Dating an Egyptian Bronze Statuette at the IEAA

The Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis houses a copper-alloy statuette of an unknown Egyptian king. The small (10 cm) metal figure is striding and wears a cap crown and shendyt kilt, but bears no identifying inscription. In this study, I use visual, stylistic, and iconographic analyses to attempt to determine how and when this sculpture was manufactured. Based on my examinations, the piece appears to be hollow-cast in one piece with a rare lead core. It has been dated to the reign of the Amarna Period ruler Akhenaten (ca. 1349-1336 B.C.). Based on a comparison of the piece to a select number of royal Egyptian metal statuary, however, it is my opinion that the IEAA statuette probably dates to the early Late Period.

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This ancient Egyptian figure of a kneeling king dates to the 15th century BCE. The figure is a solid cast black bronze with gold inlay. The article includes contributions by Egyptologist Hill and research conservator Schorsch. The first contribution deals with stylistic questions and considers the function of the figure, which represents an early step in the development of Egyptian bronze statuary. The notes include references to other bronze figures, including technical studies. The technical contribution considers basic issues of manufacture, as well as an investigation of the figure's unusual silvery surface, which is due to the presence of chalcocite (CuS).

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Huyge D. 2011: The head from a Third Dynasty private statue in the Egyptian collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels (E.5592), Bulletin des Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire 82, 5-16. Summary. - The small stone head E.5592, which must have belonged to a private statue, was acquired by the RMAH in 1920. It has never been published or cited before. On the basis of a comparison with similar sculptures in the Louvre and the British Museum, it can be assigned to the Third Dynasty. As such, it is a welcome addition to the very small corpus of Egyptian non-royal pre-canonical statuary.

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Knowledge of the beginnings of the Egyptian Empire is severely limited by a lack of both inscriptional material and architecture. Little survives from this time other than mortuary constructions, mostly tombs, and enclosures for celebrating the heb-sed ceremony. Nevertheless, a number of mostly small representations of early monarchs survive, providing important evidence for the role played by the kings of the earliest days of a newly established realm as well as the increasing development of portraiture as a method of achieving immortality and being worshipped. We also offer our opinion that the duration of the Archaic Period is from Dynasty 0 to the end of Dynasty 2, and that the onset of Dynasty 0 is approximately 3250 BC and that it ends between 100 and 150 years later. Furthermore, we analyze two statues from Dynasty 2, one of which has been incorrectly called modern, and the other mistaken for a later king because of a usurper’s re-inscription.

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Servant of Mut: Studies in honor of Richard A. Fazzini

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Metropolitan Museum Journal, 2005

The richly inlaid bronze torso of Pedubaste (ca. 818-793 BC) is one of the great monuments of the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, a politically decentralized and obscure era marked, nonetheless, by a high level of inventiveness and artistry. Close visual and technical examination laid the groundwork for this study, in which several points of historical, technical and artistic interest have been pursued in depth. Investigation of the modern history of the object is suggestive with regard to its origin, which in turn has further implications for the much-discussed power base of the historical King Pedubaste. Technical description of the figure, incorporating insights from elemental, radiographic, metallographic and petrographic analyses contributes to a growing body of scientific studies of ancient Egyptian metal statuary. It also provides evidence regarding casting technology and finishing processes, as well as sophisticated alloying practices and artificial patinations. The combined results of the technical and art historical investigations permit at least partial reconstruction of the original and its figural decoration, along with an appraisal of the remarkable visual impact of the statue, both confirming and extending the findings of other recent studies of large Third Intermediate Period bronze statuary.

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World Archaeology 48.2 (2016), 226-238

Studies of Egyptian Late Period statuary often assume that the extant corpus is a representative sample of the artistic output of the Twenty-Sixth to Thirty-First Dynasties (c. 664–332 BCE). This assumption ignores the various human processes that affect the survival of statues after their initial dedication. In particular, the Roman practice of collecting Egyptian naophorous statues for reuse in cult spaces of Egyptian gods in Italy has skewed the chronological distribution of the corpus in favour of statues of Twenty-Sixth Dynasty date. This in turn informs perceptions of the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty, the period of Achaemenid rule in Egypt, as being a time of artistic poverty. This paper examines the biographies of Egyptian statues in order to better distinguish between the products of ancient agency and modern scholarly constructs.

