EGYPTIAN FRESCOES

EGYPTIAN FRESCOES

The Austrian archaeologist, Manfred Bietak has been excavating since the 1960s at Tell el-Dab‘a, the site of the city of Avaris, capital of the Hyksos rulers from Syria–Palestine, who gained control of northern Egypt during the so-called Second Intermediate Period. The deep stratigraphy at Tell el-Dab‘a allows the changing settlement patterns of a large Bronze Age community to be observed over a period of many generations. In the early 1990s the main focus of excavation was the substructure of a large palace building of the early 18th Dynasty at Ezbet Helmi on the western edge of the site.

In 1987 many fragments of Minoan wall-paintings were discovered among debris covering the ancient gardens adjoining the palace. Several of these derived from compositions evidently depicting ‘bull-leapers’, like those in the famous Middle Bronze Age palace at Knossos. Whereas the Minoan and Mycenaean pottery vessels previously found at many New Kingdom sites in Egypt are usually interpreted as evidence of trade with the Aegean, the presence of Minoan wall-paintings at Tell el-Dab‘a suggested that the population of Avaris in the early 18th Dynasty (c.1550 bc) may actually have included Aegean families. It has been suggested that the frequent use of a red painted background may even mean that the Tell el-Dab‘a Minoan paintings predate those of Crete and Thera (Santorini).
The existence of Minoan wall-paintings, and therefore presumably Minoan artists, at a site within Egypt itself may help to explain the appearance in early 18th-Dynasty Egyptian tomb paintings of such Aegean motifs as the ‘ﬂying gallop’ (i.e. the depiction of animals’ fore- and hindlegs outstretched in full ﬂight). Similar fragments of Minoan paintings have been found at two sites in the Levant (Kabri and Alalakh), where they also appear to be associated with the ruling elite, as at Avaris. This discovery is one of a small number of crucial lynchpins that are potentially able to link together the chronologies of various cultures across the East Mediterranean region. The ﬁnd also raises the question of what we mean by ‘Minoan’ culture. Until the discovery of the Tell el-Dab‘a frescos, it was assumed that Crete was the source of this kind of ‘Minoan’ art, and that when it appeared elsewhere it was a sign of Cretan contact with other cultures in the Mediterranean, either through trade or population movement. The presence of ‘Minoan’ art in the Egyptian Delta before it had appeared on Crete suggests that it might have actually originated outside Crete, although the fact that this is so far the only recorded instance of this kind of art in Egypt probably makes it unlikely that Egyptian culture itself was the source.