It's hard to tell from this photo, but the cartouche around the name of Khufu (or Cheops as you might know him) is a circle of rope. In some relief carvings it is very clear, but I can't find a picture right this minute so I'm using this one. Anyway, the other picture is of an Olmec "altar" from the Olmec site La Venta depicting waht looks like a person holding a rope together that encircles the "cave (?)" and makes a boundary between it and the world outside. It reminds me of the cartouche in Egyptian royal names. Maybe I'll think about this, since I'm looking for ways to look at Mesoamerican Art History along with Egyptian Art History. I think it's odd that both cultures would use a rope this way. Well, maybe it's not weird. Ropes are flexible like very little else.
2 comments:
About the La venta altar. The jaguarian face above the main figure has an Omaxalli or Crossroads glyphic element, which in mesoamerica almost universally is associated with a place in the sky. Are there iconographic elements in Egyptian art that have ropes associated with the sky?
Do you mean the little Scottish flag-looking thing in the jaguar's mouth? I don't know about ropes associated with the sky, but there is a glyph that looks like a plus sign in the middle of a circle that's the glyph for "city." I don't know about the sky. Is the mesoamercan crossroads thing associated with a constellation or stellar object? Or is it a mythical city kind of place?
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