Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Being Two-Faced

The famous bust of Queen Neferetti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, has two faces. German researchers discovered this. Isn't it fascinating the discoveries of ancient civilizations?

Human nature, though, has not changed much. Vanity remains. The discovery may also point to posterity. For this sake there may be a more desirable image for the royal sculptors, more Western perhaps.


According to the Associated Press "the differences between the faces, though slight — creases at the corners of the mouth, a bump on the nose of the stone version — suggest to Dr. Alexander Huppertz, director of the Imaging Science Institute at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school, that someone expressly ordered the adjustments between stone and stucco when royal sculptors immortalized the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten 3,300 years ago."

The finding also made me consider our notion of beauty. Was a slight bump of the nose and a few lines less than perfect for such a queen? Who ordered the changes?

6 comments:

DB said...

Interesting. An ancient face lift job, a little cosmetic surgery done with a sculptor's tool.

DB

Opaque said...

Yea, interesting!!! Think about it, a cosmetic surgery for a two-faced look. Well, do we need it? Most humans around us are two-faced, not in the literal sense though, if you know what I mean.

Judith Ellis said...

It is "an ancient, face lift job, a little cosmetic surgery" indeed, DB. Perhaps then the sculptor and surgeon would have been one and the same.

Judith Ellis said...

Yes, indeed, Brosreview. There are many messages here to be considered. This is the reason the discovery struck me rather profoundly.

Cynthia said...

Frankly, I don't believ Queen Neferetti looked anything like
this "find".

Judith Ellis said...

Yes, I must admit that it is very similar to the blonde and blue eyed Christ that is often depicted in great Cathedrals throughout Europe, the image of many Jews in Israel today and that of the hand-held fans at my uncle's church of some 10,000 people. Beautiful images indeed, but they are obviously not a true depiction of Christ. Actually, they are contrary to the biblical imaged depicted. But I am not against such images. They matter to many.

My older brother had a beautiful black Madonna with child on his wall for years. For me, Christ's words and life are plenty for me. In fact, I feel Christ; I have no visible image of Him; I never have. There is, however, something to be said of the distortion of history in words and images where Western culture is deified and others denigrated. There is no love lost, but awareness is important.