ARCE Chicago Chapter: Invisible blue and searching for colors in the Kushite chapel of Osiris Neb-ankh/Pa-wesheb-iad in Karnak

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Info about Lecture:

Photo Credit: NSouchon

The lecture presents the recent research in the Kushite chapel of Osiris/Neb-ankh/Pa-wesheb-iad in Karnak focusing on the colors in its decorative scheme. The chapel was erected during the reign of Taharqo and the pontificate of God’s wife Shepenwepet II. The secure date of the chapel’s erection provides the opportunity to study its decoration, including the surviving polychromy, in a secure historical and archaeological context. The once colorful monument today reveals only glimpses of it’s original polychromy, that frequently forces us to reconstruct the color palette based on traces of surviving pigments. The colors are not only fading and vanishing, but are also prone to deterioration as they undergo changes due to their chemical composition. The observations are based on fieldwork conducted at Karnak Temple that took place during the last few seasons in the framework of the Mission, “Osirian sanctuaries at Karnak”, and was funded by National Science Centre of Poland in capacity of the Grant Harmonica 8. 

About Aleksandra Hallmann: 

Hallmann is an Egyptologist specializing in iconography, costume studies, and construction of identities through material culture. Her fieldwork focuses on the Theban area where she is working as an epigrapher for the Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, as well as for the French mission “Osirian Sanctuaries at Karnak.” She received a PhD from the University of Warsaw, Poland, and currently holds a faculty position at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures at the Polish Academy of Sciences.