Gott und Gotter im alten Agypten.

• Author: Bianchi, Robert Steven

By Sylvia Schoske and Dietrich Wildung. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1992. Pp. viii + 240. DM 88.

This is a provocative and infuriating catalogue!

The 143 objects here presented for the first time were collected by an anonymous, presumably German, collector, over the course of thirty years, whose guiding principle was the Qualitat der Objekte. Indeed, the authors, long-time advocates of the value of art history and the primacy of the object over the text in the discipline of Egyptology, repeat this collector's principle in their introduction. They, too, are interested in quality. Since collector and curator are so in accord on this issue and since this collecting principle dominates the discussions found in both the foreword and introduction, why is there absolutely no exegesis anywhere in the catalogue either about issues of quality or of the criteria by which quality may be measured or determined? One cannot simply accept ex cathedra that quality is self-evident to the connoisseur.

The blind acceptance of the bald assertion. that the objects in this catalogue are of high quality leads to a second, somewhat tendentious, premise: Masterpieces provide more information about certain aspects of ancient Egyptian culture than do texts and inscriptions. This emotionally charged polemic, which champions the cause of art historians within the field of Egyptology at the expense of philologists, who have long dominated the discipline (see the comments in the volumes edited by N.-P. Grimal and by M. Eaton-Krauss and E. Graefe), is not supported by any comment in the book. So, for example, in espousing this position, the authors take the unexpected step of prefacing the entire catalogue with a provocative statement about the frontispiece, an uninscribed faience figurine of a kneeling anthropomorphic ram-headed deity who offers an image of a baboon. Challenging the philologists to explain this extraordinary group by recourse to a textual reference, the authors maintain that objects, not texts, provide the discipline of Egyptology with the exceptional window on the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, because no known text has prepared anyone for this particular image which is unique, authentic, and of high quality, a tricolon which in itself contributes nothing toward an increased appreciation or understanding of the piece. So enigmatic is this figurine that the authors themselves beg the issue of its significance by rhetorically asking...