In the Egyptian hall of the Hermitage. The main building of the Hermitage - ii Where is the Egyptian Hall in the Hermitage

The Hermitage collection of ancient Egyptian monuments, numbering about 7,500 items, is small compared to the collections of the Louvre, the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum, but it covers all the main periods of Egyptian history and includes a number of interesting and important things from the pre-dynastic (4th millennium BC. e.) until the time of Roman domination. Its history is peculiar, since initially the Hermitage did not show interest in ancient Eastern, in particular Egyptian, the Academy of Sciences in 1825 acquired the collection of Francesco Castiglione (about 1200 monuments), on the basis of which the Egyptian Museum was created as part of the Kunstkamera. In the Hermitage at that time there were only a few random Egyptian items and about 250 scarabs bought from the same Castiglione. After the building of the New Hermitage was opened in 1852 as a universal public museum, most of the monuments from the Egyptian Museum were transferred to it, the collection of which by that time had noticeably replenished due to gifts and the acquisition of items from private collections; in 1881, the remaining monuments from the Kunstkamera were transferred.

The huge temple statue of the goddess Mut-Sokhmet, carved from black granite, is included in the gallery of masterpieces in the Hermitage collection. Sekhmet sits majestically on a cube-shaped throne with a high back. Initially, the head of the goddess was crowned with a solar disk with a sacred cobra. The mane of the lioness smoothly passes into the strands of a three-part wig. The thin figure of Sokhmet, drawn into a narrow, tight-fitting dress, is solemnly straightened. The hands of the goddess lie calmly on her knees, in the left is the sign of life "ankh" in the form of a large loop tied with a bow. On the front of the throne are carved two columns of hieroglyphic inscription containing the title of King Amenhotep III. Sokhmet (literally "Mighty") occupied a place of honor among the gods. The formidable lioness was revered as the goddess of the scorching sun and the fury of war and was considered the daughter of the god Ra. It was in her power to put diseases on people and cure them. She was the patroness of doctors

Statue of the goddess Mut-Sokhmet Ancient Egypt Mid-14th c. BC. New Kingdom, XVIII Dynasty granite Temple of Mut-Sokhmet in Thebes

In connection with the transfer in the II millennium BC. the capital of Ancient Egypt from Memphis south to Thebes, the goddess Sokhmet was identified with the local Mut (ancient Egyptian "mut" - mother), depicted as a kite. The Theban Triad of deities included the god Amun-Ra, his wife Mut-Sokhmet and their son, the moon god Khonsu. The residence of this Triad was considered to be a complex in Thebes, which today is called the Temple of Karnak. The statue comes from the temple of Mut-Sokhmet, originally decorated with 574 two-meter images of the goddess. The famous Russian traveler, writer A.S. Norov (1795-1869) found this statue of Mut-Sokhmet in the ruins of the sanctuary and bought it. The height of the statue reaches two meters. Museum staff assure that blood may appear on the knees of the statue, as an omen of difficult events in the life of the country. The last time employees of the Hermitage observed this was in 1991, on the eve of the collapse of the USSR.

Mayor Amenemheb with his wife and mother Ancient Egypt Late XIV - early XIII centuries. BC. New Kingdom, XVIII-XIX Dynasty granite Tomb of Amenemheb in Dra Abu el-Naga of the Theban necropolis Entered in 1852 Donated by M. Leuchtenberg

The image of the mayor of Thebes with his wife and mother is the only monumental family group of the New Kingdom in the Hermitage. It represents post-Amaran art from the reign of the successors of the reformer king Akhenaten or later. From one block of gray granite, three figures sitting on a bench with large heads in wigs are carved. In the center is represented, judging by the hieroglyphic inscription on the clothes, "the chief scribe of the king, beloved by him ... the head of the granaries of Amon, the late prince of the City (i.e. Thebes), Amenemheb, born of Kalo." He is wearing the ceremonial attire characteristic of this time - a shirt with wide pleated sleeves and a long apron.

