influences:-
The hopes, magical beliefs and political deficits of the time were reflected on all kinds of arts. The Egyptian civilization was a give and take civilization as the culture of that period was affected by many political variables, relations and experiences which greatly influenced the beliefs of the Egyptian people and consequently its art.
Though many scientists think that the Persian art is a foreign work which is adopted from the arts of the ancient world mainly Egypt, the real distinguished body of this art only started by the ages of Kings ”Korush” and ”Daruis I”, the time during which the Persian invasion to Egypt started and as a result Egypt witnessed some Persian Achaemenian Influences which can be restricted as follows:-
• Realistic statues and heads with distinguished personal features appeared, they were carved in vibrant styles. That in turn express different feelings on faces like sadness and gloominess which reflected how Egyptians suffered under the occupation. The faces looked sad with a fixed look to their world which is full of problems; they reflect a real sight of the life of this old people as the Persian occupation was a shock and disaster for the Egyptians specially the intellectuals.
• Some heads are characterized with showing the features that indicate the old age because of the many wrinkles.
• The head in most statues was carved wearing the (xAt) wig which was carved in a soft form hanging down to the back or shoulders, the ears were always left uncovered. The line separates the forehead and wig was often absent.
• Through the study of the individuals’ statues, it was clear that most clothes of that period in Egypt were limited to the long garment surrounding the body which was known as the Persian robe. The statues were carved with it solely with no under cloth or with an under shirt that appears at the neck in the shape of the litter ”V” and with tight sleeves stuck to the elbow and getting wider downwards to the hand, or a shirt ending with a round collar and sleeves reaching the wrist. But, in the same period, a number of statues appeared wearing the short and soft kilt which is stripped with narrow lines and has a belt on the waist. This proves that no style disappears as a result of and for another style.
• The fold of the garment worn by most statues of this dynasty were showed in two different styles: -
The First Style where the left fold is depicted on the chest directly over the garment ’s edge, and the right fold is hanging down like in the statue of ”Psmatik-Sa-Neth” (Fig. 120) and ”Henat” (Fig. 118).
The Second Style where the left fold is depicted on the upper edge of the garment or part of it is depicted on the chest and the other like in the “Brooklyn bust” (Fig. 129).
• The Persian robe in Egypt was different in details from its counterpart in Persia but it followed the same steps according to which the Persian robe was made.
• All the Egyptian employees who worked under the Persian control wore the Persian robe, one of the mysterious things about this costume is the absence of any clue indicating whether the Persian kings forced them to wear it or the Egyptian employees wore voluntarily as a kind of political intelligence as they wanted to gain the foreign kings’ trust so as not to lose their jobs and ranks.
• It was difficult to depict the body in the statues of Persian period as most statues of that period had a long garment, which covered the majority of body details.
• The forms of the end of the back pillar ranged between the straight end that covers the end of the wig and the wig, which is based on the top of the back pillar. Sometimes the back pillar looked high directly under the wig but separated from its end. Sometimes it also looked like a wide stela to which the statue is leaning as in the statue of ”Ptah-Hotep” (Fig. 116), but the most common and distinguished back pillar during the persian time was that with the trapezoid-shaped top or a pyramid with a cut top.
• In many times the sky sign crowned the back-pillar’s top.
• The form of naos base was not different as it always based on a pillar forming together the shape of sign ”xrb” or ”sxm” like in the statues of “Wdja-Hor-Snt” (Fig. 115), “Henat” (Fig. 118) and ”Ptah-Hotep” (Fig.116 ).
• There were inscriptions in many places on the statue as they covered the back pillar, sometimes the base and some other times they covered the pillar bearing the naos. In other cases the inscriptions covered the whole statue like in the statues of ”Wdja-Hor-Snt” (Fig. 115).
• The most prominent artistic characteristics of that period included the appearance of the cartouches belonging to the Saite kings such as kings ”Amasis II” and ”Apries” on the statues of Persian Age as a way of rejecting the occurring invading kings and reviving the memory of the previous kings like the statue of ”Wdja-Hor-Snt”. But in this statues case the names are mentioned as a way of telling the incidents and explaining his rank in the past and how he kept such a rank during the reign of the new kings.
• The “Persian gesture” was the most distinguished characteristic of that time; it was present in only two statues supposed to belong to Persian’ individuals, while this gesture was not present on any monuments belonging to an Egyptian employee.
• The arts in Egypt undoubtedly was affected by the Persian era, though, there is only one statue, which contains the name of a Persian Governor that is ”Wdja-Hor-Snt” who was one of great leaders during the first Persian era.
• Ornaments of that period were limited to bracelets and necklaces which varied between pectorals and Persian collar.
• The Egyptian employees were shown in most of their statues decorated with Persian ornaments like the Persian collar as mentioned before.
• The decoration elements in the Persian ornaments which appeared on the Egyptian employees focused on animal decorations like ram, lion and ibex. These ornaments were not used for decoration but as medals in appreciation for the efforts and braveness of those employees, such tradition was known since the New Kingdom.
• The individuals’ statues at that period had many characteristics as follows: -
1. Few statues can be relied on for the correct dating.
2. The statues lack the texts that can be depended on or royal titles, which can be used for determining their historical periods.
3. The confusion of dating the statues, which caused a lot of arguments.
• No statues of the Persian kings were found in Egypt, the only statue, which represented king “Daruis I”, was found in ”Susa” and it combined the Egyptian and Persian artistic elements. This proves that Persian kings didn’t like making statues to the extent that most Persian arts in Iran were limited to reliefs.
• No reliefs of the Persian kings were found in Egypt except a number of stelae written in Hieroglyphic and Cuneiform and other reliefs found in the region of ”Wadi-Elhammamt ”, all of them are dated back to the reign of the Persian king ”Daruis I”, in addition to a silver stela and a wooden shrine. The most important of these reliefs are that in the temple of Hibis located in “Alkharga Oasis” which was finished by king ”Daruis I” who was depicted there as an Egyptian Pharaoh.
• In spite of the serious attempts of the Persian kings to adopt the Egyptian arts, Egyptian reacted violently to such attempts, they destroyed most of their Persian monuments after getting them out of Egypt. Moreover, they left the Persian art and held on the virtues of the past.
- These periods were previously looked at as periods of deterioration for the ancient Egyptian art, it said that Egyptians were forced to accept this undeveloped old classic style, but it turned out that: -
The Ancient Egyptian art has proven that it be a distinct and enduring art, influenced other arts surrounding it in the ancient world.
These periods are real artistic awakening in the ancient Egyptian art as it balances between imitation and innovation as if it is the last goodbye for the pure Egyptian art in the period between the Libyan age until the time of Ptolemaic age.
- Finally, the big similarity between the styles and positions of the statues in different and distant locations proves that they were a part of one project that reflected Egyptian creativity in their ancient times. This is surely a little part of the statue they carved and remained along the time, there were of course other statues, which belonged to the same periods, but only little of them remained.