© wikipediaRelief from the chapel of king Amanitenmomide from Meroe, Berlin, Egyptian Museum, Inv. no. 2260
In the last three years, archaeological discoveries have given a new face to an enigmatic culture that already intrigued Western explorers 250 years ago. In 1772, the Scotsman James Bruce caught sight of broken obelisks and barely discernible traces of pyramids as he traveled back from the source of the Blue Nile. These, he reckoned, had to be the remains of Meroe, known to Ancient Greek historians.
It was the Frenchman Frédéric Caillaud who, on the morning of April 25, 1822, first saw "a host of pyramids." He accurately drew and described these in his book A Trip to Meroe on the White River, published in 1826. The consequences were disastrous. Antique hunters rushed to loot the site.
In 1834, Giuseppe Ferlini destroyed several pyramids. As he blew up one of these, the Italian dealer laid hands on a fantastic treasure that turned out to have belonged to Kandake (Queen) Amanishakheto. The priceless historical documentation that a proper archaeological investigation would have yielded was pulverized by the explosion and the objects were sold to museums in Munich in 1839, and Berlin in 1844.
Eventually, archaeologists stepped in. The Prussian Karl Richard Lepsius, who conducted a three-year-long campaign, produced an exemplary study of the standing monuments.
In the 20th century, a mission funded by Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts worked out the chronological succession of the Kushite rulers of Meroe. Bronzes and ivories came to light, as well as gold jewels inlaid with mother-of-pearl and semi-precious stones that had been overlooked by looters in damaged tombs, and others preserved in funerary caches that had escaped destruction.
More important, the American expedition led by George Reisner opened up a new chapter of cultural history. No one had expected Greek and Roman objects to be found deep in black Africa. The northern necropolis of Meroe yielded a wine vessel in the form of an Amazon figure riding a rearing horse and holding a pouring vessel of the type called rhyton. This is a fifth-century B.C. piece, signed by Sotades, a potter from Athens. Stylistically reminiscent of the Parthenon marble riders, the artefact, fit for kings, was found in a royal tomb. A Roman silver wine cup of the first century A.D. from Italy turned up in the landfill of another pyramid.
In the last three years, dozens of objects beggaring belief have shown that the Meroitic Kingdom was in contact with most northern and eastern Mediterranean lands. Wine was imported in amphoras of the common pottery type found along the shores of the French Riviera. A precious glass flask with a marvered pattern, alternately turquoise and black, that is typical of the finest Syrian production were recovered at Sedeinga.
The greater surprise is the culture of Meroe itself, derived from Ancient Egypt and yet profoundly different.
Art here says more than the incompletely decrypted texts in the syllabic script adapted from the Egyptian demotic (i.e. popular) alphabet.
A tall beaker in blue glass painted with polychrome scenes deals with a very Egyptian theme. Offerings are brought to the god Osiris and an inscription in golden capitals urges in Greek - the language imposed on Egypt after Alexander's conquest in the fourth century B.C. - "Drink and may you live [long]." The cartoon-like humor makes one wonder whether this might be of Meroitic rather than Egyptian make. Either way, it points to a distinctive Meroitic love of a comical touch in serious subjects.
A sense of fun is conveyed by countless Meroitic objets d'art. The small head of a ruler in turquoise frit found on the urban site of Meroe is unlikely to have been molded by the potter with a flattering intention. The puffed-out cheeks, the thick lips and globular eyes make it a perfect three-dimensional cartoon.
This ironical strain was cultivated from early times on. A turquoise frit mask, which may have once been part of an amphora, depicts a woman (rather than a man as suggested in the exhibition book) with a laugh on her closed lips. It is reminiscent of fifth-century B.C. Cypriot sculpture, with which it may be contemporary.
Derision crept into the most solemn scenes carved in sandstone on the Egyptian model. Queen Amanishakheto, receiving the breath of life on a stele from Naga dating from the late first century B.C. or early first century A.D., seems to be amused. The goddess, too, gives the impression of enjoying the fun of it all, whether or not this was the artist's intended message. Greater drollery is conveyed by the apish look of the ram-headed god Amon excavated at Djabal Barkal. The body, carved out of granite, has the hieratic posture of early Egyptian art but the animal head has a human expression of repressed hilarity. The intention to belie the austerity demanded by the cannon seems clear.
If any doubts remain about the comical effects sought in much of Meroitic art, painted pottery should dispel them. A beaker from the urban site of Meroe is decorated with a frieze of raised cobras, their tails rhythmically wiggling and their dilated eyes appearing to express concern about the precarious balance of the solar disks perched on their heads. The scene would not look out of place in the French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné.
Meroitic humor went together with somber Expressionism. The monumental statue of the god Sebiomeker discovered in the Temple of Isis at Meroe has the hieratic posture of Egyptian gods, but everything else is alien to Egypt. The ill-formed rigid limbs and the wide-eyed expression of distress give it a curious modernity.
A strange development in Meroitic art around the second or third century A.D. led to a kind of Cubist Expressionism. The head of a man excavated at Argin is its ultimate masterpiece. The angular geometricism and the extreme simplification parallels a similar trend in the art of Ancient Yemen around that time. The exhibition book, edited by Michael Baud, does not mention the fact, which may reflect contacts between Meroe and the Arabian peninsula.
Many components undoubtedly went into the brew of Meroitic culture. The exhibition book deals with Meroe as if it had been one nation modeling itself on Egypt, with some black African input. The human reality may have been much more complex.
The African contribution is evident in pots such as the stunning black earthenware jar with bulls stylized to near abstraction. Black African ethnic types are represented in a variety of styles, ranging from sophisticated figuration in bas reliefs of the late first or early second century A.D. to artefacts that reproduce Hellenistic models handled in the simplified somber Expressionist manner of the third to fourth century A.D. Such is a scented oil flask from el-Kadata on loan from Boston.
But we know nothing about society in Meroe. The people who molded around the first or second century A.D. the prehistoric looking figures from Muweis and the western metropolis at Meroe; the bronze makers who cast during the same period the small bust of a queen with black African features found in the Temple of Amon at el-Hassa; and the sculptor who carved the bas-relief of Isis in Egyptian style for King Amanitenmomide may have belonged to very different human groups.
The day a bilingual text sufficiently long to give at last a key to the Meroitic language turns up surprises are to be expected. The latest discoveries displayed at the Louvre suggest that it might not be too far off.
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