Why Carve the Figure Into the Wall Instead of Out of It? Egyptian Sunshine

In ordinary relief the background is cut away so that the figure stands proud of the surface, which requires removing a great deal of material and leaves the image projecting where it can be knocked and weathered. In the technique described here the surface is left untouched and the outline of the figure is cut down into it, with the figure then modelled inside that sunken area so that no part of it rises above the original surface. Far less material is removed, the work is faster, and the image is protected, since nothing projects. The whole difference is whether the figure sits above the wall or within it.

The technique depends entirely on the lighting it was made for:

• •A cut outline casts a hard shadow along one edge in low-angle sun
• •That shadow defines the figure sharply from a distance
• •Strong light flattens ordinary relief by filling its shadows
• •The effect is strongest in the morning and evening and weakest at noon
• •In dim interior light the image is nearly invisible
• •Which is why Egyptian interiors use ordinary relief and exteriors use this

Egyptian wall carving was a workshop process with a defined sequence, and unfinished walls show every stage. The surface was prepared and a grid was drawn on it to standardise proportions, which is why figures across three thousand years have such consistent proportions. Draughtsmen drew the design in red and a supervisor corrected it in black, and both stages survive on abandoned work. Carvers then cut the outline and modelled the interior. Painters applied colour to the finished carving, which is frequently forgotten since almost all of it has gone, and the works that survive with their paint show that these walls were brilliantly coloured rather than stone-coloured.

Egyptian figures follow rules that look like a failure of perspective and are a deliberate system. Each part of the body is shown from the angle that identifies it most clearly, so the head appears in profile while the eye appears frontally, the shoulders appear frontally while the hips and legs appear in profile, and the whole figure combines viewpoints that no single observer could have. That is a decision about what an image is for, namely to record a person completely and permanently rather than to record how they looked from one position at one moment. Scale carries meaning rather than distance, with important figures shown larger. The system remained stable for three thousand years because it was doing its job.

The technique is strongly associated with Egypt and is not confined to it. Mesopotamian and Persian carvers used comparable approaches. Indian rock-cut architecture uses sunken panels extensively. Modern architectural lettering uses exactly the same principle, since an inscription cut into a stone facade reads in raking sunlight and is protected from weather and from damage, which is why building names, memorials and gravestones are almost always cut rather than raised. Coin and medal design uses a related distinction between raised and incused imagery. And the general lesson, that how an image will be lit should determine how it is made, applies well beyond carving.

Cutting the outline into an untouched surface and modelling within the recess removes far less material and leaves nothing projecting to weather or be damaged. The cut edge casts a hard shadow in low-angle sun that defines the figure sharply, while strong light flattens ordinary relief, which is why Egyptian exteriors use one technique and interiors the other. Cut architectural lettering works on exactly the same principle.