Tag: Dreams of Amarna
Dreams of Amarna – researching the ideas
As it happens my family has always had an interest both in archaeology, and in the history of art, so I started to look through our books to see whether I could find any reference material. I found a few things, but in truth, not enough to support the work I was trying to develop. That is scarcely surprising, really. The “Amarna Period” covers maybe thirty years. Ancient Egyptian civilisation lasted for several thousands of years! So I did the obvious thing – I contacted the Egypt Exploration Society, for whom Mary Chubb worked at the time of the dig, and asked whether they could help.
They could, and they did.
I spent a delightful (if wearing) afternoon in the library of the Society, and was even able to read and refer to the publications of the expedition, and then some months later received an email to tell me that the Society had been digitising its’ photographic archive and if I was interested, they would be happy to let me look through the archive for more source material.
Was I interested? Well, of course I was!
This time it was an entire morning, but then, the archive not only included the photographs of the finds and records of the excavation. There were pictures of the excavators at work, shots of the surrounding area, the felucca loaded with supplies… “Wonderful things!”, as Howard Carter said…
I know, I know – I haven’t set a stitch yet, but there’s so much to think about!
I also found an article about excavation organisation and methods, written by JDS Pendlebury (Director of the Expedition) at about this time, and a much later paper, written by another archaeologist about the Hittite amulet that was part of the “Crock of Gold” hoard that they found during the season. I won’t provide a link to those, as they are behind a paywall. The fact that I did pay for and download both articles shows just how attached to this project I have become!
I haven’t yet bought the biography of JDS Pendlebury. At the back of the book Mary describes his fate – parachuted into Crete (where he had been site Director at Knossos under Sir Arthur Evans), he coordinated the resistance to the German invasion, was wounded and captured, and then dragged from his sickbed to be executed. It saddens me every time I read it. Not just because of him, but because of the thousands of others, young and not so young, who were also cut off at the height of their powers, with so much yet to contribute to the world.
Dreams of Amarna – planning the design
After a lot of thought, puzzlement, and general head-scratching, I decided to produce two panels.
The embroidery will be worked on linen, and mounted on board, and in front of each embroidered panel will hang a gauze panel. The gauze will be screen-printed with the most familiar images of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, in a pale “faded” colour. The idea is to reflect the dominance of the historical personages in the work of the archaeologists, who try to interpret what they discover in the ground to tell us more about the historical life of the place itself, and to provide an echo in fabric of Mary Chubb’s own imaginative response to the site.
The linen panels will be made up of several sections. The main sections, in a sandy colour, will be embroidered mainly in monochrome. One panel is to show the map of the site, and the other will provide the links between the work in the office in London and the work in Egypt – sketches of the office building, a steamer, and maybe the Pyramids (visited when they paused in Cairo).
Around these panels smaller panels will be attached, embroidered with representations of some of the finds, with pictures of the excavation, and with any other illustrations I can gather together.
All this came together in a rush, a couple of years ago, when I was helping my cousin to clear out our Great Aunt’s house after her death. You can’t talk about banks and inventories all the time, and the final idea just happened to come together as I began to describe my nagging Project. It deserves the capital letter, don’t you think – ten years, I’ve been thinking about it, maybe more!
“Dreams of Amarna” – a very long term project!
Cover for the book "Nefertiti Lived Here", by Mary Chubb
This is turning into a very big project, and there will be several posts with no embroidery in them. I will try to intersperse them with other projects too!
A good many years ago, I read a book called Nefertiti Lived Here, by Mary Chubb. It describes the author’s own experiences as Secretary to the Excavation in el-Amarna in the 1930s. Sounds as dry as the desert around the dig? Wrong. The book reads as well as a novel, and the characters of the archaeologists (led by the charismatic JDS Pendlebury), and some of the excavators, are beautifully described. The site itself, the Heretic Pharaoh and his beautiful wife Nefertiti, also become characters, and even for a non-Egyptologist, the book is entirely enchanting. I re-read it frequently.
As Mary Chubb was studying sculpture at the time she joined the expedition, it is perhaps not surprising that some of the artefacts they discovered are so vividly described or that the changes in Egyptian art in that period should have made such an impact on her, and through her on her readers.
Given my interest in embroidery, perhaps it is not surprising, either, that Mary Chubb’s fascination with Egyptian art should plant the germ of an idea for an embroidery…
Only a germ, unfortunately. It has taken years of thinking in the occasional idle moment for the idea to take sufficient shape that I could begin to consider the materials to use or the form it would finally take. In the meantime, Mary Chubb has died (at the august age of 99, in 2003 – Times Obituary ) so my early wish to show her what she has inspired has fallen by the wayside.
But that is no reason not to do it!