LACMA’s ‘Ancient Egypt’ Explores the American Adventure in Archeology : Art review: Yanks came late to the study-excavation-conservation game in Egypt, but milestone exhibition showcases contributions.

Indiana Jones proved that American archeology is not dull, at least not in the movies. Now the L.A. County Museum of Art proves that archeology is exciting for real in its 250-work milestone exhibition “The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt.”

The show sets out to celebrate the contribution of American scholars, collectors and institutions to the study, excavation and conservation of ancient Pharaonic culture. Instead of remaining in the usual shade of footnotes and acknowledgments, names of pioneer scholars such as George A. Reisner, James Henry Breasted and Herbert E. Winlock take center stage along with patrons like Phoebe Apperson Hearst.

America came tardily into the Egyptology game at the turn of the century. Once galvanized, Yanks exercised their usual enthusiasm and practicality. Their expeditions were more scientifically sophisticated, better funded and sometimes more venturesome than their predecessors. Americans were, for example, the first to seriously investigate culturally linked Nubia, a fact handsomely exemplified in the exhibition. Native industriousness resulted in important discoveries and splendid collections for such well-known venues as the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Met and such lesser-known repositories as UC Berkeley.

Bringing all this to note is, in itself, enough to entirely justify the massive exercise of curatorship and conservation required by the museum and its co-organizer, the American Research Center in Egypt. The exhibition features, for example, a quietly spectacular Ptolemaic gateway from Coptos excavated in 1923 by Dows Dunham of the MFA Boston. Consisting of 12 tons of red sandstone bearing exceptionally juicy reliefs, it has been reconstructed for the first time for this event.

But worthy and absorbing as it is on its face, the show seems to probe deeper layers of cultural significance than it perhaps intended. Galleries--designed with his usual taste by Bernard Kester--display all objects against backdrops of large photomurals of expedition sites. One is constantly reminded that this is as much about modern America as about ancient Egypt.

Egypt was the world’s first great nation-state. America became fascinated by this ancient culture as it was about to become the modern world’s greatest nation-state. Egypt, like America, was an immensely original society. Around 2649 BC, it formed into the Old Kingdom. To modern eyes its art represents a near-perfect humanistic balance of observation and stylization, of warmth and dignity. Its kings and queens were represented as loving couples walking arm-in-arm. Later the pharaohs would be depicted as giants, but here they were no more prepossessing than a normally scaled statue of a boy carved of wood. Discovered by Reisner at Giza, it’s a modest masterpiece all the more touching and curiously contemporary because of its worm-eaten surface.

Wall labels trace the long history of the dynasties. Glory days produced art that was robust and self-confident like a granite statue of Queen Hatshepsut, made in the early New Kingdom, Egypt’s imperial era. Discovered on a Metropolitan Museum dig near Hatshepsut’s famous temple at Deir-el-Bahri, the statue was one of thousands of similar fragments. They gave evidence that a nephew who succeeded the queen had destroyed her monuments. Whether he acted out of pique or political necessity, it’s clear we are more concerned with conserving their great art than they were.

Culturally a revolution came with the rise of Akhenaten. A religious zealot credited with the discovery of monotheism, this Pharaoh desecrated the icons of the old gods and moved the capital from Thebes to a city named for himself, modern Amarna. A small rather magical statuette of him seems to hark back to the humanism of the Old Kingdom, but his iconoclasm marked the end of Egypt’s days as a preeminent power.

Egypt faded slowly and unevenly. There was a three-century surge after 1307 BC, ending under Ramesses III. He built a massive temple complex at Medinet Habu that was extensively researched by the University of Chicago. A “Netherworld Papyrus” takes the place of stone relief, suggesting the more modest scale of life at the close of the New Kingdom.

While one enjoys virtually every aspect of the exhibition, there is a twilight ambience around it. America fell in love with Egypt at the start of its own glory days. Now this country, still apparently mighty, wonders if it is on the down-slope fascination with Egypt. This show seems to contemplate America contemplating ancient Egypt. Everybody’s subject to the cycles of history. Is it our turn? Will we linger for centuries as they did or does the wheel grind faster now?

After closing here, “The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt” will visit St. Louis and Indianapolis. Its co-curators were LACMA’s Nancy Thomas and Gerry Scott III of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

* Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., through Jan. 21, closed Monday, (213) 857-6000.