Carved in elegant, elongated form, this striking figure represents the goddess Menkaret striding forward, supporting upon her head the mummiform, Osiride image of King Tutankhamun. The king is rendered as Osiris, lord of the afterlife, signifying his rebirth and eternal sovereignty beyond death. Menkaret, a protective and regenerative deity, here embodies divine support (both physical...
Seated figure of Isis suckling Harpocrates (identifiable with the so-called ‘Isis lactans’ motif). The goddess is wearing a hathoric crown, consisting of a solar disc with horns resting on a stylised uraeiform modius. She is wearing a tripartite wig decorated with incised vertical streaks and with a stylised vulture headdress. The goddess is wearing an...
Carved in dark granodiorite, this commanding head of Amun bears features closely aligned with those of Tutankhamun, marking it as a royal commission of his reign. Though acquired in Cairo in 1907, the sculpture was almost certainly created for Karnak, Amun’s great temple at Thebes. The head belongs to the young king’s programme of restoration,...
This magnificent red-granite lion, carved in the reign of Amenhotep III, shows the animal in a graceful recumbent pose, forepaws crossed and tail curled neatly around the rump. Its modelling is a masterful blend of stylised elegance and striking naturalism: a circular mane frames the head; raised fur textures mark the chest and shoulders; the...
Beneath the quiet lights of the Brooklyn Museum rests the head of a tomb statue, carved in limestone and once painted in warm honey-brown tones: a complexion both lifelike and luminous, as though the gentleman had only just stepped out of Egypt’s Old Kingdom sun. His wig, fashioned in the familiar tiered “helmet” style of...
In the long reign of Ramesses II (between 1279 and 1213 B.C.), devotion could be as grand as a temple façade or as humble as a handheld shrine. This charming fragment, now housed in The Met (90.6.1), once formed part of a larger votive statue crafted by an official of the king. In Ancient Egypt,...
This colossal statue of Ramesses II, also known as the illustrious Ramesses the Great (c. 1279–1213 B.C.), is hewn from radiant red granite quarried at Aswan. It was unearthed in 1820 by the Italian explorer Giovanni Battista Caviglia at Mit Rahina, ancient Memphis, where it once stood proudly on the southern flank of the Temple...
Thutmose’s workshop was discovered in early December 1912 by a German archaeological expedition led by Ludwig Borchardt. The workshop was located in what is now known as Amarna, previously called Akhetaten, the then new capital established by Akhenaten. The workshop was identified as belonging to Thutmose due to an ivory horse blinker found in a...
Carved from luminous Parian marble, this statue embodies the elegant fusion of Egyptian and Roman divinity: Hermanubis, the jackal-headed Anubis recast in the guise of Mercury. Fashioned in the 1st–2nd centuries A.D., the figure rises a modest 1.55 metres, yet commands attention. A slender solar disc poised on a crescent moon nestles between alert ears,...
The Seated Statue of the Steward Sehetepibreankh is a notable example of Middle Kingdom Egyptian sculpture, dating to approximately 1919–1885 B.C. during the reign of Amenemhat II. This limestone statue was excavated in 1923–24 from Pit 6L.P19 in the tomb of Sehetepibreankh at Lisht South, located in the Memphite region of Egypt. The statue exemplifies...
