Egyptian Statues

Egyptians didn't worship the animals, but the forces of nature that they symbolized. Anubis, God of the Dead, represented with a head of a jackal or simply as a jackal opened the road to the other world and presided over embalmments. After a funeral, Anubis would take the deceased by the hand and introduce him into the presence of the sovereign judges where the soul of the deceased would be weighed. Anubis was the Guardian of Offerings brought to the ceremony by heirs of the deceased and he also guarded the mummy from evil forces in the night. When the body was embalmed, a priest wearing a jackal mask acted as Anubis's representative. He also was the guardian of the Sacred Esoteric Mysteries. The origin of this God lay in the fact that jackals could be heard howling in the desert to the west of the Nile at sunset-at the time when burials took place.

Egypt is synonymous to mysticism. Mysticism in its culture, the rich history, art, traditions… Egyptians were quite religious and worshipped their Pharaohs and Queens. They were firm believers in life after death and assumed that the spirits of these powerful people must be kept appeased. Thus statues were made from stone blocks to instill the soul or spirit within. Since these statues were symbolic, only the images of powerful people were deemed esteemed enough to be created and recreated.

Artisans had to adhere to various restrictions while creating an Egyptian statue e.g. he could carve the statue in only three poses i.e. either sitting, kneeling or standing. Yet another typical characteristic of these statues is the dimensional aspect i.e. most statues have a cubic domain. Also, the sculpture was made to look very upfront as though the figure is in deep thought and staring straight ahead. Most egyptian statues are very similar to each other in terms of position, size, demeanour etc. The people did not worship the pharaoh and queens, they saw the pharaoh as the living manifestation of the God Horus; whose name meant "Lord of the sky" and was the symbol for divine kingship.



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