Mayor Amenemheb with his wife and mother detail Ancient Egypt Late XIV - early XIII centuries. BC. New Kingdom, XVIII-XIX Dynasty granite Tomb of Amenemheb in Dra Abu el-Naga of the Theban necropolis Entered in 1852 Donated by M. Leuchtenberg

On the right hand of Amenemheb sits his mother - "the singer of Amon, the mistress of the house, the late Kalo ...". On the left hand of the mayor of Thebes is his wife, the high priestess of the temple of the goddess Hathor, "the singer of Amun", "the late Taisennefert". Women embrace Amenemheb by the shoulders - a gesture that conveys kindred affection. According to tradition, all three broad, round, slightly flattened faces are exactly the same. To convey the folds of thin transparent pleated fabrics of elegant clothes, carvers use deep engraving, destroying the integrity of the stone surface. The tomb of the mayor Amenemheb is located in Dra Abu el-Naga on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. On the sculptural group, texts dating back to the "Book of the Dead" have been preserved.

Ipi stele Ancient Egypt Second half of the 14th century BC. New Kingdom, XVIII Dynasty limestone

The stele of the "royal scribe", "front-bearer on the right hand" of King Tutankhamun, "the great administrator of the royal household" Ipi is one of the most striking works of ancient Egyptian sculpture in the Hermitage collection. Almost the entire surface of the limestone slab is occupied by the scene of the worship of the dignitary Ipi to the statue of the god of embalming and patron of the dead Anubis. On the left, the jackal-headed Anubis sits on a throne. The robe of the god is intercepted by a belt, the neck is decorated with a double necklace. With his right hand, Anubis holds the sign of life "ankh" by the loop, with his left hand - with the wand "was" - stretches out towards Ipi walking towards him. Ipi is depicted in a complex ceremonial attire - a shirt with wide sleeves and a long apron. The gesture of hands raised in prayer is typical for images of adorants ( soft rock figurine stone, installed in the temple in order to pray for the person who placed it). Different interpretations of the images of Anubis and man emphasize that Ipi stands in front of the deity. The figure of Ipi is much more finely modeled, and the figure of Anubis is traditionally flat, the drawing of its contours is graphic and dry. In front of the statue of the god of the dead is an altar with a vessel for ritual libations and two bound lotus buds. On the stele, the original coloring has been perfectly preserved, lasting on the stone for more than two millennia and made, according to the canon, with mineral paints. The colors of the Anubis figure are dominated by the colors characteristic of the deities - blue and green, the colors for which were obtained from lapis lazuli and malachite. The inscriptions on the stele contain the sacrificial formula, Ipi's name and titles.

Craterisk Egypt I-V centuries. glass blowing came from the collection of Golitsyn.

Statue of Queen Cleopatra Ancient Egypt I c. BC. Ptolemaic dynasty basalt Acquired in 1929 from the palace in Peterhof.

Cleopatra the Seventh is one of the most famous personalities of the ancient world. She had the role of reigning for more than twenty years and becoming the last queen of Egypt. She went down in history thanks to her feminine charm and love affair with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. She had children from both of them. The tragic death of the queen added a romantic halo to her image, which remains with her for thousands of years. The statue of the Empress adorns the hall of the Hermitage. The statue of Queen Cleopatra is a unique masterpiece, which is the pearl of the collection.

Statue of Queen Cleopatra Ancient Egypt I c. BC. Ptolemaic dynasty basalt Acquired in 1929 from the palace in Peterhof

The permanent exhibition displays the main milestones in the development of the culture of Ancient Egypt. The Old Kingdom is represented by fragments of wall reliefs from the tombs of the nobility of the 5th-6th dynasties, as well as cult items - steles, wooden figures of servants, and private figurines. The new kingdom is characterized by sculptures, steles, and handicrafts.

The impoverishment of tombs in terms of relief images that followed at the end of the Old Kingdom led to the spread of stelae - stone slabs with tomb images, mainly scenes of a meal. The canonical inscriptions contained on the steles include the so-called "sacrificial formula" sometimes "the formula for addressing the living", the names and titles of the owners of the steles and their relatives, often depicted along with them on the monuments.

The steles were not only belonging to the tomb. They were placed in temples dedicated to various gods. So a huge number of stelae of the Middle Kingdom comes from Abydos - the place of worship of the god of the dead, Osiris. In this city, every Egyptian wanted to have his own memorial for the dead - whether it be a stele, a statue, a figurine or a small resemblance of a sacrificial chapel.

Gods of Ancient Egypt. Osiris and Isis Osiris is the ruler of the underworld. Isis with Horus.

