Davies, Norman de Garis: Two Ramesside tombs at Thebes (New York, 1927)

INTRODUCTION

THE movement associated with the Aton heresy is often regarded
as lying like a great geological fault across the regular course of Egyptian
history. But, in art at least, the changes which appear with the Rames-
side dynasty towards the close of the fourteenth century B. G. better
deserve the name of a revolution by reason of their permanence and
deep-seated character, unless, indeed, by revolution we intend something
violent, and therefore transient, and ought to regard any permanent
change, however striking and mysterious in origin, as a national develop-
ment rather than an upturn. Did the Egyptian nation in the Ramesside
era find itself, for good or ill, or were the profound transformations then
noticeable the abiding consequences of a political misadventure? Are we
to regard Egypt as having died from an enforced change of air after a
protracted illness, bravely but hopelessly combated through a long alter-
nation of illusive recoveries and periods of prostration ? Was the coup
d'etat of Akhnaton one in essence, though in form bitterly in conflict, with
the permanent breach in Egyptian history associated with the name of
its eponymous, though belated hero, the great Osymandyas, both being
attempted solutions of the problem presented by the entrance of this
strongly featured nation into a society of vigorous civilizations ? These
are large questions which cannot be gone into here, where we are con-
cerned only with art, indeed only with the art of painting.

Had we to deal with all the forms of civilization, or even with sculp-
ture as well as painting, there might be many meritorious achievements

The signifi-
cance of the
Ramesside
era

Its effect on
sepulchral art

XV