The Art of Ancient Egypt | Publications for Educators | Explore & Learn

The structural elements of Egyptian art are the cube and horizontal and vertical axes. In creating three-dimensional sculpture in stone, artists started with a block upon which they drew guidelines on all sides. They then carved until the figure emerged, renewing the guidelines from stage to stage. Egyptian sculptors seldom completely freed figures from the stone block, a fact that reinforces the sense of the stone's permanence. This contributes to the centered and poised character of Egyptian statues and reinforces their frontality and axiality.

Statue of Hatshepsut To ensure that a stone statue would be permanent not only in the way it looked but also in the stone's resistance to breakage, the Egyptians did not carve out the spaces between the arms and torso or between the legs; and the lower part of seated figures emerge only partially from the blocklike seat.		Statuette of an offering bearer Figures carved in wood often were made from several pieces pegged together, since large logs had to be imported and were therefore costly. Because wood is lighter, much less brittle, and easier to carve than stone, wooden figures were sculpted more completely in the round, with open spaces between the legs and between the arms and torso. However, wooden figures are represented in the same balanced and relatively motionless frontal poses as those in stone, giving an impression of stability appropriate for idealized and lasting images.
Conjectural reconstruction showing how guidelines may have been drawn on a block of stone for a sculpture, based on a papyrus of the Roman Period.