first of my top 10 about ancient Egyptian art and architecture is to tell
you that it does not all look the same that's a common preconception I think
that people have that it's all a bit yeah we kind of know what it looks like
it's the bangles walk like an Egyptian everybody looks a bit funny because they
didn't really know how to draw that's not true there's tremendous diversity
we're talking about a culture that had some kind of continuity for nearly 4,000
years in terms of its political structure to language its cultural
institutions but at the same time it was also hugely diverse different regions
and centers different time periods you know what materials were available for
people to use what the interests for instance of the of the ruling powers
were at that time that all changes quite a lot so there's an incredible diversity
more than you would think well Egyptian oh it does all look the
same it's for a reason we've got a modern idea that art is all about
innovation and the great artists do things in new way and a fresh way but
art is far too powerful to leave to that kind of chance in most cultures around
the world and throughout history art is part of a social institution it's really
fundamental to how the power for instance in society is maintained how
you regulate people and how you express things that can't otherwise be expressed
religious ideas for instance and so you can't leave that to chance and it's
important instead to have a body of artists a group of artists who are
trained up in the appropriate ways to do things and while there might very well
be innovation a new technique and new material that you can use a slightly
better way of doing something if you've got underlying principles that mean
things look consistent that actually can be a really powerful cultural message
about continuity and endurance and that was certainly the case in ancient Egypt
number three all those artists we hardly know who any of them are or architects
as well all these amazing pyramids and temples that are built in Egypt we don't
actually have the names and that we can link to who we might think of as being
an architect or being an artist or a designer there are a few exceptions and
I talked about those in the book and that I think we
helps us get into the mindset number four of my top ten thumb forms of art
were sacred we're dealing with religious art and some things that weren't meant
to be seen or some things that were so magical and powerful that only
particular people would have been able to use them and that's important to keep
in mind I think when we're looking at things in a museum they weren't made to
be in a museum they've got a very different purpose number five in keeping
with the fact that a lot of works of Arts were for a sacred purpose or for a
magical purpose there was something secret about them as well that they
weren't really meant to be seen by by normal people so where we can go in and
look at coffins and masks and statues all of these things were actually
designed to be hidden away and they were too powerful to be seen by us that's
really important to keep in mind similarly that's going to be my number
six of my top ten a lot of the buildings that you could visit if you've been to
Egypt you can see go and walk through these amazing temples you can visit the
innermost reaches of tombs you can climb up the pyramids if you're so inclined
and to go inside them nobody was meant to do that again these are spaces that
were completely off limits thinking about the secret and we're thinking
about the sacred we need to talk about mummies we've got this idea that mummies
are there to be unwrapped that mummies are about dead bodies and the kind of
gruesome or their medical we can probe them we can scan them we can reanimate
them stop right there let's question that assumption mummies
are also sacred objects only a very few people would ever been mummified in
ancient Egypt and that's because they were such special people to begin with
that they needed to be treated in that way and the process of mummification is
about completing the process of turning them in to gods and again a mummy was
never going to be seen by anybody except a very few people the priests who were
responsible for making it and then it was meant to be hidden away completely
wrapped up in meters and meters and meters of linen in coffins in a tomb
that's it not on a CT scan screen not on a mummy
not reanimated and reconstructed for a TV program so let's think about that
number eight lives on from my point about mummies the reason we started
thinking about them in in Europe as medical objects or objects for
scientists to study goes back to the 19th century invention
and development of the idea of race and racial difference ancient Egyptians if
they had been alive and say the 1950s American South would not have been
allowed to sit at the front of a bus and it's a big problem I think if we don't
start to have more intelligent conversations about the kinds of racial
bias that gets built into thinking about different ancient cultures or having
them us and them mentality again in the 19th century a lot of that was away
trying to claim ancient Egypt for Europe while presenting modern Egypt has this
really backwards place you know they couldn't possibly govern themselves and
that's a real problem I think still today in the way that we think about
Egypt and the relationship between ancient and modern Egypt number nine in
my top 10 may come as a surprise because I'm somebody who clearly does find
action Egypt was really interesting but ancient Egypt isn't inherently
interesting there's nothing fundamentally that makes it more
interesting than say ancient Greece are ancient and Assyria or the ancient Maya
ancient Aztecs they're all potentially interesting so why do we today still
think that ancient Egypt is so so fascinating for Europeans interest in
the 19th century coincides with colonial expansion with the British occupation of
Egypt with the exploitation of Egypt to build the Suez Canal and to grow cotton
and for instance it was was and remains a really pivotal geographic location so
those things are how we've discovered quote-unquote and filtered ancient
Egyptian archaeology and its art and its architecture down to the present day we
have to keep that history in mind it's so important because otherwise those
assumptions go unchallenged last but not least is that you'll find it everywhere
you can be walking down a street in many European countries and American cities
as well and you'll see it might be an actual ancient Egyptian obelisk like in
London or in Rome or it might be a building inspired by ancient Egyptian
architecture again we can see plenty of these in London and also works of art
lots of museums hundreds justin in the UK alone have some kind of ancient
egyptian art and in their collection so it's been easy to just pop in and have a
look for yourself