Queen nefertari’s Egypt an NOMA examines women in power
19th April 2022 · 0 Comments
By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer
History buffs, art purveyors and enthusiasts looking to take a trip back in time to explore the influence and impacts of women in ancient Egypt can visit “Queen Nefertari’s Egypt,” the latest exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), on display until July 17.
Queen Nefertari was the favorite wife of Pharaoh Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279-1213 BCE. Aside from her duties as queen, Nefertari served as a divine consort, diplomat and queen mother.
The exhibit features a total of 230 artifacts that will provide an extensive look into the power and influence of women during the New Kingdom period (1539-1075 BCE), the height of Egyptian civilization. The exhibit features sculpture, objects, votive steles, stone sarcophagi, painted coffins, and items of daily life from the artisan village of Deir el-Medina, home to the craftsmen who built the royal tombs.
“It’s a look into another time and place,” said Lisa Rotondo-McCord, deputy director for curatorial affairs at NOMA. “It’s an extraordinary group of objects…that showcase the lives, interests, and tastes of elite women from ancient Egypt.”
The artifacts have been on a four-year tour away from their home at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy. The Museo Egizio is the world’s oldest museum devoted to the art of ancient Egypt. The journey to get the exhibition to NOMA has been four years in the making, with the COVID-19 pandemic delaying the show’s arrival to the Crescent City.
The exhibition will feature six sections: Pharaohs, Goddesses, and the Temple; Women in Ancient Egypt; Deir el-Medina: The Worker’s Village; The Afterlife; Queen Nefertari’s Tomb; and Egyptian Funerary Texts and Painted Coffins. The exhibit also includes an early 20th century model of Nefertari’s tomb positioned outside of the galleries. The model, made to scale, was so accurate that it helped conservators working on the restoration of the tomb murals in the 1980s and 1990s.
Rotondo-McCord said it’s hard to pick a favorite part of the exhibition, but she found the wooden sculptures fascinating. Stone was far more common than wood in ancient Egypt, so the wood had to be imported from the Middle East. Many of the wooden sculptures in the exhibit were commissioned by private citizens (not the government) so the artists were free to present a strikingly realistic depiction of the women. They are also in excellent condition.
“It’s hard to believe they’re 3,000 years old because they are so well-preserved,” Rotondo-McCord said.
A wooden sculpture that particularly stuck out to Rotondo-McCord was a small one, only about 4-6 inches in size. It was of a girl. Her mother commissioned the sculpture as a tribute to her deceased daughter, and put the girl’s name on it so her name would live forever. Aside from the poignant backstory, Rotondo-McCord was struck by the specificity of the portrait.
“It’s very specific, you feel like you could recognize this girl if you saw her on the street,” Rotondo-McCord said.
There is also a papyrus that details the events of a harem conspiracy to usurp Ramesses III. Rameses III would die from the attack, but the conspirators were captured and put on trial. The papyrus is only 1/3 of the full text, and there is no art on it, but visitors can read about the story of the conspiracy, the trial and the judgment.
“It tells a story that is not often told in ancient Egypt, of a rebellion against power,” Rotondo-McCord said.
For those looking for additional exhibition-related programming, NOMA will host a lecture titled “Women and Power in Ancient Egypt” on June 24. Kara Cooney, professor of Egyptian art and architecture at the University of California at Los Angeles, will present the lecture discussing questions of ancient social inequalities and how women dealt with their limited leadership roles.
During the full duration of the exhibition, NOMA will be open seven days a week to visitors and feature extended hours (10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday-Monday and Wednesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. on Tuesday; and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday). Tickets are free for all Louisiana youth under the age of 19. For more information, visit www.noma.org.
This article originally published in the April 18, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