Statue of the god Osiris

Osiris is the god of rebirth, the king of the underworld in ancient Egyptian mythology. Sometimes Osiris was depicted with the head of a bull. Reigning over Egypt, Osiris taught people agriculture, gardening and winemaking, but was killed by his brother, the god Set, who wanted to rule in his place. The wife of Osiris, his sister Isis, found his corpse and began to mourn him along with her sister Nephthys. Ra, taking pity, sends the jackal-headed god Anubis, who collected the scattered (or, in another version, chopped by Set) parts of Osiris, embalmed the body and swaddled it. Isis, in the form of a falcon, descended on the corpse of Osiris and, miraculously conceived from him, gave birth to a son, Horus. Horus is both conceived and born in order to act as a natural avenger for the death of his father. At the same time, he considers himself the only legitimate heir of the latter. After a long litigation, Horus is recognized as the rightful heir of Osiris and receives the kingdom. He resurrects Osiris by letting him swallow his eye. However, Osiris does not return to earth and remains the king of the dead, leaving Horus to rule the kingdom of the living.

Egypt is a country so ancient that scientists have long abandoned attempts to determine its age. The history of Egypt can be traced back to about 5 thousand years ago, these data are obtained from the results of archaeological excavations. It is known that the famous pyramids, the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs, were built in the middle of the third millennium BC. e. is four and a half thousand years old. And the whole culture of Egypt, architecture and art are covered with antiquity.

In order to systematize the archaeological values ​​of Egypt and make the history of this country accessible to the general public, the Egyptian Hall of the Hermitage was created in St. Petersburg, designed for mass visits. This event took place on the initiative of the chief architect of the Hermitage A. V. Sivkov in 1940.

The hall is located on the first floor, at the end of the suite of the right wing. The basis of the exposition was the rarities of Egyptian culture, brought to St. Petersburg by the curator of the Hermitage V. G. Bock in 1889 and 1898. Most of the ancient objects were found by the scientist in the monasteries of the city of Sohaga and in the Bagauat necropolis. In the monastery cellars, the museum's messengers found many treasures of historical value, and in the tombs of the necropolis, numerous household items of ordinary Egyptians were buried.

A special certificate on behalf of the Egyptian government made it possible to take most of the exhibits to Russia, and thus the Egyptian Hall of the Hermitage received an interesting extensive exposition, which still attracts hundreds of tourists from all over the world.

The exposition was placed in the last three halls of the enfilade, according to the principle of ethnographic division. Separately, ancient Egypt is exhibited, then Egypt of the Ptolemaic period and, finally, Roman Egypt. Part - the Egyptian Hall, the photo of which is posted in this article, is dedicated to one of the most mysterious civilizations in the world. Museum visitors can trace the entire course of the country's development, the evolution of the dynasties of the pharaohs, the main historical milestones, wars and the peaceful creation of the Egyptian people.

For many centuries, the culture of Egypt was intertwined with the culture and art of other countries: Iran and Syria, Greece and Rome. The interconnection of all these mentally close countries is carried in its expositions by the Egyptian Hall of the Hermitage, and these expositions are periodically replenished from the museum's storerooms.

The period of Egypt being under the yoke of Byzantium is clearly visible. Hundreds of coins of Alexandrian minting are laid out under the glass, with the image of Byzantine rulers. Of particular value are papyrus scrolls on the issuance of benefits for the maintenance of Egyptian settlements, and other documents indicating the exploitation of the Egyptians by the conquerors.

Various exhibits of the Egyptian Hall of the Hermitage allow us to trace the evolution of a great civilization from the 4th millennium BC to the 4th millennium BC. e. until the 3rd millennium AD.

On the theme of building the Egyptian pyramids, the museum features photographs taken at different periods throughout the 20th century.

In fact, the Egyptian Hall of the Hermitage is a grandiose collection reflecting the centuries-old history of the whole country. Among the thematic expositions are household items, ancient works of art, women's jewelry, sculptures, as well as sarcophagi as a symbol of a special ritual accessory.

In the hall of Egypt there is one unique exhibit - this is a genuine four thousand years old She, she is proof of the art of embalming. Also on display in the hall is a stone sarcophagus in which this mummy lay. The stone coffin carved from a single stone is a real work of art. Decorated with rich ornaments and intricate carvings, the lid of the sarcophagus testifies to the reverent attitude of the Egyptians towards the memory of the dead.

