The two sculptures I chose were The Statue of the Goddess Sakhmet and Monumental Figure. The Sakhmet statue is from the New Kingdom era, 18th Dynasty. Dated all the way back to ca. 1390-1352 B. C. in Egypt. It is made out of granodiorite. There are two identical at the museum in New York. The Monumental Figure is from the 9th century. It was found in Mexico, it is from the Mayan culture. The statue is classified as a stone-sculpture. You can find the Monumental figure in gallery 358 and the Goddess Sakhmet you can find in gallery 135 at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. Statue of the Goddess Sakhmet
The Statue of the Goddess Sakhmet is a sculpture made out of granodiorite. The dimensions are h. 210 cm, w. 47. 5 cm and d. 95. 5 cm. There was made around six hundred statues of the goddess during this period. It represents the forces of disaster, violence and illness. The name means “the powerful one. ” The sun disk around here tells us that she is the daughter of the Sun God Re. The pose is sitting down, facing towards the people looking ahead of her. She is sitting on a block made to look like a throne. The face is carved out as a lioness’s head. The surface of the goddess is smooth and nicely carved out.
The sculptures’ color is natural granodiorite. The detail level is high, which makes the sculpture appear more realistic. They have carved the details out and worked with them to make them as smooth as possible. It is detailed; you can see the female shapes in the breasts and in the hip area. When you go down to the detail level, especially the face and hands are prominent. The head is a lioness head and the eyes are small and intense. It is easily to spot that there is lionesses’ head, because of the high detail level. You can see all the shapes, from the ears to the mouth.
When you the face on profile you can see that it looks very lifelike. Her hand also looks lifelike, together with her feet. The knees are prominent an easily noticeable through the clothes. The artist have made a sculpture that has several female attributes such as her sitting position, with a straight back and narrow shoulders. Whereas her hips are wider than they would have been on a man. Also her torso are seen as thinner than on an average man. The sculpture is carved from a mass and it appears heavy and solid. The details are seen as high relief, almost three-dimensional.
The detail level in the face is an example of high relief. This sculpture is an allegorical sculpture, meaning it symbolizes a meaning or idea. It was believed to be a statue used to save the king for illness and evil for a year. The lines that appear in sculpture are carved to make smooth shapes of the goddess and make the sculpture look realistic. In her left hand she holds an Ankh, it is a cross with a handle. It is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic meaning “life. ” It represents the concept of eternal life. It was common for Egyptian gods carry this. Monumental Figure
Monumental Figure is an open form sculpture made out of a solid piece of limestone. It is from Maya culture and it was found in Mexico. The Chakh was originally from the Puuc hills of Yucatan and it was probably part of a royal court building. Where it looked straight at everybody who entered the building. The sculpture is from the Classic period (ca. a. d. 250-900). Its dimensions are H. 214 x W. 50. 8 x 61cm. It is classified as a stone sculpture. The sculpture portraits the Maya deity Chahk, here as an axe-wielding personification of rain, storms and lightning. The large axe symbol lightning.
Chahk is known as the Storm God, his mouth is open maybe to shout or threat the people looking at it. There are two holes in the axe, we are not sure why. His left hand is missing, but if it were there it would probably hold a battle shield. The carvings on the figure are subtractive, carved out of stone. It is less detailed than the Goddess of Sakhmet. If you compare the feet of the Monumental Figure you can see that they are less realistic than what you can see on the Goddess of Sakhmet. The lines in the sculpture is making it a more open sculpture, he is standing instead of sitting down.
It is a freestanding sculpture; there is space surrounding it. Which were uncommon for sculptures in the Maya area. There is a base under his feet, because the statue itself would not have been stable to stand by its self. To have a base is very common for sculptures to support its construction and make it more stable. On detail level the Monumental Figure headdress might be the head of an animal, maybe a serpent. The knotted rope and large ears are typical of Chahk? s attire, which were normal through the Classic period. The artist made a sculpture that has clearly human attributes, but still strikes us as something more than a human.
The face has larger ears than normal, the eyes are all flat almost like they are empty. The structure of the sculpture is coarse compared to the Goddess of Sakhmet. It is also freestanding, but the posture is less realistic. If you compare the posture of the Monumental Figure to Contrapposto you can see that there is equal weight on both feet, in Contrapposto there is more weight on one foot standing in front of the other. There is also an abstract aspect of this sculpture. For instance, in the face, it looks scary and frightening; we can also think that only he had something in his left hand (the arm is missing).
