Colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III
Encyclopedia
Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt
The eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt...
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III, dating from c.1350 BC, was found in the massive mortuary temple
Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III
The Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III is located in the Theban necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor in Egypt. It was built for the Pharaoh Amenhotep III...
of the pharaoh Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
on the West Bank of the River Nile at Thebes
Thebes, Egypt
Thebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile within the modern city of Luxor. The Theban Necropolis is situated nearby on the west bank of the Nile.-History:...
(the present-day settlement of Kom el-Hitan) in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. Only the head of the broken colossal statue survives. It is part of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
's Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan collection.
This brown quartzite
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
statue was one of a series of near-identical statues that flanked the west side of a colonnaded courtyard. When complete, it would have measured more than 8 metres (26 feet) high without its base, and the body would have stood in the classic pose of Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
with legs together and arms crossed, holding the crook and the flail, which were symbols of Egyptian kingship. The statue would have worn a short royal kilt and the red crown
Deshret
Deshret, from ancient Egyptian, was the formal name for the Red Crown of and for the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet, the fertile Nile river basin. The end has a curly wire on it, that represents the proboscis of a honey bee. Deshret or DSRT also represents the insect known as the honeybee...
of Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt is the northern-most section of Egypt. It refers to the fertile Nile Delta region, which stretches from the area between El-Aiyat and Zawyet Dahshur, south of modern-day Cairo, and the Mediterranean Sea....
. The discovery in 1964 of the head of one other statue and numerous body-fragments of yet more has allowed the reconstruction of the statue's pose. The statues on the other side of the courtyard were similar, but were made of red granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and wore the white crown
Hedjet
Hedjet is the formal name for the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt. The crown was white and, after the unification of Egypt, it was combined with the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, with the delta to form the Pschent, the Double Crown of Egypt...
of Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
.
The pose has been interpreted as symbolising the first "sed" festival of Amenhotep III, when it was believed that the pharaoh underwent a rite of rejuvenation and became a god while still living. This happened on the 30th anniversary of his rule. As a god, Amenhotep III was then worshipped through this statue and similar ones.
The head is 1.17m high, 81 cm wide and 66 cm deep. It was purchased from Henry Salt
Henry Salt (Egyptologist)
Henry Salt was an English artist, traveller, diplomat, and Egyptologist.-Biography:Salt, the son of a physician, was born in Lichfield. He trained as a portrait painter, first in Lichfield and then in London under Joseph Farington and John Hoppner. In 1802 he was appointed secretary and...
in 1823. It has the reference number EA 7 and is currently displayed in the Museum's Great Court
Queen Elizabeth II Great Court
The central quadrangle of the British Museum in London was redeveloped to a design by Foster and Partners, from a 1970s design by Colin St John Wilson, to become the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, commonly referred to simply as the Great Court, during the late 1990s...
. From September 2006-February 2008 it was sent on loan to the United States of America as part of the "Temples and Tombs" travelling exhibition.
Reading
- B. Porter & R. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings II (Oxford, 1972), p. 453 (with earlier bibliography)
- T. G. H. James & W. V. Davies, Egyptian Sculpture (London, 1983), p. 38, fig.45
- P. Kozloff, B. Bryan and M. Berman, Egypt's Dazzling Sun (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992), pp. 156–158 = Le Pharaon-Soleil (Paris, 1993), pp. 126–128
- G. Robins, The Art of Ancient Egypt(London, 1997), p. 122, fig.135
- Art and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (Japan 1999-2000), p. 32
- Temples and Tombs [exhibition catalogue] (American Federation of Arts, 2006) 52, cat no. 10
- P. Nicholson and I. Shaw, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (Cambridge 2000), p. 54
- E.R. Russmann, Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of (University of California Press, 2001)
- N. Strudwick, Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt, London: British Museum Publications, 2006, pp. 154–5