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The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt III: Contributions on Archaeology, Art, Religion, and Written Sources, 2022

Cristina Alù, Some Remarks on the sx.tjw and their Overseers: The Multiple Meanings of sx.t and the Social Identity of the Marsh-dwellers Daphna Ben-Tor, James M. Weinstein, Scarabs from a Late Middle Kingdom Workshop at Tell el-Dab‘a Edward Brovarski, A Hitherto Unpublished Middle Kingdom Stela in the Field Museum of Natural History – Chicago Arkadiy E. Demidchik, Some Remarks on Neha’s Spell for Gaining Power over his Servant Statuettes Micòl Di Teodoro, The Preservation of Monuments in the Written Sources of Dynastic Egypt between 2000 and 1550 BC Gudelia García Fernández, Angela M.J. Tooley, Paddle Dolls from the Spanish Mission to Dra Abu el-Naga: Images and Contexts Wolfram Grajetzki, Middle Kingdom Coffins and Coffin Fragments in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Ali Hassan Eid, The Journey from Authenticity to Forgery: A Case-study on an Adzeblade (Egyptian Museum Cairo JE 67944) of the Thirteenth Dynasty Khaled Hassan, Middle Kingdom Wooden Board with Hieratic Inscriptions from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (JE 30442/CG 25369/SR 920) Dinara Hereikhanova, Not only for a King: Nms-headdresses on the Objects of the Twelfth to Eighteenth Dynasties Lubica Hudáková, The Acquisition of a Coffin – Tracing the (Art) History of the Coffin of Neby (MFA 04.2058): From Dayr al-Barsha to Beni Hassan to Boston Alexander Ilin-Tomich, Minor contributions to Middle Kingdom prosopography Esmeralda Lundius, Processing Sites in the Funerary Landscape: Observations on Ancient Egyptian Offering Trays and ‘Soul houses’ Ahmed M. Mekawy Ouda, Seven Oyster Shells at the Egyptian Museum Cairo (CG 12825-12829, JE 28320 and JE 91753) Ahmed M. Mekawy Ouda, Khaled Hassan, Wooden Kohl Tube with Hieratic Inscriptions at the Egyptian Museum Cairo (CG 44703/JE 18553) Gianluca Miniaci, Cornelius von Pilgrim, An Unusual Mutilation of the Crocodile Hieroglyphic Sign in an Early Middle Kingdom Stela from the Sanctuary II of Heqaib at Elephantine Stephen Quirke, Three Types of inscribed Middle Kingdom objects in the Purchases by Flinders Petrie Patricia Rigault, A new Occurrence of CT 398 on two Coffin Fragments in the Louvre Museum Julien Siesse, The Late Middle Kingdom Stela Louvre N 196 = C 42 from the Louvre Museum Uta Siffert, ‘Death ends a Life, not a Relationship’. Some Thoughts on Designatin the Deceased Ax and Wsir NN in the Middle Kingdom Danijela Stefanović, The Administration of the Middle Kingdom Weaving Workshops: a Note on the Textual and Iconographic Data Mohamed Youssef Ali, The Statue of Ameny from his Tomb at Lisht

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Вестник древней истории / Journal of Ancient History, 2023

The article proposes an attribution for a model of a royal sculpture (ГМИИ I, 1a 4127). The artifact seems to find a rather close parallel in the sculpture head Cairo CG 838, which was attributed to the king Hakoris of the Dynasty XXIX (392/1–379/8 BC). Perhaps, this attribution can be reinforced by comparing the Moscow model with some reliefs of Hakoris emphasizing his youthful features.

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