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Book Reviews Book Reviews Mary Ann Eaverly. Tan Men/Pale Women. Color and ing polarization of male and female that was a key or- Gender in Archaic Greece and Egypt, a Comparative ganizing principle of ancient Athenian society” (156). Approach (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan One now needs to examine her evidence in greater Press, 2013). ISBN 978-0-11911-0. Pp x + 181. detail, and I will do so by concentrating primarily on the Egyptian evidence because of the focus of this jour- The title of the book is doubtless based on a Eu- nal. Whereas it is true that the visual depiction of skin rocentric visual perception of ancient Egyptian works tones of men is generally darker than that of women of art and images on Attic black figure vase painting, in ancient Egyptian art, the use of reds and yellows in which color employed for the skin of men is per- can not be “considered opposites” (9). The Egyptian ceptibly darker than that used for women (surpris- lexicon contains four color-words. Among these is dSr, ingly, neither G. Robins, “The Image of the Queen” which I will employ instead of “red” in this review, en- nor L. Troy, “The Religious Role of the Queens,” in compassing all of the ranges of hue and value repre- C. Ziegler, ed., Queens of Egypt from Hetepheres to Cleopa- sented by the red-orange-yellow bands of the Western tra [Paris, 2008], 116–33 and 152–73, respectively, color spectrum. There is no identifiable Egyptian word address this issue). As such the author examines the for either orange or yellow (J. Baines, Visual & Written validity of the statement that this bipolar color dif- Culture in Ancient Egypt [Oxford, 2007], 248), both of ferentiation of gender is based on the generally held which are incorporated into the connotations of dSr. platitude that the skin of men is painted darker as a re- As color theorists have pointed out, there is no unique flection of their traditional outdoor spheres of activity color red (C. Hardin, Color for Philosophers. Unweav- whereas that of women, because they were putatively ing the Rainbow [Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1986], 39 sequestered within the home (W. Grajetzki, Tomb Trea- and 162), and that observation has been confirmed by sures of the Late Middle Kingdom. The Archaeology of Fe- studies about the hues and values exhibited by images male Burials [Philadelphia, 2014], 2, for a succinct syn- painted dSr in ancient Egyptian art (inter alia, Baines opsis of the status of Egyptian women) is pale and wan. [2007], 250). Can one, therefore, be absolutely confi- In presenting her case, the author first deals with dent that the color one perceives on any given object is Egypt and finds validity in the generalization that the actually red, and not a color approaching orange or yel- gender of human and divine images in ancient Egyp- low? The issue is exemplified by attempting to describe tian art is differentiated by color. In an attempt to de- the color of the skin of Djoser on his enthroned statue termine the significance of this practice, the author in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (JE 49158: J.-P. Cor- then focuses her attention on the self-representation teggiani, The Egypt of the Pharaohs at the Cairo Museum of Hatshepsut and images created under the reign of [trans. A. Roberts] [Paris, 1987], 32–33. no. 10, “the Akhenaten. She concludes that during the reign of the ochre colouring has practically vanished.”). former, “color differentiation is closely connected to re- Furthermore, one cannot accept the author’s state- ligious ideology” whereas in the reign of the latter, the ment, “Male dark-brown coloring is the ‘default setting’ “switch to reddish brown for both males and females is for hieroglyphs that indicate parts of the human body” but one of the many changes used to support the new (22). Such a position completely disregards the obser- ideology” (82). vation that the two most quintessential hieroglyphs Accepting the suggestion that this Egyptian dark/ for representing parts of a human being are the hu- light polychromatic differentiation of gender was em- man head, either depicted in profile as tp (Gardiner braced by the Greeks, she then traces the development Sign List D1) or in full-face as Hr (Gardiner Sign List of Greek vase painting in the first millennium BC and D2). Both hieroglyphs are male, as the presence of the states that the practice of gender differentiation on the beard on the chin of each demonstrates. In accordance basis of color is particular to the painters of Attic black with ancient Egyptian artistic conventions tp (D 1) is figure vases. She concludes, “Color expressed underly- habitually painted yellow, Hr (D 2) red (Y. Volokhine, in Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 50, pp. 233–45233 234 JARCE 50 (2014) G. Andreu-Lanoe, ed., L’art du contour. Le dessin dans must be sited within the development of wall painting l’Egypte ancienne [Paris, 2013], 60–61). This epigraphic during the course of Dynasty 18 in general. Whereas evidence alone seriously erodes the author’s argument. there may be scholarly debate about the date of any Because the color dSr is imbued with so many dif- given tomb located in Western Thebes within that pe- ferent, and at times mutually contradictory symbolic riod, there is, nevertheless, a documentable develop- connotations—fire, blood, evil, death, the sun, gold, ment which results in the use of dSr for depictions of the desert, ad nauseam, one has difficulty in support- the skin of certain women prior to the Amarna period ing the author’s fixation and insistence upon the exclu- (R. Bianchi, “On the Nature of Egyptian Painting” and sively male-dominated associations of images painted “An Asessment of the Wall Paintings,” in The J. Paul dSr in Egyptian art. Such a position completely ignores Getty Museum and The Getty Conservation Institute, the fundamental polyvalence inherent in all ancient In the Tomb of Nefertari. Conservation of the Wall Paint- Egyptian images and their associated colors (inter alia, ings [Santa Monica, 1992], 56–65 and 66–71, respec- the remarks of both B. Mathieu, “Les couleurs dans tively). The color of the skin of the female musicians les Textes des Pyramids: approache des systèmes chro- from Neferhotop’s Theban Tomb A 22 (Paris N 3319 matiques,” ENiM 2 [2009], 25–52; and O. Goldwasser, [=D 60]: L. Manniche, “Provenance of Louvre D 60,” From Icon to Metaphor. Studies in the Semiotics of the Hiero- GM 29 [1978], 85–88; and C. Ziegler, in Ziegler, Queens glyphs [Fribourg/Göttingen, 1995], 69–70). of Egypt, 274, no. 83 and 277], datable to the middle of The author’s discussion about the purpose of dSr the dynasty, combines various values of dSr in one and employed for images of Hatshepsut requires scrutiny. the same female figure. The skin of some, but not all, In discussing that monarch’s statuary, she detects a of the women depicted in the Tomb of Nakht (Theban progression from yellow-colored images to reddish- Tomb 52) (N. Davies, Nakht, 57–58; S. Hodel-Hoenes, brown colored images, the objective of which, she as- Life and Death in Ancient Egypt. Scenes from Private Tombs serts, was to define that monarch’s pharaonic ideology. in New Kingdom Thebes [trans. D. Warburton] [Ithaca/ “The fact that she [=Hatshepsut] felt it necessary to London, 1991], 28, datable to the reign of Thuthmosis change her image to one that was completely male sug- IV or the early part of that of Amenhotep III) is painted gests that her biological gender did cause a problem in values of dSr (D. Wildung, Ägyptische Malerei. Das for the Egyptians” (67). A. Roth (“Models of Authority. Grab des Nacht [Munich/Zurich, 1978], 54–55, “Die Hatshepsut’s Predecessors in Power,” in C. Roehrig, beiden Mädchen … Flächig sind die Farben nebenein- ed., Hatshepsut from Queen to Monarch [New York/New ander gesetzt, … das Hellrot der Haut…”) which must, Haven/London, 2005], 9), sees things very differently of course, be distinguished from the famous trio of fe- indeed: “It was thus important for images of Hatshep- male musicians from that same tomb (for which see the sut to identify her correctly. Her femininity was an es- comments by V. Angenot, “Copy and Reinterpretation sential part of her identity, and images that showed a in the Tomb of Nakht: Ancient Egyptian Hermeneutics,” fictional, nonexistent male named Hatshepsut would in K. Muhlestein and J. Gee, eds., Evolving Egypt: Innova- not be effective.” Consequently a significant objective tion, Appropriation, and Reinterpretation in Ancient Egypt of Hatshepsut’s public self-portrayal was to establish [Oxford, 2012], 53, “most likely inspired by a painting her legitimacy (S. Schoske, “The King: The Case of in the tomb of Djeserkaraseneb…”] whose bodies were Hatshepsut,” in C. Ziegler, ed., Queens of Egypt from subsequently coated with a layer of varnish (E. Delange, Hetepheres to Cleopatra [Paris, 2013], 194–98), and that “Couleur vraie,” in S. Colinart and M. Menu, eds., La process was quickened by an archaizing interest in the couleur dans la peinture et l’émaillage de l’Egypte ancienne monuments of Middle Kingdom, a period of time in [Bari, 1998], 25–29). By the time the tomb of Nebamun which the color of the skin of some royal women was in and Ipuki (Theban Tomb 181) was decorated in the lat- fact dSr (Geneva 4766: J.-L. Chappaz, “69. Fragmentary ter part of Dynasty XVIII, dSr had become established statuette of a Queen,” in Ziegler, Queens of Egypt, 266, as a canonical color for the skin of certain women (Bian- where he very misleadingly and erroneously states, chi, in In the Tomb of Nefertari, 63, fig.
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