Ancient Egyptian Art and Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

Ancient Egyptian art is instantly recognisable, but the objects, images and monuments now displayed in museums were created for particular people, places and purposes. Christina Riggs surveys roughly four thousand years of Egyptian visual culture, asking how statues, reliefs, paintings, temples, tombs and other works functioned within the societies that produced and used them.

Rather than treating Egyptian art as a fixed collection of stylistic rules, Riggs connects artistic practice with kingship, religion, death, the natural environment and everyday social relationships. She also examines the modern afterlife of Egyptian art—its excavation, collection, museum display and enduring influence on Western ideas of ancient Egypt. This Very Short Introduction offers a compact, thoughtful guide for readers who want to understand both the ancient meaning of Egyptian material culture and the ways it has been interpreted in the modern world.