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Middle
Kingdom Arts:
During the
Middle Kingdom, Egyptian art is exemplified both by the fragments of
reliefs from the royal pyramid complexes at Dahshur, el-Lisht, el-Lahun
and Hawara, and by the spacious tombs of the governors buried at Beni
Hassan in Middle Egypt. In the latter, the traditional scenes of the
deceased receiving offerings or hunting and fishing in the marshes are
joined by large depictions of wrestling and warfare, perhaps copied from
Old Kingdom royal prototypes.
The
history of the Middle Kingdom is very much characterized by a tension
between the artistic styles of the various provincial sites and the
styles of the royal workshops at Itjtawy, the new capital established
near el-Lisht. Only by the late Middle Kingdom does the distinctive
provincial styles become eclipsed by the art of the royal workshops..
After
the Middle Kingdom, Egypt was ruled for a period of time by Asiatics,
who gained control of a considerable area of the country. The works of
art surviving from this phase show that the foreign rulers simply
re-used and copied traditional Egyptian sculptures and reliefs in order
to strengthen their claims to the throne.
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