They may not have called themselves artists but, as a new exhibition explores, the mostly anonymous painters, sculptors and craftspeople working under the pharaohs still made their mark in distinctive style
The earliest creator in world history whose name is known to us today was Egyptian. The priest Imhotep is credited with designing the step pyramid of King Djoser at Saqqara about 4,700 years ago, and so starting the sublime aesthetic achievements of the ancient state that straddled the Nile.
Yet ancient Egyptians did not imagine creativity as an individual achievement or see artists as celebrities – unless they were literally gods. Imhotep was believed to be the son of the creator god Ptah and was deified as a god of wisdom and knowledge, patron of scribes. Most Egyptian artists were no more likely to be remembered by name than Stonehenge’s builders. “Art” was not an idea. Golden mummy masks and statues of spear-wielding pharaohs were not made to be admired but to help dead people on their journeys through the afterlife. As for individual creativity, there wasn’t much place for it in art that conserved the same style, with only superficial changes, for 3,000 years.