Sculptures in Mayan time were often the rulers of the city or seen as Gods. The sculpture does not appear too big in real life or detailed, but when you think about the tools and skill set. You realize that it is very impressing. The detail level is high, it is presented as scary and it looks like it tries to frighten us. Subject Matter and Research The subject of The Statue of the goddess Sakhmet is a goddess from the 18th dynasty, was a part of the Kom El Heitan map to serve as the king’s eternal ritual calendar. It was part of a religious ritual, made by Amenhotep’s massive statue program.
They believed that the Sakhmet was made to be a “litany in stone,” to calm down the goddess and not make her use her negative powers on them. The statue can be traced back to two locations; either at the mortuary complex of the king at Kom el Heitan on the Theban west bank, and the Mut Temple Complex at Karnak on the east bank at Thebes. It is more possible that this was found on the latter side. Many of the statues of Sakhmet had second stage of life after their original deployment. The goddess was believed to be linked with the goddess Mut, wife of Amun, who was worshipped in the Precinct of Mut south of Karnak temple.
Most of the statues were moved in the nineteenth Dynasty, because the two goddesses were closely related. They were identified as rulers of the Third Intermediate Period. Where goddess with lion attributes was looked upon as having a great religious influence. I believe that the artists who made the Sakhmet made a sculpture to admire, something a little mystical to understand. A human body with a lioness head, for our culture today it makes no sense. But back in the Egyptian Dynasty, it meant power and godly power. I am also thinking that it was more of a political sculpture showing who ruled the time.
Since they are connected with rituals, they were probably part of early religious rituals performed by the kings and rulers in their time. The subject of the Monumental Figure is that he is portrayed as the Storm God, also knows as Maya deity Chahk. He was the personification of rain, storms and lightning in Mayan time. The sculpture was probably part of a royal court building, looking down and gazed at the people who entered. The warlike Ckahk sculpture represents the Late and Terminal Classic period. The scale and his stiff stature and other elements such as his attire indicate that it is from the Puuc hills of Yucatan and Campeche.
The Chahk was important for the harvest and growing, he sent the rain into the world, the rain came when he was weeping from his large eyes. We do not for sure if the Chahk is good or evil god. Because the amount of rain would have been different from each year, some years it was not enough and other years it might have been flooded. Like other mayor Maya Gods the Chahk appears as four gods. The four gods were associated with the points of the compass and the colours: white, north; red, east; black, west and yellow which is south. I believe that the artist made a sculpture to worship.
The Chahk is the rain god, so they worshiped this sculpture in hope of rain. I also believe that the meaning of the sculpture changed with time, that later it might have become more of a warrior type of sculpture. Consider that the Chahk is holding an axe and most probably a shield in his left hand. Mayans used the sculptures to interact with their past. They moved the sculptures around and they often lost parts, but they still treated them with respect, such as the Chahk. In post-Classic time was the rain god associated with human sacrifice, and the priest who held the arms and legs of the victim where called chacs.
Both the Sakhmet and Monumental Figure are two successful sculptures in my opinion. They both project a god, the Chahk is a the rain god, while the Sakhmet is the “powerful one. ” There are also certain differences in the finish, the Sakhmet appear more lifelike compared to the Chahk. It has more natural shapes, more humanlike, although it is a god. The Chahk is more rugged and less detailed, it looks a lot more simplistic. Still it is impressing how the Mayans made this sculpture, consider the tools they had available. I think the Sakhmet is the most successful one.
When you first approach it will see the high detail level, the human shapes. Even the fingers are lifelike. That they were able to carve a sculpture like that several thousand years ago is truly impressing. Also the color and surface are impressing, the amount of worked they put in to make smooth must have taken ages. Also the size of the block this sculpture was made out off, makes us realize how big this achievement is. I chose these sculptures because they are from two time periods in history I admire. I also like the way these sculptures represented something bigger than the people in its time.
I usually find sculptures and architectural elements more appealing than paintings. They represent something I can associate myself with people from that time period. To go through old historical places such as Chinese wall or the Forbidden city in China makes my mind think about how these people managed to build all of these things with the tools and technology they had available. And it is the same with the Egyptians and their pyramids and sculptures. They made the so perfect that even today we cannot explain fully how they managed to build those pyramids. That curiosity is the reason why I chose these two sculptures.
Both from very different people and time periods, but they still have a lot in common. People in these cultures worshiped and prayed to these sculptures in hope of getting something good in return. Which can be associated with Jesus sculptures in modern time. This shows how tradition has survived over time, and that we still approach something bigger than us in hope that good things will happen. If these cultures were still to rule today I guess they would still have a bigger value to the people than they have today for us, because we can only imagine their true role out of what we have learned through history.