Sculpting Pharaonic Statues and Murals.. An Industry That Resists Time in Egypt’s Qurna | Lifestyle

In the archaeological area of ​​Qurna in the historical city of Luxor in Egypt, and in the embrace of the Theban Necropolis, where the rulers of ancient Egypt were buried, and which is rich in hundreds of tombs and dozens of temples, ancient Egyptian artists were carving tombs in the rocks of Qurna Mountain, building temples and decorating them with statues, paintings, drawings and Pharaonic engravings.

These Pharaonic paintings and engravings tell the details of daily life in ancient Egypt, the victories of kings, religious texts, and the secrets of astronomy, architecture, and various arts that distinguished the ancient Egyptians.

These temples and tombs have become tourist areas that tourists flock to visit from all continents of the world, thanks to the preservation of their engravings and bright colors to this day.

Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, the artists of ancient Egypt, who lived in the area known today as “Deir el-Medina,” dozens of artists in the Qurna area, located in the heart of the ancient Theban necropolis west of Luxor, continue to preserve the arts of their ancestors and revive their crafts and industries that have withstood the test of time and have remained.

They established art workshops and exhibitions known as alabaster factories, and they excel in sculpting statues and Pharaonic paintings inspired by the temples and tombs of their ancestors, and selling them to visitors to the temples and tombs of the region from tourists from around the world.

Near the Deir el-Medina area, which has become a shrine that chronicles the details of the establishment of the first city for workers and artists in history, which dates back to the era of the modern Egyptian state 1570 – 1070 BC, contemporary natural artists from the residents of the ancient Theban necropolis have built workshops, factories and galleries to sculpt and paint statues, paintings and Pharaonic art pieces.

Visitors to Luxor and the tombs of the temples of the ancient Theban Necropolis can purchase statues, paintings and artifacts, and see the area’s residents, the natural artists, sculpting, engraving and colouring them in the same way their ancestors did, with the same tools and colours that the ancient Egyptians used on the orders of the kings, queens, nobles and noblewomen of the pharaohs thousands of years ago.

Tools from history

It is not strange that these natural artists who inherited the arts of their ancestors, and learned how to carve Pharaonic statues and draw and engrave on stone tablets from their grandfathers and fathers, use simple tools and colors like those used by their ancestors, and if there is a change, it is a slight change, to confirm that they are reviving the arts of their ancestors using the same ancient methods and tools.

The Qurna region has an artistic history dating back thousands of years, as the region has known the arts of sculpture, painting, and relief and sunken engraving since the time of the Pharaohs.

The temples and ancient tombs of the region were decorated with hundreds of statues, paintings and murals that were carved, engraved and painted by the ancient Egyptian artist, whose art was passed down to the people of the Qurna region.

As the books of archaeologists and Egyptologists show us, the ancient Egyptians excelled in covering the walls and ceilings of tombs and temples with drawings engraved on stones, some of which were carved in relief and some in recessed relief, while the reliefs were found decorated with colors, which is the same method followed by the instinctive artist who lives near the temples and tombs of his ancestors in the Qurna area.

Statues depicting the kings and queens of ancient Egypt, as well as the gods, animals and sacred birds known to the ancient Egyptians, are carved alongside plaques of different sizes with raised or sunken engravings on which scenes from daily life in ancient Egypt are engraved. Some of them depict scenes that decorate hundreds of tombs spread throughout the Qurna Mountain.

All of this is sold to tourists who flock by the thousands to enjoy seeing the monuments of the kings, queens, nobles and noblewomen of ancient Egypt, and to learn about aspects of that civilization that occupied an advanced position among human civilizations, and knew many sciences and arts.

While the ancient Egyptian artist excelled in sculpting huge statues from sandstone, limestone, or granite, such as those found in the Ramesseum Temple built by King Ramses II in Qurna – west of Luxor – the Qurna artists excelled in sculpting statues of different sizes, some of which did not exceed 15 centimeters in length, and some of which exceeded 1.5 meters.

The natural artists in the Qurna region were interested in sculpting statues in the same way that the ancient Egyptian artist was interested in them, as the ancient Egyptian artists found in those statues an embodiment of the spirits that inhabited the bodies of the pharaohs.

Tourists who visit the temples and tombs of the Qurna archaeological area are amazed by the works of art that were carved and drawn by the native artists of the region, and which are displayed in the exhibitions spread on both sides of the roads leading to the tombs and Pharaonic temples that tourists flock to, to buy antiques and souvenirs with their unique colors that amaze these tourists.

As the artists we met in the region told us, they benefited from the method of their ancestors, the artists of ancient Egypt, in preparing the colors with which they colored the engravings of their paintings, and even the statues they sculpted, as the book “Dictionary of Ancient Egyptian Civilization by George Posner and Others” published by the Egyptian General Book Authority recounts.

The book mentions that sharpened sticks, small brushes made of palm fibre, water cups, and colour mixing boards made of shells or broken pottery pieces were the ancient Egyptian artist's tools for painting on walls with pigments dissolved in glue and egg whites.

The book also indicates that in order for the artist to obtain the required colours with which he would sometimes paint, and sometimes colour the sunken carvings on the walls of temples and tombs, he would mix the basic colours that they kept in the form of powdered fingers, or place one colour on top of another.

He points out that the colours known to the ancient Egyptian artist are black, from carbon, white from lime, red and yellow from iron oxides, and crushed faience for blue and green. He also used colours with special specifications for sacred beings, and typical and traditional colours for human creatures.

The ancient Egyptian artist, as the book says, depicted men in a reddish-brown color and women in a lighter color. He used artificial colors to simulate the colors of stones and wood, among other things that were known about the brilliance of the artists of ancient Egypt, many of whose arts were inherited by the inhabitants of the Qurna region, with all the secrets that those arts carried and the unique brilliance that they possessed.