The appeal of subjugation: Artistic evidence of Pharaoh’s propaganda in the southern Levant during the 18th–20th Dynasties
Abstract
The article proposes an interpretative revisitation of a rather well-known and widespread iconographic motif in Egyptian art: the depiction of the Pharaoh striking his enemies. The scenes of subjugation constitute a red thread that connects all pharaonic dynasties, with an obvious propagandistic purpose to benefit the power of the Pharaoh, and more extensively of the imposition of Egyptian order against the chaos created by everything outside the empire, reason to take foreigners prisoners and therefore punished. The analysis develops on the double strand of monumental art and glyptic media, with a comparison of the diffusion of the two media and an in-depth study of scarabs dated between the 18th and 20th Dynasty found in the southern Levant.