Visual Culture Research task: Ancient Egypt

I am going to research in to Ancient Egypt and how the Egyptians communicated through their paintings and carvings, mostly relating to their religious and spiritual beliefs.

Above is an ancient Egyptian piece depicting the Goddess Nut, Nut is arched over the world as she is the sky. In ancient Egypt the Gods and Goddess's were sometimes personified as elements, Nut is one of them. She is shown here to be a slender female arching to protect everything under her. Around and under her hieroglyphs and figures are shown to be giving her respect. One of the symbols near here is the Ankh. A symbol showing eternal life and life flourishing. The eye of Rah is also shown.
In this piece the creator is communicating to us that their beliefs are that Nut is an almighty force and that everything under her flourishes and is powerful, this shows us the importance of Nut to the people of ancient Egypt. 

Above is a carving showing a master with his slaves. Power is the main element communicated to us through this piece. The master is clear as he is holding his slaves by the hair. Another way to see power through this piece is the size difference in these depictions, the master is twice the size of the slaves and this shows he is more value to society and higher up. The slaves lives are shown as worth less than half of the masters, this shows us that in ancient Egypt that slaves where possessions.

In tombs depictions of the masters and their day to day life including their slaves were carved and painted on the walls, this was to that these luxuries would be in the masters afterlife. It was thought that whatever was placed around the tomb such as the paintings, carvings and furnishings, these things would be in the afterlife of that person (who was in the tomb) and the persons afterlife would be as it was in the previous. Wealth and power would be carried on. 

Above is a painting that shows us what the ancient egyptians thought would be carried out after death before the person could carry on to the afterlife. In the middle is the dead souls heart being weighed against a feather while Thoth the ibis-headed scribe God looks on and takes the results. If the persons heart is pure they will pass on to the afterlife, if not Ammut, the half crocodile will devour the heart. Anubis is at the scale weighing the heart against the feather, the feather represents Maat, the Goddess of truth.
This communicates the beliefs of the people of Ancient Egypt and what they believed would be coming after they have died and before they can move on to the afterlife.