This large exhibition hall was designed by the chief architect of the State Hermitage A.V. Sivkov at the site of the premises of the Main Canteen of the Winter Palace in 1940.
Now the hall houses an exhibition dedicated to the culture and art of Ancient Egypt. The collection of monuments of Ancient Egypt - monumental sculpture and small plastic, reliefs, sarcophagi, household items, works of artistic crafts - allows you to imagine the appearance of a great ancient civilization almost throughout its entire history from the 4th millennium BC. before the beginning of AD
The statue of Amenemhat III (19th century BC) is the only completely preserved stone royal sculpture in the Hermitage collection and is a striking example of ancient Egyptian portrait art.
The museum's masterpieces include a huge granite statue of the goddess Mut-Sokhmet from a temple in Thebes (late 15th century BC) and a wooden statuette of a priest (late 15th - early 14th centuries BC)

Hall of Ancient Egypt

Hall of Ancient Egypt

bodies of chief potters Pepi
Description:
The impoverishment of tombs in terms of relief images that followed at the end of the Old Kingdom led to the spread of stelae - stone slabs with tomb images, mainly scenes of a meal.
The canonical inscriptions contained on the steles include the so-called "sacrificial formula" sometimes "the formula for addressing the living", the names and titles of the owners of the steles and their relatives, often depicted along with them on the monuments.
The steles were not only belonging to the tomb. They were placed in temples dedicated to various gods. So a huge number of stelae of the Middle Kingdom comes from Abydos - the place of worship of the god of the dead, Osiris. In this city, every Egyptian wanted to have his own memorial for the dead - whether it be a stele, a statue, a figurine or a small resemblance of a sacrificial chapel. Pepi's stele comes from Abydos.

Gods of Ancient Egypt. Amon, Khonsu and Mut
Description:
Ason - the god of Thebes, later Amon-Ra, the supreme deity of Egypt.
Khonsu is the god of the moon.
Mut is the wife of Amon, the mother of Khonsu.

Mortuary figurines
Description:
On the left - a mortuary statuette of the lady of the house of Mutri (wood, XV century BC)
In the center and on the right are the funeral statuettes of Ken-amon, the ruler of the royal household of Pharaoh Ammenhotep II (alabaster, basalt, 15th century BC)

Gods of Ancient Egypt. Osiris and Isis
Description:
Osiris is the ruler of the underworld.
Isis with Horus.

Figurines from the hall of Ancient Egypt

Statue of Pharaoh Amenemhat III
Description:
The statue of Pharaoh Amenemhat III is the best example of the Egyptian cultural period of its heyday. Based on the identity of the facial features of this portrait with the faces of sphinxes found in the north of Egypt in Tanissa, V.S. Golenishchev established that the Tanisian sphinxes depict Amenemhat III, and not Ramses II, as was previously believed according to the hieroglyphic inscriptions carved on the pedestals of the sphinxes. Pharaoh Ramesses II, usurping the sphinxes, replaced the name of Amenemhat III with his own.

Statue of the god Osiris
Description:
Osiris (Greek Ὄσῑρις - the Greekized form of the Egyptian name Usir) is the god of rebirth, the king of the underworld in ancient Egyptian mythology. Sometimes Osiris was depicted with the head of a bull.

According to references in ancient Egyptian texts and the story of Plutarch, Usir was the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, the brother and husband of Isis, the brother of Nephthys, Set, the father of Horus, Anubis. He was the fourth of the gods who reigned on earth in primordial times, having inherited the power of his great-grandfather Ra-Atum, grandfather Shu and father Geb. The tomb of Osiris was in Abydos.

Reigning over Egypt, Osiris taught people agriculture, gardening and winemaking, but was killed by his brother, the god Set, who wanted to rule in his place. The wife of Osiris, his sister Isis, found his corpse and began to mourn him along with her sister Nephthys. Ra, taking pity, sends the jackal-headed god Anubis, who collected the scattered (or, in another version, chopped by Set) parts of Osiris, embalmed the body and swaddled it.
Isis, in the form of a falcon, descended on the corpse of Osiris and, miraculously conceived from him, gave birth to a son, Horus. Horus is both conceived and born in order to act as a natural avenger for the death of his father. At the same time, he considers himself the only legitimate heir of the latter.

