This obsidian head, an exquisite example of Egyptian craftsmanship, was part of a full-length statue depicting King Senwosret III. The king is wearing a nemes headdress, with the sacred serpent (uraeus), representing regal and divine might. In this representation, the artist portrays the sense of a firm yet extremely human figure, showing the load of...
A wall painting of a Nubian dancing girl appears in the procession of tribute for king Thutmose IV (Tomb of Horemheb, TT78). This scene is depicted within the Tomb of Horemheb, not the later king with the same name, but an Official of King Thutmose IV. Horemheb held many titles, including; “Great Confidant of the...
This statue of kneeling captive can be dated to the reign of Pepi II for stylistic reasons. Beginning at least in the mid 5th Dynasty, large sculptures of bound foreign captives appeared in the pharaoh’s pyramid complex. Pepi I and Pepi II had great numbers of them. Statues of prisoners were presumably placed in areas...
“An illustrated cultural guide to the archaeological site of Amarna, the best-preserved pharaonic city in Egypt. Around three thousand years ago, the pharaoh Akhenaten turned his back on Amun, and most of the great gods of Egypt. Abandoning Thebes, he quickly built a grand new city in Middle Egypt, Akhetaten―Horizon of the Aten―devoted exclusively to...
Ptahshepses in this statue is portrayed as a scribe sitting on the ground with his legs crossed. He has a partly unrolled papyrus on his knees, a common “reading scribe” posture in Ancient Egypt. A heart-shaped amulet hangs around his neck with a counterpoise at the back. The head of Ptahshepses is inclined gently toward...
This ivory label originally attached to a pair of royal sandals, found at his tomb in Abydos, showing the king Den with an upraised mace, about to strike a captive. The king’s name is written before him in a Serekh, in the center of the top of the label. The king wears a bull’s tail,...
The nursing woman sits on the ground with one knee raised. Against the hammock of cloth formed by her skirt stretched over her knee she holds a child whose yellow skin indicates she is a girl. With one hand the woman holds the child’s head, while with the other she offers her breast to the...
This double cartouche shaped perfume box of Tutankhamun is gilded and inlaid with colored glass paste. The sides of the box feature a relief of Heh, god of eternity holding above and around his head the cartouches of the king. Each side is composed of two inward-facing cartouches containing the figure of the king squatting...
Carved from pale limestone and towering just over two metres high (Egyptian Museum, Turin, Cat. 768), this late-18th-Dynasty group statue presents king Horemheb standing deferentially beside the enthroned god Amun. Amun’s larger scale proclaims divine precedence in the time-honoured “hierarchical perspective,” whereby the most exalted figure literally dominates the composition. The modelling is unmistakably post-Amarna:...
The tomb of Tutankhamun contained many leopard heads like this gilded one. This head differs from others in having the king’s cartouche incised atop its head. The leopard head adorned a garment that imitated the animal’s skin. This was the distinctive garment of the Sem priest. The leopard’s body and fur were particularly valuable in...
