The crafts in Hierakonpolis

There appears to have been something of a cult of the oversized in Hierakon-polis; perhaps the taste for the gigantic and monumental in scale so often manifested by the later kings of Egypt had its origins here, in what in effect became a shrine to the archaic kingship. Certainly the huge maces, matched by immense flint knives, nearly a metre long, suggest that in some of the rituals exceptionally large objects were considered appropriate as offerings.

(a)

(b)

Figure 4.2 Hierakonpolis revealed other evidences of apparent contact with Western Asia in the form of ivory plaques (a) carved with representations of birds which are identical to steatite (chlorite) carvings from Tarut (b) in eastern Saudi Arabia and seal impressions from south western Iran.

Sources: (a) Reproduced by courtesy of University College London; (b) The National Museum, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Evidence has also been found of large scale sculpture at Hierakonpolis from the mid-predynastic period.13

Hierakonpolis seems to have been the centre of a flourishing ivory carving craft.14 Many ivory objects, including seals, human and animal figurines, vessels, wands, carved and ornamented plaques, and inlays for furniture, as well as large quantities of ivory fragments for which no immediate purpose can be identified, have been recovered from the excavations of this most important of early Egyptian centres.

Much of the ivory, notably the plaques, is carved with a vigour and a sort of emphatic nai'vete which is somewhat un-Egyptian: the ivories’ iconography and the techniques of the making of the objects fabricated from it are strongly reminiscent of the carving of the chlorite vessels and inlays which are so notable a part of the art of Elam and Sumer at the end of the fourth millennium and the beginning of the third. The elephant ivory from which many of the Hierakonpolis examples are carved is relatively malleable and soft to carve, unlike the less frequently employed hippopotamus ivory. In this respect it would have seemed a reasonable alternative to chlorite, and one with its own obvious attractions, to any craftsman familiar with that relatively soft stone. However, hippopotamus ivory is used and the point should not be laboured, therefore. The hippopotamus, so often portrayed in the art of the period, was relatively common in Upper Egypt at this time, though later the species disappeared from the river’s upper reaches, the consequence of over-hunting.

Amongst the many animal subjects represented by the Hierakonpolis ivories are baboons, dogs, and, in considerable quantity, scorpions. The scorpion, not at first sight the most engaging of creatures, had a powerful appeal apparently to the Hierakonpolitans, one of whose chiefs evidently adopted it as his own name and glyph. It also had an important significance to the people of Elam and the Gulf, in the latter case up to a thousand years later, witnessed by the frequent appearance of scorpions in the design of the Gulf seals.15

The Hierakonpolis ivory carvings provide what is perhaps the most remarkable evidence in the minor arts of the transfer of a technique familiar in Elam to an Egyptian context. One of the ivories from the Hierakonpolis hoard, recovered early in the century but now cleaned and polished, displays an identical treatment of the plumage of several of the birds, which are its most notable motif, with that of the plumage of an ‘Imdugud’ bird — a lionheaded eagle — represented in a piece of chlorite (or steatite) carving from a site on the tiny island of Tarut in eastern Saudi Arabia.16 In the first half of the third millennium this was to be one of the most important centres of the Dilmun culture, which was located in Bahrain.

In both cases the plumage of the birds (a mythical one in the Arabian example) is indicated by vigorously incised herringbone or chevron patterns. So similar is the treatment of the two that it is impossible to believe that mere copying or, less likely still, chance, has produced the effect in the Hier-akonpolis ivory; much more likely is it that the piece was either made by an easterner or by an Egyptian craftsman who had been trained by (or at the very least, exposed to) those who knew Elamite techniques well.

The birds on the Hierakonpolis ivories are carved in high relief; the material is hippopotamus tusk. The chlorite carvings from Saudi Arabia are in much lower relief. The Hierakonpolis carving also depicts large felines. Their bodies are spotted, with the surface incised to suggest the pattern of the animals’ coat. In this the treatment is like that on other Saudi Arabian chlorite pieces from the same site as the Imdugud-bird carving, though the technique used is not so precisely similar as in the treatment of the birds’ plumage. One of the most frequent representations on the chlorite carvings is of confronted felines, a theme familiar in Egypt and, less common in the Valley, of confronted snakes.17

The correspondences between the Hierakonpolis ivories and the Tarut chlorite pieces are striking. In the period immediately following the unification, in the early First Dynasty, ivory seems to have been used less and schist, a material closely related to chlorite, came to be used on an increasing scale for vessels, as much as for the cosmetic palettes for which it had always been popular. Schist is, however, a good deal more friable than chlorite and it may be that Egyptian craftsmen took a while to perfect their technique of cutting it into bowls and goblets. They never used the more manageable chlorites on the scale that the Mesopotamians did, and by the middle of the First Dynasty were producing schist bowls of remarkable technical precision.

There is another curious survival from Hierakonpolis, almost as baffling as the Temple Oval. Several cylinder seals, typical products of Sumer and Elam whose use was diffused to Egypt, have been recovered from the city; they depict lines of captives, their arms pinioned behind them, being led away by their captors, to whatever fate awaits them. But all the captives are dwarves, little men (they seem to be adults, as they are bearded) with notably angry expressions.18 Dwarves were a familiar phenomenon in Old Kingdom Egypt where they often were of high rank and held important offices in the state. Several were buried in the First Dynasty graves of sacrificed retainers at Abydos and Saqqara: they were present in the households of the kings and nobles and were familiars of the great. What they are doing in such numbers in Hierakonpolis and what the possible implications of their arrest may be, are intriguing questions but, like so many others arising from this most ancient and most enigmatic of Egyptian cities, at present beyond speculation.