After a long litigation, Horus is recognized as the rightful heir of Osiris and receives the kingdom. He resurrects Osiris by letting him swallow his eye. However, Osiris does not return to earth and remains the king of the dead, leaving Horus to rule the kingdom of the living.

Combining at different times, for various reasons, the cults of the king, the dying and resurrecting god of the productive forces of nature, the Nile, the bull, the moon, the afterlife judge at the terrible court, the myth of Osiris absorbed the reflection of the religious ideas of a number of successive stages in the development of Egyptian society .

The myth of Osiris is deeply rooted in the era of tribal society, from the ideas and rituals of which subsequently develop, in connection with the change in social relations in Egypt, the most characteristic features of the cult of Osiris: the cult of the king and the cult of the god of the productive forces of nature. The features of the cult of the god of the productive forces of nature appear very clearly in the myth of Osiris.
Wall painting with Osiris

The crown worn by Osiris is made from papyrus stalks, his sacred boat is also made from this plant, and his djed symbol consists of several bundles of reeds inserted one into the other. Further, Osiris is always depicted with one or another plant: from the pond in front of his throne grows either a lotus or a row of trees and a vine; sometimes the whole canopy, under which Osiris sits, is twined with bunches of grapes; sometimes vines twine around him.

In the same way, the tomb of Osiris is not depicted without greenery: either a tree grows next to it, on which the soul of Osiris sits in the form of a phoenix; that tree sprouted through the tomb, wrapping its branches and roots around it; then four trees grow from the tomb itself.

Queen Cleopatra VII
Description:
Statue of Queen Cleopatra VII.
Basalt. Second half of the 1st c. BC.

Cleopatra VII (ancient Greek Κλεοπάτρα, 69 - 30 BC) - the last queen of Hellenistic Egypt from the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies (Lagids).
Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for 22 years consecutively in co-rule with her brothers (they are traditionally formal husbands) Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, then in actual marriage with the Roman commander Mark Antony. She was the last independent ruler of Egypt before the Roman conquest and is often, although not entirely correctly, considered the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. She gained wide popularity thanks to her love affair with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. By Caesar she had a son, by Antony two sons and a daughter.

Cleopatra already during her lifetime became the heroine of legends; her tragic death further strengthened the tendency to romanticize the image - so that the romantic halo created by ancient Roman authors and the enthusiasm of modern filmmakers interfere with an objective look at the queen - undoubtedly the most famous of all women of antiquity.

Sources on Cleopatra - Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian, Dio Cassius, Josephus Flavius. For the most part, ancient historiography is unfavorable to her; there is an opinion that it was inspired by the winner of Cleopatra, the emperor Octavian Augustus and his entourage, who sought to denigrate the queen, presenting her as a dangerous enemy of Rome and the evil genius of Mark Antony.
Cleopatra has become one of the most popular ancient characters in films and literary works.

Sarcophagi of ancient Egypt
Description:
Sarcophagi of the ancient Egyptian priest Pa-di-ist.
Inner sarcophagus, outer sarcophagus (lid and bottom).
Tree. 10th century BC

Scribe Maa-ni-amon
Description:
Statue of Maa-ni-amon (limestone) grain account scribe.
Mid 15th century BC.

Goddess Mut-Sokhmet

Goddess Mut-Sokhmet
Description:
Statue of the goddess Mut-Sokhmet (basalt). 15th century BC.

Sekhmet (Sokhmet) is the patron goddess of Memphis, the wife of Ptah.

