sculpture, skulptur

EE 305. The material is wood with traces of red paint on the body. The max. height is 27 cm, the max. width 8.5 cm and the max. depth 6.7 cm. The height of the face is 3.8 cm. The statuette is broken off at knee-level. The right arm is missing apart from a trace at the hip showing where it had been attached to the body. There are both major and minor fissures running vertically through the figure, some major breaks are filled with plaster, perhaps ancient. The once inlaid eyes and eyebrows are hollow. Nose and mouth are damaged.

The man stands with the left leg slightly forward and the preserved hand fisted. He wears the common plain loin-cloth with an undecorated belt. At the neck a broad collar was once marked in paint, the lower limit is additionally indicated by a faint incised line. The head is crowned by a rather voluminous wig of a type known since the Old Kingdom, although changing in execution during the ages.° It runs rather horizontally

at the forehead while curving softly at the sides and below above the neck, leaving the earlobes bare. On the crown there is an undecorated circle from where the “curls” radiate in altogether eight ‘“‘etage”. The curls, that are rendered in raised relief, vary in size and thickness and are additionally dislocated in relation to each other. At the forehead three layers of “‘curls” are rendered on top of each other; the corresponding surface at the sides and neck is plain.

The posture of the body is very straight with the preserved arm hanging straight down at the side. The body is of the well-known athletic type, that, by no means, is stereotype in its proportions. In the Old Kingdom for example, the shoulders are straighter and normally so broad that the arms hanging down do not even touch the body. This is generally also the case of the sculpture in the Middle Kingdom, as well as of the very athletic statues of Tuthmose III. In this figure, the shoulders are somewhat sloping and the arms touch the hips, the widest part of the body below. The torso is elongated with a long waist. The pectoral muscles, the collar-bones as well as the stomach are very subtly rendered. The navel is marked by a small, shallow circular hole. In short, the flesh of the body is not underlined. An almost restrained impression is conveyed by the modelling as well as by the ngid posture. The shapes are flattish and elongated and the style could, perhaps, be termed “academic” and of a good workmanship.

The face is elliptical with evenly rounded cheeks. The large, almond-shaped eyes are obliquely set. The eyebrows are slightly curved well above the eyes, close to the edge of the head-dress. The damaged nose seems to have been rather long and slightly bent, running rather in line with the flat receding forehead. The damaged mouth has rounded corners and Is wider than the nose. Mainly the position of the jaws in relation to the root of the nose endows the face a flattish quality in tune with the overall impression conveyed by the statuette, however of a certain elegance.

The statuette was once produced for a private male for funeral use sometime between the reign of Amenhotep III and the Tuthmoside period. The general elegance as the facial structure are a result of the Tuthmoside period, while the large, oblique, almond-shaped eyes appears after that period to prevail during the reign of Amenhotep III. The actual reign of origin should thus be that of Amenhotep II or Tuthmose IV. There are some related objects in the round, however dated on stylistical criteria to this period.® For good stylistical parallels it is more yielding to draw upon examples of the Theban tomb-painting of the time, “securely” dated to the reign of Amenhotep II.’ Considering the present state of research, it is preferable not to settle for any definitive reign of origin. (Lindgren 1988:3)