Broad Collar
Egyptian
ca. 2030 - 1640 B.C.
Faience
2017.447
Statuette of a Woman
Egyptian
664 – 525 BC
Fine-grained diabase (dolerite)
55.8.13
Images of private women are rare in Egyptian art, and this statue may have been made to stand in a temple. Details of the carving, especially the plain, almost flat quality of the sculpture, suggest that it was made early in the Ptolemaic period that followed Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt. Although it was a convention of traditional Egyptian art to show women with their feet together, this woman stands with her left leg advanced, evidence of the melding of Greek and Egyptian influences.
Statue of Senkamanisken,
King of Kush
Egyptian
Gray-black granite
643-623 BC
53.30.2
The inscriptions on the back pillar identify this figure as Senkamanisken, King of Kush. Kush, an ancient African empire, was directly south of Egypt in what is now the Sudan and often vied with the Egyptian empire for control of the Nile valley. The Kushites ruled all or part of Egypt during Dynasty 25 (760-656 BC). Even after their expulsion, Kushite rulers were portrayed with the same artistic conventions used to portray Egyptian pharaohs, such as the tripartite royal kilt, frontal presentation, and stiff pose with strongly striding legs and arms held closely to the sides. The surface of the stone was brought to a high polish except where gold or silver plating decorated the figure’s kilt and jewelry.
Seated Scribe (torso)
Egyptian
ca. 663-525 BC
Alabaster
64.60
Sema-tawy-tefnakht was the chief minister of Pharaoh Psamtik I, whose name is in the cartouches on the scribe’s shoulders. He is shown with a papyrus scroll, the most common writing surface for Egyptian scribes, stretched across his lap. The Egyptians considered alabaster rare and precious and made relatively few statues from this material on this scale.
Seated Man
Egyptian
1979-1801 BC
Quartzite, brown
65.10
This statue of a man holding his cloak tightly around his body has an identifying inscription down the front of the cloak: “an offering that the King gives to Osiris, First of the Westerners, Lord of Abydos, that he may give the sweet breath of life to the Ka of the Commissioner of Police, Res, true of voice.”
In theory, only the king or a god could make an offering. An ordinary person who died and wanted to make an offering acceptable claimed that the king intervened to do so. In the Middle Kingdom, members of a powerful and wealthy upper class dedicated many such statues.
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