Sekhmet ("mighty") - the goddess of war and the scorching sun, the formidable eye of the sun god Ra, a healer who had the magical power to infect diseases and heal them, patronized doctors who were considered her priests. Protected the pharaoh.
She had an uncontrollable personality. She was depicted with a lion's head, which caused her to be identified with Buttermilk, Tefnut and Bast. She was the personification of the heat of the sun and the destructive energy of the Sun, which is why a disk was depicted on her head. As the goddess of heat, Sekhmet seemed very severe (in particular, they said about Isis that she was kind like Bast, but terrible like Sekhmet).
In the late myth about the extermination of recalcitrant humanity by the god Ra, Sekhmet (in other versions of the myth - Hathor) as the eye of Ra enjoyed beating people, and only the beer prepared by the gods, on which Sekhmet attacked and got drunk, made her stop the massacre. Sekhmet was considered the slayer of the enemies of the gods.
During the Middle Kingdom, the pharaohs as the protectors of Egypt from enemies were often compared to Sekhmet; therefore, the goddess was sometimes depicted with a sword in her hands.
Some versions of the creation myth of mankind refer to her as the creator of the Libyans and Asiatics. She bore the epithet "mighty" or "powerful".
She bore the names Great and Lady of the Desert. She was the guardian of the world and the protector of people. They turned to her in moments of danger. It was believed that her anger brought pestilence and epidemics, and when a plague broke out in Egypt, Pharaoh Amenhotep III ordered seven hundred statues of the goddess to be made to appease the angry gods. The goddess was worshiped in the temple of Heliopolis, where the priests held sacred lions.
Temples were also erected on the edge of the desert, where wild lions roamed.

Stele with the image of the ruler of the royal household, the royal fan-bearer Ipi in front of the god Anubis. The reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamen
The reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamun - I-I floor. 14th century BC.
The impoverishment of tombs in terms of relief images that followed at the end of the Old Kingdom led to the spread of stelae - stone slabs with tomb images, mainly of meal scenes. The canonical inscriptions contained on the steles include the so-called "sacrificial formula", sometimes the "formula for addressing the living", the names and titles of the owners of the steles and their relatives, often depicted along with them on the monuments.
The steles were not only belonging to the tomb. They were placed in temples dedicated to various gods. So a huge number of stelae of the Middle Kingdom comes from Abydos - the place of worship of the god of the dead, Osiris. In this city, every Egyptian wanted to have his own memorial for the dead - whether it was a stele, a statuette, or a small resemblance of a sacrificial chapel.

God Ptah and Goddess Sokhmet

Sculptural group: Scribe Sheri with his wife and son.

Mirror

Stele with the image of the commander Har - em - heb (later pharaoh) in front of the gods: Amut, Osiris, Ptah - Sakar.

HALL OF ANCIENT EGYPT IN THE HERMITAGE (1st FLOOR, HALL 2)

Today you and I came to Winter Palace. The royal (imperial) family used to live here. Empress Catherine II turned part of the palace into a museum, where they began to collect a collection of paintings and statues.

Since 1852, this museum, which began to be called the Hermitage anyone could visit.

Now we are going to the Hall of Ancient Egypt….

The main rule of this hall: Silence, here you can only speak in an undertone. Here, all the exhibits are immersed in the deepest sleep and riddled with mystery!

So, we begin to solve riddles and complete tasks:

Task 1. On what continent is the state of Egypt?

Hint - fill in the missing word in the nursery rhyme and you will know the answer:

"Little children, for nothing in the world

Do not go, children, to _ _ _ _ _ _ for a walk!

In _ _ _ _ _ _ sharks, in _ _ _ _ _ _ gorillas,

The _ _ _ _ _ _ big evil crocodiles."

In ancient Egypt, the kings were called pharaohs. Signs by which you can recognize the statue of the pharaoh:

· Handkerchief was a common headdress in Egypt. In Egypt, the sun is hot and strong. The head must always be covered. The royal scarf was gold with blue stripes. Sometimes a crown was put on him.

· Beard was a symbol of the power and male power of the king, was made artificially and tied up.

· Hook- short wand with a curved top. It was worn not only by gods and kings, but also by high officials.

· Wand(was) - a long cane with a forked lower end and a top in the form of a dog's or jackal's head.

Task 2. Find the statue of the pharaoh in the hall by these signs. What was his name?

Figure hint

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

When the pharaoh died, he was buried in a large stone pyramid. Pharaoh started building his pyramids even during his lifetime. Because at that time only manual labor was used, there were no cranes and excavators yet. They built a pyramid of blocks of limestone, basalt and granite. There were many different rooms inside the pyramid.

The Pyramid of Cheops- the highest and most voluminous of all Egyptian pyramids, its height is 138.5 meters. This is a 46 storey building! The average weight of one block that makes up the pyramid is 2.5 tons (2500 kg or the weight of 100 of you in clothes!)

But before the deceased pharaoh was transferred to the pyramid, his body was mummified (turned into a mummy) and closed in a sarcophagus.

