Q; what is first thing that you imagine, when you hear Egypt!?
My answer would be absolutely the "pyramid", because of the scale,the amount of work that they put, and especially the strong centralized society with representing their royalty through the architectures or artifacts that meant to be eternal as well as the ruler's existing.
Society of Egypt was grew rapidly and largely due to the location near by Nile River. It allowed them to develop their agriculture = food = survive. As I grew up in farm, compare to today's agriculture role in our society, I realized how important the agriculture is to our lives. Today in our lifestyle, we do not really think about what's essential for our life, such as; water, food...etc. Studying history really got me think how our life today are so blessed. We have food, water all the time, which are available almost everywhere. Casey's gas station pretty much get you anything you need, but back then, they were very limited and treasured. Maybe the one of reasons why their artifacts are likely to representing nature, they had more appreciation to the mother nature that provide them what they need for living.
Religion was very big in society. It was focused on death, afterlife. Pyramids are tombs for rulers and their family members where they rest eternally. Not only the tombs, but also monuments, cenotaphs, and temples are all representing the power of rulers. Also designer's powers were represented in their arts. The art style of Egypt changes within an individual artist's lifetime.
Queen Hetephere's bed (2500 B.C.E.)
The form and material wise, it is very simple, very minimalistic compare to our current styles. But we cannot forget this bed was created in prehistory era. If you look at how its made in clean straight cut with decorated legs and the gorgeous color. It gave me hard time believing people with no current technology could create beautiful art like this.
Harrods London- One of the store front was decorated in Egyptian style. It absolutely gives higher end atmosphere with strong power of art. I was there last summer and this floor was the most brightest, memorable floor of all. It does make sense that those arts were designed to be eternal.
Folding bed is something that we all know today, but It was one of the great Egyptian invention.
Top; Egyptian, Bottom; current application
Again, their arts are intentionally created to be eternal, and it is definitely true.
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