Unknown Amarna royal

Sculpture of unknown Amarna royal. New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, Amarna Period, c. 1352-1323 B.C.

Discovered in Tel el-Amarna (ancient Akhetaten – king Akhenaten’s experimental new capital), now in the Neues Museum, Berlin.

This limestone bust of an Amarna royal has never been officially identified, yet the Neues Museum in Berlin does display it with the title of Tutankhamun, which is a likely possibility, others propose that it may be the mysterious 18th Dynasty ruler Smenkhkare. Who it is depends on the scholar, and your own thoughts at the present!

Related: Egyptian-Alabaster Canopic jar of a queen

Discovered in Amarna (Ancient Akhetaten), it is likely from the workshop of Thutmose, the sculptor of the bust of Nefertiti, and the royal favourite sculptor but it is not officially identified as Thutmose’s work as yet.

The ‘Amarna revolution’ was not only a religious but also an artistic one. The art of this era is recognizable by its unmistakable sinuous shapes and the singular expressiveness of faces and gestures, which end up surviving, albeit in a less marked manner, in the following epoch.

Artist unknown; 18th Dynasty, Amarna Period. Now in the Neues Museum, Berlin.