Garden art in ancient Egypt
The garden art in ancient Egypt was marked religious. Due to excavations, temple inscriptions and wall paintings, this garden culture and the creation of kitchen and ornamental gardens have been around since at least the 3rd millennium BC. Comparatively well documented. The pyramids and temples, which are now surrounded by desert, were once surrounded by large gardens. In addition, the pharaohs and the Egyptian upper class owned lavishly designed pleasure gardens .
development
The country
Egypt is characterized by the contrast between the long, narrow Nile valley and the surrounding deserts. Year after year, the Nile flooded this land and supplied the soil with nutrients (see also Nilometer ). There was no forest. Garden cultures with larger tree plantations or perennial plants could only develop on hills and the valley edges that were not reached by the annual floods. So these plants were dependent on human care from the start. A ramified network of canals, dams and locks brought the water of the Nile to these higher parts of the country.
supporting documents
Excavations, inscriptions and pictorial representations convey a relatively precise picture of the ancient Egyptian garden culture. The rock tombs in Beni Hassan ( Egypt ), in which pictures of gardens were found , prove that horticulture was already practiced in prehistoric times . Also the plan of a garden of the king there found in Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt by Karl Richard Lepsius , which was built in the early 16th century BC. The small garden model in the tomb of Meketre , the treasurer of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II (2061-2010 BC) or the wall paintings in the Tomb of the Night (TT52) , a temple astronomer at the time of Thutmose IV . (1397 to 1388 BC) prove the high development of garden art at the time. The murals of the graves, which had gardens and their order as a theme, were grave goods as well as the actual or depicted dishes and were intended to guarantee survival in the afterlife. They also represented the wealth of the deceased, just as they were the religious symbol for the rebirth of the dead.
Influence of religion
The religious ideas of the ancient Egyptians not only had a decisive influence on the fact that we now have a relatively clear picture of the ancient Egyptian garden culture. Trees were sacred to the Egyptians, and sycamore in particular was greatly admired . Each of the temples had its own sacred grove. We can therefore assume that tree gardens with strict uniformity were the first gardens.
Since the rite provided for flower, food and libation offerings, the temples and pyramids were surrounded with large gardens in honor of the gods and the deceased. From the time of Ramses III. (1193–1162 BC) there are lists of 513 temple gardens. It was here that the flowers , food and drinks that were necessary for the ritual activities were grown. All temple gardens - from the pre-dynastic period to the New Kingdom - were laid out regularly. Water played a central role. Every ancient Egyptian garden - including those of the wealthy officials and especially those of the pharaohs - was equipped with at least one rectangular water basin with stairs . These artificial ponds were used for ritual purification . Some of these basins were so large that barges could drive on them. Amenhotep III had a water basin 1.5 km long and more than 300 m wide built in Thebes. For the twelfth annual celebration of the coronation, it was filled with water and was the focus of the festivities, during which the Pharaoh, among other things, sailed this basin in a magnificent royal barge.
We know from wall paintings how the gardens of the Middle and New Egyptian Empire were laid out around such artificially created water systems. Vineyards , vegetable gardens , flower beds , further ponds , open garden pavilions and avenues that lay in a square bounded by high walls were arranged strictly symmetrically . Often water channels crisscrossed the area. There are no figurative sources for the garden cultures of the pre-dynastic times and the Old Kingdom .
Not only the temples and palaces were surrounded by gardens. Every Egyptian wanted to surround his house with shady trees in order to enjoy the shade and enjoy the scent of the flowers. How important these private gardens were in the cult of the dead is shown by frequent representations that refer to the funeral celebrations in the center of the garden. The mummy or statue of the deceased is rowed across the pond created in life and brought to where the deceased loved to stay. In the garden the mourning party gathers and hands over the offerings. In the imagination of the ancient Egyptians, the soul will be able to make use of this property at any time, as the following grave inscription emphasizes: “... that I can then indulge myself every day without stopping on the bank of my pond, that my soul can rest on the branches of the trees that I have planted and refresh myself in the shade under my sycamore. "
The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut
In Deir el-Bahari there is the mortuary temple of the pharaoh Hatshepsut (1490-1470 or 1468 BC). Three wide terraces lie one above the other, the terrace walls are each time decorated with porticos and the sanctuary is carved out of the rock. An ascending processional road leads from the river to the sanctuary. It can be assumed that this street was once lined with acacia trees. In front of the gate leading to the sanctuary, excavations have uncovered the square walled shafts that were once filled with Nile earth to give the trees the best nourishment. They were artificially watered through pipes inserted at the side and remains of the old tree trunks were found in the shafts. Gardens with trees were laid out on the terraces. Here too, remains of these trees have been found in the wall shafts of the terraces. The probably very complex irrigation systems of these terrace gardens can unfortunately not be clearly recognized from the excavations.
In the portico that closes the gardens, the pharaoh has inscriptions and pictures tell of her deeds: God Amun had commissioned her to plant a garden in his house (i.e. temple). Following his request, she equips a ship expedition to Punt (according to today's assumption Somalia ) to bring incense trees from this land of the gods . Pictures of the temple show how the expedition in Punt successfully collect all kinds of treasures, including 32 incense trees. They could be brought to Egypt in pots, successfully planted in the temple garden, and thrive in such a way that the cows could graze under them.
