Statue of Horemheb and Amun

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: muscles understated, contours soft, bellies gently rounded, youthful faces with almond eyes and full, sensuous lips. Such features echo the artistic tone that followed Akhenaten’s revolution, when sculptors abandoned exaggerated anatomy for a quieter naturalism.

Some have proposed that the work first portrayed Tutankhamun and was later usurped by Horemheb; yet the surfaces show no erasure of earlier names, and the likeness could belong to either monarch, so closely do their portraits converge in this style. Whatever its exact authorship, the statue’s purpose is clear: by placing the king in eternal attendance upon Amun, it proclaims Horemheb’s legitimacy and divine protection. In life the image would have received offerings, sustaining both god and king; in death it secures for Horemheb a share in Amun’s immortality, uniting throne and divinity in a single, harmonious stone tableau.

New Kingdom, late 18th Dynasty, reign of Horemheb, ca. 1319-1292 BC. Made of limestone. Dimensions: 209 x 90 x 112 cm. Now in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. Cat. 768