Statue of a Woman

The Late Period was an age of revival and resilience. Egypt, long assailed by foreign powers, turned back to its roots, drawing upon the splendours of Old and Middle Kingdom traditions while also glancing outward to the new world of Greece. This sculpture captures that delicate balance. Images of private women were rarely granted permanence in temple stone, yet here this unknown woman stands, poised, reserved, but subtly alive.

Her body is rendered with a cool restraint, the diabase smoothed into near-flat planes that echo the sober dignity of Egypt’s older artistic canon. And yet, she defies one of its oldest conventions, though little remains, we can tell that once, her left leg strode forward. For centuries, such a gesture had been reserved for men, while women were depicted with feet together, still and contained. This small but striking departure whispers of change and nostalgia for the past, a breath of Alexander the Great’s conquest, seeping into the traditional Egyptian idiom.

The Saite kings of the 26th Dynasty ruled from their capital at Sais in the Delta, styling themselves as guardians of Egypt’s ancient grandeur. They revived hieroglyphs of archaic elegance, restored old temples, and harked back to the mighty builders of the Old Kingdom. And yet they lived in a world where Greek merchants, mercenaries, and ideas were flowing ever more freely along the Nile.

This woman, with her gaze calm and her step just beginning, seems to embody Egypt itself at that moment: deeply rooted in its eternal past, yet edging forward into the mingling currents of a wider Mediterranean world.

Dolerite (sometimes called diabase) is a very hard, dense, dark igneous rock, closely related to basalt. It forms when molten magma cools beneath the Earth’s surface, giving it a fine-grained texture. Its colour is typically dark grey to black, sometimes with a faint greenish hue. Because of its toughness, dolerite was prized in Ancient Egypt for both tools and sculpture.

Quarry workers used dolerite pounders to carve into softer stones, like limestone and sandstone. Sculptors used it for statues that were meant to last for eternity, as its durability made it resistant to weathering. When speaking of “fine-grained”, it means the crystals inside the rock are very small, almost invisible to the eye, giving it a smooth, even surface that takes a polish beautifully. This made it ideal for highly finished statuary, like this elegant female figure.

Summary:

Dolerite statue of a woman

Late Period, 26th Dynasty, c. 664–525 B.C.

Location Unknown. Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund. VMFA. 55.8.13