Prolegomena to the Study of Meroitic Art

AbstractThe history of Kush is a complex one in which the polities of Egypt, Kerma, Napata, and Meroe shaped the culture and historical trajectory of the Middle Nile Valley. During the Meroitic Period appropriations and adaptations of art from pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt and to a lesser extent from the Mediterranean world obscure its art’s fundamental qualities. Because Meroitic artists enjoyed a degree of autonomy, different visual styles and standards of quality coexisted without following particular paths of stylistic development. Michel Baud aptly described Meroitic art as multivalent in nature. Examples of art and architecture have typically been studied and published as individual artifacts without systematically contextualizing them within broader study of Meroitic aesthetics, exploring the nature of Meroe’s appropriations of Egyptian and classical styles and iconography, creating a history of their stylistic development, or considering how the circumstances of their manufacture impacted their appearance. This entry offers a preliminary examination of these as prolegomena to the development of a history of Meroitic art.