Paint like an Egyptian

Almost everyone knows about the amazing paintings in the tombs in theValley of the Kings and the cool temples which the Egyptians built for their gods, but did you know that originally the temples would have looked quite different. Where today we see only stone originally the carvings would have been brightly painted.

Sven's mission was to try and find as much of the surviving colour as he could so you can see what Ancient Egyptian paintings looked like, and maybe have a go at doing some yourself.

For example look at this pillar from the temple at Kom-Ombo showing Isis and the hawk headed god Horus. It is quite a good example of painted stone, although the colours have faded over time most of the detail can still be made out.

Let's start with the god's crown. Here Horus is wearing a crown which symbolises that he is king of the two lands, upper and lower Egypt. The Red part is clear enough and originally the middle would have been white. So to start your colours you need red and white.
Moving onto the body. here you can see that Horus has a sort of robe on held up by straps over his shoulders. The collar round his neck and his belt are both blue. His clothes and wig are brown and yellow.
Although largely destroyed, there are still some remnants of the sort of patterns that were used to decorate the carvings. These two pictures show different types of skirts that the gods were shown wearing. Perhaps you can use these small sections as a starting point for your own paintings.

These photographs show restored colour from the temple at Deir-el Medina. As you can see the Egyptians were quite creative with their colour schemes. Depending on how much detail they wanted to show the figures could either be painted in simple colours or quite complicated patterns.

If you try some Ancient Egyptian paintings please scan a photo of your work and send it to Sven. If he gets enough he will put the best ones on the website.