Task 3. Find a mummy in the hall. Who does she belong to?

Answer _ _ _ _

A mummy is a burial method in ancient Egypt. Only pharaohs, pharaoh's advisers, priests and other wealthy citizens could afford it.

Clue The body of the mummy is wrapped in a bandage made of linen cut into ribbons.

Task 4. Let's count how many sarcophagi are in this room.

My answer _ _ Your answer _ _

In ancient Egypt, cats were considered the embodiment of the fertility goddess Bast and were revered as sacred animals. The punishment for killing a cat was the death penalty. There are many figurines and images of cats from this period.

Task 5. Find the figurine. How many cats are there in total?

My answer _ _. Your answer _ _.

Modern people learned a lot about the history of Ancient Egypt by reading the found papyri.

Papyrus- this is what was written on before.

A wetland plant was used to make papyrus. papyrus.

stems papyrus peeled, the core was cut lengthwise into thin strips. The resulting strips were laid out overlapping on a flat surface and placed under a large smooth stone, and then left under the scorching sun. After drying, the papyrus sheet was beaten with a hammer and smoothed. Then the resulting sheets papyrus glued one to the other. The sheets in their final form looked like long ribbons and therefore were preserved in scrolls.

Task 6. Guess the riddle:

« Glue the ship, soldier,

Locomotive, car, sword.
Help you guys
Multicolored _ _ _ _ _ _ .

This is what you write on now! The starting material for obtaining paper is wood.

AND NOW TO RECEIVE THE PRIZE, FILL THE CROSSWORD!!!

1. What is the name of the palace on Palace Square?

2. On what continent is the state of Egypt?

3. What was the name of the material on which they wrote in ancient Egypt?

4. What was the name of the king in Ancient Egypt?

WELL DONE! GET A PRIZE!

The mummy of the priest Pa-di-sta is one of the oldest kept in the museums of the world. In ancient Egypt, the dead were first placed in graves in the fetal position, along with all their valuables. They began to mummify them in 2400 BC using, for example, honey and frankincense.

The Greek historian Herodotus first documented the process of mummification in 450 BC. Along with mummies, valuable things of the deceased were buried in pyramids and tombs, among which there were many expensive jewelry. It was because of them that in the 19th-20th centuries a real hunt for mummies began, accompanied by the looting of tombs. At the same time, legends about the “curses of mummies” appeared: they say, whoever enters the pyramid will die. In fact, this is nothing more than a rumor. Even those involved in the penetration into the tomb of Tutankhamun died a natural death and not immediately after the opening of the grave.

Pa di east is not the only mummified dead in the Hermitage. In total, at least five of them are stored in the storerooms. It lies under a special bulletproof glass, it is constantly disinfected, cleaned, and a special guard is assigned to it.

egyptian hall

One of the key works of the early Leonardo da Vinci, written by him at the turn of 1460-1470. The “Madonna with a Flower” became a model for the then painters, and oil paints were used to create paintings just after the early experiments of da Vinci. The story of how she got to Russia is shrouded in mystery. According to legend, the Benois family bought it from a traveling Astrakhan circus. Actually this is not true. Maria Benois, nee Sapozhnikova, inherited this painting from her father. And the first mention of her in Russian property inventories dates back to the beginning of the 19th century: at that time, Madonna belonged to the family of the recently deceased senator Korsakov. The Imperial Hermitage bought the painting from Marie Benois. It is noteworthy that the payment was not one-time: part of the money was transferred to her after the October Revolution.

Next to the Benois Madonna, the Hermitage houses the Litta Madonna; the museum bought it from the Italian Litta family in the 1860s. It is believed that the author of the painting is Leonardo da Vinci - a sketch of a female head is kept in the museum - but a number of art critics doubt the authorship of the great artist. Perhaps, they say, part of the picture was painted by one of Leonardo's students, as indicated by the unnatural poses of mother and child in the composition.

A unique mechanical device by the master James Cox, who invented it together with Friedrich Urey. The clock was bought by Potemkin for Catherine II. They were brought to St. Petersburg only in 1792, when the favorite of the Empress had already died. First, they were exhibited in the Tauride Palace, and then moved to the Winter Palace, where they are still kept. The famous Kulibin repaired them twice (some of the parts were damaged during transportation). But in general, the unique clock has survived to this day without changes - this is the only known large mechanical device of the 18th century that has not yet failed.

