Head of Amenhotep III Wearing the Round Crown
By the time this portrait was made, in the later years of his reign, c. 1360–1355 B.C., Amenhotep III stood at the summit of nearly every earthly achievement.
Egypt was wealthy, peaceful, and gloriously adorned. He had completed or embellished a constellation of temples from Soleb in distant Nubia to Luxor on the east bank of Thebes. His palace-city at Malkata shimmered with lakes, gardens, and painted walls that must have smelled of fresh plaster and imported resin.
Diplomatically he was unmatched: Babylonian, Mitannian, and Syrian rulers practically showered him with daughters and lapis if only he would send back a little Egyptian gold.
Although he must have been around 50 years old when this portrait was carved; a venerable age by 18th Dynasty standards; King Amenhotep III appears as serenely youthful as the morning sun. His sculptors, ever obedient to royal vanity, present him with cheeks unlined and confidence unshaken.
Depiction of Amenhotep III as an Older Man
Beneath a rounded crown, he wears a splendid diadem with fluttering side-streamers. It is crowned with twin uraei, each cobra rearing proudly and bearing a tiny sun-disc, as though personally announcing him the favoured child of Ra.
Carved in lustrous quartzite, a stone whose reddish, purplish gleam evoked the glow of the rising sun, this head embodies the king’s own chosen epithet: “the Dazzling Sun-Disc of all Lands.” Few kings so loved a material, and fewer still used it so strategically; for quartzite proclaimed divine radiance even when the king himself was feeling the gentle encroachment of middle age.
The Round Royal Wig-Crown
British Museum. EA2280
Although the surviving example of Amenhotep’s “round crown” is now a muted stone colour, the real version of this elegant, rounded crown would have been a splendour of technicolour elegance, gleaming in the sun, and very much part of a pharaoh’s living wardrobe. Known today as the short, round royal wig, this tightly textured headpiece was a symbol of kingship, ceremony, and cultivated, almost youthful refinement.
The life-worn version would have hugged the royal head just as snugly as the inlaid example above suggests, shaped into a smooth, rounded hemisphere that sat close upon the skull. It was likely fashioned from leather or stiffened linen, or from thick, resin-bound strands cleverly arranged to imitate tight, orderly layered ringlets. Most striking of all, the entire piece would have been dyed a vivid lapis-blue; a colour sacred to the gods, symbolic of the heavens, and still, even today, synonymous with royalty (one thinks immediately of “royal blue”).
But this was only the beginning. The crown would then be enriched with gold bosses or plaques, stitched or inlaid to form shimmering decorative bands. These culminated in a diadem, complete with the indispensable uraeus, the vigilant royal cobra poised to strike.
As with other elite wigs and ceremonial headpieces, it is quite possible that such regalia was perfumed with scented oils, lending the surface a lustrous sheen, almost like polished stone. One must imagine it not simply as headgear, but as royal theatre; a transformative piece of splendour that rendered the king not merely human, but radiantly divine.
This crown was especially fitting for the royal jubilees; the great heb-sed festivals in which the king renewed his strength, first after thirty years on the throne and at intervals thereafter. Its rounded, almost boyish silhouette spoke eloquently of vitality restored, agelessness regained, and divine authority renewed. Amenhotep III is closely associated with this style of crown during his jubilee years, which neatly explains why, though approaching his fiftieth year, he appears in certain portraits strikingly youthful, almost cherubic in his serenity.
Such a headpiece may also have been worn in temple courtyards, during festival marches, or in processions through Thebes or Memphis. The round wig-crown occupied a delightful middle ground: less ceremonially thunderous than the Atef or the Double Crown, yet far more splendid than an ordinary wig. It projected majesty without overwhelming the senses.
Rounded wigs were also favoured in rituals involving offerings to Amun, Ptah, or Ra, during purification rites, and when entering the innermost sanctuaries of temples. Their smooth, controlled form conveyed a sense of purity, order, and divine composure; the king perfectly presented before the gods, every curl and contour obediently in its place.
Provenance
Even though we don’t have a documented excavation, we can make a cautious stylistic/contextual inference. The head is brown quartzite, Amenhotep III’s favourite “solar” stone, widely used for his cult and jubilee statuary. Quartzite colossi and heads of Amenhotep III in very similar style (youthful, full cheeks, heavy lids, serene smile) are known from his mortuary temple at Kom el-Hettan on the West Bank of Thebes. That temple produced a whole series of quartzite statues linked to his heb-sed (jubilee) rejuvenation cult, where he is portrayed as eternally fresh and godlike despite being in his late forties/early fifties.
Taking all this into account, the most historically plausible (though by no means provable) scenario is that this head originated from a Theban temple setting, quite possibly from the shattered remnants of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple at Kom el-Hettan, or from a related sanctuary where numerous quartzite statues of the radiant king once stood in divine splendour.
Summary:
Amenhotep III in Round Crown
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, a. 1391-1353 B.C.
Brown quartzite. Dimensions: overall: 17.3 x 17 x 25.3 cm (6 13/16 x 6 11/16 x 9 15/16 in.)
Now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 1961.417
