My favorite picture that we have recently studied is The Narmer Palette. Created at the dawn of its history, the palette suggest the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. This work uses the Rebus system of writing, where the picture represent a sound or the first letter of a word. This is read by starting on the right side then the top, inside , then bottom. This piece has several representational symbols, for example the Lotus for Upper Egypt and the Papyrus for Lower Egypt.
During Narmer's time a Palette such as this was used for grinding eye paint. In his time everyone wore eye shadow and eyeliner because of the intensely bright sun. However this piece would have been much too fancy and important to be used for the grinding of the eye shadow. The amount of history that we can get just out of this one piece of work is truly amazing.
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