When Wellesley College classics professor M. Lefkowitz (Not Out of Africa, How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History [1996]) published her response to Afrocentric ideas that were brought to international attention by the first of a controversial three-volume opus by academically-trained sinologist M. Bernal (Black Athena, Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization [1987]), she addressed historical inaccuracies in the Afrocentric premise that Greek philosophical tenets forming the basis of Western civilisation had their origins in ancient Egypt. Lefkowitz's stand for academic integrity emboldened Egyptologists and classicists alike who had been reticent to express their reservations concerning Afrocentric ideas, each assuming that whereas they were aware of errors in the historical, linguistic and archaeological data within their own areas of expertise, perhaps the conclusions based on material from outside their own disciplines were sound. The ensuing open debates, in that case, became a catalyst for the re-evaluation of long-held Eurocentric ideas as well as the eventual evolvement of Afrocentrism. In the spirit of open disclosure and the belief that a multidisciplinary publication should be subject to interdisciplinary scrutiny, the following review, submitted jointly by an Egyptologist and a classical art historian, is of a book by a classical archaeologist that purports to explain an artistic convention in both Egyptian and Greek art.

E. states that the focus of her research is to explain the societal role of the artistic convention that differentiates the gender of figures by the use of colour from a ‘Pan-Mediterranean perspective’ (p. 6). A short digression (pp. 97–9) on Near Eastern art notwithstanding, her book explores this phenomenon only with respect to Archaic Period Greek black-figure vase painting on vessels that were used primarily in daily life and on art from primarily funerary contexts that dates from the entire span of pharaonic Egyptian history. The ‘comparative approach’ of the book, therefore, is of coloured artwork – from two cultures – that is distinct in media, date, function and, ultimately, ideological meaning. E., moreover, regrets (p. 17) that the greatest irony is that the book lacks colour plates and all illustrations save the one on the dust jacket are in black and white.

Throughout Chapters 1 and 2 there is a far too frequent reliance on The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt and museum exhibition catalogues. The numerous errors that can be found pertaining to ancient Egyptian religion and art, however, must be traced to E.'s lack of specialised skill sets and of first-hand familiarity with the material she presents as evidence. These range from misidentifying goddesses (fig. 6), mistranslating the name of the pharaoh, Akhenaten, (as ‘beloved of the Aten’, p. 72), to the statement (p. 82) that after Akhenaten's reign, the equality in the colour of flesh tones for men and women disappears and ‘the previously standard use of male/female color differentiation is re-instated’ (which is contradicted by depictions of Dynasty 19 queens; for example the distinctly reddish countenance of Nefertari in QV 66). Moreover, the generalisation set forth that the explanation for skin colour variance in Egyptian art is that it supports and promotes the ideology of pharaonic rule (see pp. 7 and 56) is one that could justify any cultural trait of the ancient Egyptians. Nowhere does E. satisfactorily answer the basic, technical question of ‘Why, specifically, the colors red and yellow?’

In Chapter 3, E. turns her attention to Greek art. She postulates that the artistic convention of light-skinned females and dark-skinned males, that served as a ‘signifier of gender roles’ (p. 83) in Egyptian art, appears in Minoan and Mycenaean frescoes, disappeared with the collapse of the Bronze Age (if not consciously rejected during the Geometric period) and then reappears in the mid-seventh century b.c.e., most notably in the vase-painting fabrics known as polychrome (pp. 99–100); the catalyst behind this adaptation by Greek vase-painters being direct contact with Egypt (p. 103). She argues further that this convention is most rigidly followed in Athens as documented in Attic black-figure pottery beginning c. 620 b.c.e. and continuing during the following century (p. 109). Pots created by contemporary artists outside Attica are examined, noting that added white colour for females and black gloss for males is not strictly followed (pp. 111–17). Based on this, E. concludes that colour as a gender signifier distinctively documents an Athenian male view of women during this period (p. 122), one that implies a subordinate role of ‘ideological seclusion’, (p. 125) emphasising domestic duties, if not one of suspicion and exclusion (p. 104).

Chapter 4 explores Attic red-figure, where gender designation through colour is discontinued (p. 131). E. theorises that this change again mirrors a specifically Athenian phenomenon, in which ‘status issues of males vis à vis one another’ (p. 146) became the issue as the result of such historical events as the Persian threat and the rise of democracy (pp. 147–9).

As with Egypt, E. seeks an answer specifically within a socio-cultural context. The issue here is, ‘Can one go so far as to interpret an artistic convention as a reflection of the social role of women in the Greek world to the point where one states that color differentiation signifies a distinctively Athenian male view of women as “an alien race living in the midst of men”’ (p. 130)? Despite E.'s claims, it cannot be said that the subordinate status of women in the late seventh and sixth centuries, coinciding with the adoption of the colour convention, was dramatically different from that found in the eighth century. Conversely, the historical trends cited by her for the abandonment of the convention in red-figure actually post-date the advent of the technique c. 530 b.c.e.

What is lacking for the Greek argument (as for the Egyptian) is the most obvious – an artistic/technical consideration. What we see in vase painting certainly parallels developments in wall and panel painting. The polychrome fabrics of the mid-seventh century have often been linked with the origins of such ‘free painting’, where the convention of light-skinned females and dark-skinned males presumably was applied (see G.P. Schaus in bibliography). The black-figure vase painting technique with its limited palette, therefore, added white for females to follow a pre-established convention. Moreover, as E. admits, Athens was not that exclusive (pp. 118–22); wherever black-figure appeared in the Greek world, the colour convention for gender generally followed.

Significantly, when E. discusses exceptions to the rule (pp. 113ff.), the explanation resorts to visual/artistic concerns or outside influence. In the case of red-figure and white-ground, are we then to assume that this connotes another social-psychological change or simply documents the adoption of another artistic technique, whose advantages the Attic vase-painter ultimately recognised (as did red-figure vase painters outside of Athens)? Nevertheless, what little survives of contemporary ‘free painting’ (the Pitsa pinax and the Tomb of the Diver at Paestum), maintained the convention (p. 140), while frescoes from Macedonian tombs attest to its use through the fourth century b.c.e.

If one accepts the initial premise (for doubts, see e.g. L. Hitchcock, ‘Engendering Ambiguity in Minoan Crete: it's a Drag to be a King’, in M. Donald and L. Hurcombe [edd.], Representations of Gender from Prehistory to the Present [2000], pp. 69–89), the issue raised in this book – what lies behind the use of colour to signify gender as seen in the arts of both ancient Egypt and Greece – deserves examination. Although the complexities of this issue lie beyond the limits of one who is self-admittedly (p. 16) ‘neither an Egyptologist nor a vase-painting specialist’, E.'s efforts to bring attention to the ‘big picture’ (pp. 16 and 158) should inspire others, that are, to undertake the quest.