"Danae" by Rembrandt

The picture depicts a traditional ancient Greek story: the king of the city of Argos, having learned that he would die at the hands of his grandson, the son of Danae, imprisoned her. But the god Zeus still penetrates to her in the form of golden rain. After that, Danae will give birth to a son, Perseus.

Rembrandt painted Danaë from two women at once. The first prototype of the heroine was his wife, Saskia van Uilenbürch, the second - the mistress Gertier Dirks, with whom the artist entered into a relationship after the death of his wife. The picture itself depicts just the moment when Zeus made his way to Danae in the form of golden rain. As was customary in those days, the ancient Greek plot is depicted in the scenery of the New Age (a maid's costume, a bed, a girl's curvaceous forms, which were considered the standard of beauty in those days).

In Russia, "Danae" came in 1772, when Catherine the Second bought it. And 200 years later, it was with this painting that the most famous act of museum vandalism happened. Lithuanian Bronius Maigis, driven, as he himself said, by political motives, on August 26, 1985, doused the painting with sulfuric acid and stabbed it twice.

Maygis was declared insane. Boris Piotrovsky immediately sent for the chemist Schultz, who gave recommendations on how to prevent the final destruction of the painting (pour water in an upright position, find a bonding solution, and the like). Despite the fact that the loss in the end amounted to 27% of the canvas, the painting was completely restored, since 1997 it has been in the painting hall of Holland and Flanders. Under armored glass.

Hall of Dutch and Flemish Paintings

Another - along with "Danaea" - the great work of Rembrandt, stored in the Hermitage. “And while he was still far away, his father saw him and had compassion; and, running, fell on his neck and kissed him, ”this is the ending of the famous biblical parable of the prodigal son.

Rembrandt painted the picture for a very long time. The first drawings and etchings appeared as early as the 1630s and 1640s, and finally he took up the illustration of the biblical story only in the 1660s. The painting has become one of the most recognizable in Rembrandt's work. For example, one of the scenes at the end of Tarkovsky's Solaris visually completely repeats it. And the famous avant-garde composer Benjamin Britten even wrote an opera, admiring the beauty of the painting.

One of the best portraits of the Baroque era. Gainsborough is believed to have painted him from Elizabeth Beaufort, daughter of Admiral Boscowen. He became the pinnacle of the artist's work: refined female beauty, grace, half-smile, half-tones. Everything is neat and orderly. The portrait came to the Hermitage from the Jägermeister Khitrovo in 1912. At the moment, this is the only work of Gainsborough, which is in Russian museums.

One of the greatest works of modernism, a huge canvas with "red men", which at first caused a terrible scandal and public rejection. Sergei Shchukin, who ordered it for his Moscow mansion, was called "a collector of all kinds of rubbish." Critics did not spare even Henri Matisse himself, who wrote "Dance" (and "Music") under the influence of both "Russian Seasons" by Diaghilev and Greek vase painting (figures of people, their movements - all this is very reminiscent of the drawings on jugs and vases stored on the first floor of the Hermitage).

Then, when Shchukin's collection was nationalized, most of the works of art that belonged to him were sent to the Pushkin Museum, the Hermitage got only "Music" and "Dance".

At one time, this sculpture became part of the composition "The Gates of Hell" at the main doors of the French Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts: it was the main work of the sculptor. Subsequently, Rodin repeated this sculpture. This is a rare case when the marble was partially made so unhewn in order to give the composition more naturalness.

It is believed that for Russian art one should go to the Mikhailovsky Palace, and the Hermitage is only a world heritage. Actually not in everything. One of the main Russian avant-garde artists of the early 20th century, whose paintings hang in the best museums in the world, is exhibited in the Winter Palace, as if emphasizing his significance for the history of world modernism. The Hermitage has a whole hall dedicated to the work of Kandinsky. The main canvas is "Composition VI": bright, painted in sweeping strokes, perfectly reflecting the turbulent beginning of the 20th century. As Kandinsky himself wrote, “a grandiose, objectively occurring catastrophe is at the same time an absolute and self-sounding hot song of praise, like the anthem of a new creation that follows the catastrophe.” The picture was painted in May 1913. A year later, apparently, the very catastrophe that the artist is talking about happened.