Also Ramses III. prides itself on having made foreign plants native in honor of the god Amun. In the Harris I papyrus it says with regard to a temple donation: "I will give you large gardens, provided with their pieces of trees and vines in the temple of Atum , I give you tracts of land with olive trees in his city On . I provided them with gardeners and numerous people to keep things clean To prepare oil from Egypt to light the lamps in your splendid temple. I will give you trees and trees with date palms, ponds, provided with lotus flowers , rushes, grasses and flowers of every country for your beautiful face ".
The toil of watering
Wall paintings in many graves of this time demonstrate the hardship with which the gardens were wrested from the desert . How laborious and laborious the irrigation was, illustrates a text passage from the life teachings of Cheti , a writer from the 12th dynasty around 1800:
The gardener bears the yoke;
his shoulders are bowed as if with age.
He has so many ulcers on his neck
that it resembles a purulent wound.
In the morning he waters the vegetables
and in the evening the schat plants,
spending the whole day in the orchard.
Then he falls dead tired,
and that applies to him more than in any other job
The relatively small Egyptian house gardens merged the plantings with the artificially created ponds and basins to form a design unit. On a garden model that has been preserved in the Metropolitan Museum , New York , the water basin, framed by sycamore figs , takes up almost the entire garden area. Only in the New Kingdom was the water scoop invented, the so-called shadoof , which made the work of watering the garden easier.
Ancient Egyptian horticulture reached its peak during the time of the New Kingdom between 1550 and 1080 BC. Chr.
The garden in ancient Egyptian poetry
The ancient Egyptians had a particularly intimate relationship with their gardens, which they had so laboriously wrested from the desert and which also played such an important role in their religious imagination in life after death. This love for the gardens and the flowers in them is also reflected in Egyptian poetry:
I am your first sister,
I am to you like the garden that
I planted with flowers
and all the sweet-smelling herbs.
Beautiful is the channel in it that
your hand dug
when the north wind is blowing cool.
The beautiful place where we go
when your hand is on mine
and my heart grows full of joy
because we walk together.
It is a binge that I hear your voice
and I live because I hear it.
Whenever I see you, I
feel better than eating and drinking.
plants
Various cultivated plants can be identified as early as the pre-dynastic period :
- the sycamore (Ficus sycomorus) , also called sycamore fig, which has been growing since the time of the Old Kingdom around 2600 BC. BC was also worshiped as the goddess of love Hathor and whose wood the ancient Egyptians used for the construction of furniture, ships, coffins and statues.
- the Doum palm (Hyphaene thebaica) and the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) , both of which can be identified for this period on the basis of mat remains, traps and fans
- the wine that was made for the time of the first dynasty around 2950 BC. BC in Abydos and from the 3rd Dynasty around three hundred years later in Saqqara .
In the tombs in the pyramids were seeds and the remains found on a number of garden plants. In the grave ( KV62 ) of Tutankhamun many plant remains were found as additions. The proven plants include u. a .:
Acacia ( Acacia nilotica ), leek ( Allium porrum ), Balsamodendron , Ralamtes aegyptiaca , chicory (Cichorium intybus) , dill , celery , coriander ( Coriandrum sativum ), fenugreek , Citrullus edulis , cucumber ( Cucumis sativus ), yellow nutsedge ( Cyperus esculentus ) , Real fig ( Ficus carica ), Hyphaene thebaica , Juniperus phoenicea (Juniperus phoenicea) , Mimusops ummeligella sativa , pomegranate (Punica granatum) , castor bean ( Ricinus communis ), radish ( Raphanus sativus ), Sapindus , grapevine ( Vitis vinifera ).
literature
(sorted chronologically)
- Marie Luise Gothein : History of garden art. 2 volumes. Diederichs, Jena 1926, (reprint. 2 volumes in 1 volume. Olms, Hildesheim et al. 1977, ISBN 3-487-06416-2 ).
- Jan Assmann : Hieroglyphic Gardens. In: Günter Oesterle: Remembering and Forgetting in European Romanticism (= Foundation for Romantic Research. 20). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2229-7 , pp. 25-50.
- Karin Dzionara : The Garden in Ancient Egypt. In: Hans Sarkowicz (Ed.): The history of gardens and parks (= Insel-Taschenbuch. 2723). Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2001 ISBN 3-458-34423-3 , pp. 25-37.
- Michaela Klause: Garden art (= dumont paperbacks. 541, DuMont crash course ). DuMont, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-8321-7604-7 .
- Christian E. Loeben , Sven Kappel: The plants in the ancient Egyptian garden. An inventory catalog of the Egyptian collection in the August Kestner Museum. Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2009, ISBN 978-3-86757-452-5 .
- Sven Kappel: Gardens in ancient Egypt and Nubia (= archeology, inscriptions and monuments of ancient Egypt. Vol. 1). Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westphalia 2011, ISBN 978-3-86757-531-7 .
- Christian Tietze (Ed.): Egyptian Gardens. Arcus, Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-00-034699-6 (volume accompanying the exhibition in the Römisch Germanisches Museum ).