EOE-Kneeling pharaoh

Statuette of a kneeling pharaoh

Date: probably 6th-4th century B.C. (Late Period, Dynasties 26-29)
Medium: bronze (solid cast)
Provenance: Egypt
Dimensions: height 8 1/16”
Accession number: 53-13

Condition: very good. Front of arms and of feet missing. Cartouche on belt badly pitted.

Description. The pharaoh kneels humbly before a now unseen deity. The king wears a skirt and a Blue Crown whose uraeus forms two horizontally oriented loops. One or two streamers extend from the back of the crown to the belt. A cartouche on the front of the pharaoh’s belt appears to have three hieroglyphs. The middle-aged ruler has a heavy, rounded face with large ears, full lips, and a double chin. His body is summarily rendered.

Reconstruction. The bend in the pharaoh’s right elbow indicates that his forearms were outstretched holding an offering, either two wine jars or the image of a divinity. Probably a gold band was in the narrow, indented area between his forehead and crown (Bothmer, ESLP 88; see Aldred 1956, 6 for the history of the genre).

Dating and identity. The absence of a clear iconography for many pharaohs of the Late Period (664-332 B.C.) and the illegibility of the hieroglyphs in the cartouche of the Nelson-Atkins ruler make identifying him almost impossible. Bothmer, who published the statuette in 1960 (ESLP 88-9, 167), suggested it portrayed the 29th Dynasty ruler Hakoris (393-381 B.C.). His evidence was limited. The three hieroglyphs conform in general outline to Hakoris’ praenomen, Maat-khenem-ra. The long streamer or streamers seem to postdate the Persian occupation of 525-404 B.C. The soles of the feet of the Nelson-Atkins statuette and a kneeling statuette of Hakoris in the British Museum (B.M. 24247) are vertically oriented. Another kneeling statuette of Hakoris is in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo (C.G. 681).
In 1988 Mysliwiec (57 n. 201, 64, 78, 90-2; see also Spanel 1988, 127) wrote that the uraeus with the two horizontally oriented coils on the Blue Crown appeared in Dynasty 26 (664-525 B.C.) and disappeared after Dynasty 27 (525-404 B.C.). He (60) noted that the Nelson-Atkins sculpture’s facial features recall the portraits attributed to the 26th Dynasty ruler Apries in Bologna (Museo Civico, no. 1801) and Paris (Musée du Louvre, E 3433). The hieroglyphs conform to the other name of Apries, Wah-ib-re (57 n. 201). Placing the statuette in Dynasty 26, Mysliwiec (64, 78) identifies the figure as Apries (589-570 B.C.) or Amasis (570-526 B.C.).
The use of the uraeus with two horizontally oriented coils as a criterion for dating is problematic (Bothmer 1987, 76-7, 79; Spanel 1988, 127; Josephson 1997, 5, 18, 27-9). The figure’s identity remains open to question.

Published: Cyril Aldred, “The Carnarvon Statuette of Amun,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 42 (1956), 6; Handbook 1959, 22; Bothmer, ESLP 88-9 (cat. no. 71), 167; Apollo 1972, 478 fig. 7; Handbook 1973, 30; Karol Mysliwiec, Royal Portraiture of the Dynasties XXI-XXX (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1988), 57 n. 201, 60, 64, 69 no. 5b, 78, 91.

Other cited sources: Bernard Bothmer in: Bernard Bothmer, Pat Getz-Preziosi, Diana Buitron-Oliver, and Andrew Oliver, Jr., Antiquities from the Collection of Christos G. Bastis (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1987); Jack Josephson, Egyptian Royal Sculpture of the Late Period, 400-246 B.C. (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1997); Spanel 1988.

(RC)