Grand. Simple. Tasteful.: Max Weidenbach and the Tombs at Beni Hassan
Alexandra Woods (Speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation › Presentation
Description
In August-September 1843, members of the Lepsius-Expedition to Egypt (1842-1845) spent 16 days exploring the 11th and 12th Dynasty tombs at Beni Hassan in Middle Egypt. The present paper will present a close reading of the diary entries of Max Weidenbach to reconstruct the pathway that Max and his colleagues took to access the upper cemetery at Beni Hassan. The paper will also place the Lepsius expedition’s study of the site in the context of early exploration of the tombs at Beni Hassan; provide an outline of the main features published by the expedition and, in brief, consider the lasting impact the tombs from Beni Hassan had on the team members, particularly on Ernst Weidenbach, who painted excerpts of the wall imagery from the tomb of Khnumhotep II in the Egyptian gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna for the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873.