Representations of the pharaohs in Egyptian statuary, known from the Early Dynastic to the Roman period had many functions: propagandistic, religious, didactic, commemorative, magical, and decorative. Found in temples, tombs, palaces and—exceptionally—private homes, they are made of various materials: most frequently stone, and less frequently wood, metals, or faience. The surfaces of the statues were usually painted, or sometimes overlaid with gold foil, but only a few statues now have parts of this coating. Like other cult objects, royal statues were believed to be endowed with life, which was granted through the Opening the Mouth ceremony.

Representations of the pharaohs in Egyptian statuary, known from the Early Dynastic to the Roman period had many functions: propagandistic, religious, didactic, commemorative, magical, and decorative. Found in temples, tombs, palaces and—exceptionally—private homes, they are made of various materials: most frequently stone, and less frequently wood, metals, or faience. The surfaces of the statues were usually painted, or sometimes overlaid with gold foil, but only a few statues now have parts of this coating. Like other cult objects, royal statues were believed to be endowed with life, which was granted through the Opening the Mouth ceremony.

In other domains of Egyptian art, three-dimensional representations of the pharaohs were subject to a canon of iconographic and stylistic patterns, which, however, display a diachronic development. Even the most conservative archetypes change through the centuries, and each epoch introduces new types, which sometimes remain for a long time in the sculptor’s repertory.

Anthropomorphic representations of the ruler are most common, although his affinity with certain animals, particularly those that are zoomorphic incarnations of the most important gods, is frequently emphasized in various ways. The most popular type of statue showing the king as a syncretic, half-human and half-animal being is the sphinx, combining the body of a reclining lion with the head of a pharaoh. The oldest known statue of this type is a fragmentarily preserved sphinx of Djedefre (now in the Louvre), and its most monumental version is the Great Sphinx in Giza, from living rock, probably in the time of Khafre. Long rows of uniform sphinx statues bordered the streets leading to the main entrances of many Egyptian temples. A long sequence of sphinxes dating from the reign of Nektanebo I is still preserved in front of the Luxor temple. A particular type of royal sphinx the king’s human head with a lion’s mane. First recorded in the statuary of Middle Kingdom (a statue attributed to Amenemhet III in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo), it is also found in representations of Hatshepsut (in the Metropolitan Museum) and Taharqa (British Museum). Among the iconographic variations of the sphinx with royal head, there are also figures with two human arms replacing the animal’s forefeet and holding a cult object. This pattern is first found in the statuary of Amenhotpe III found in the temple of Monthu at Karnak. Another peculiar version of sphinx figurine, dating from the same reign and now in Cairo, shows the animal with two wings.

Anthropomorphic effigies portray the king either alone or accompanied by one (dyad), two (triad), or more figures. These are members of his family or his ancestors, various gods in their human, half-animal, or zoomorphic shape, or—rarely—other figures of the same king; exceptionally, a nonroyal figure occurs.

The king represented alone more frequently appears seated, standing, or kneeling, and less frequently striding or prostrate. Seated royal statues occur as early as the second dynasty; the first known life-size representation of a king in this attitude is the statue of Djoser (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) found in Saqqara. Monumental versions of this archetype later decorated entrances to Egyptian temples. A pair of colossal seated statues was usually placed in front of the temple, one on each side of the entrance. A classical example of such decoration is the Memnon Colossi in Thebes, which originally adorned the mortuary temple of Amenhotpe III. Being an important instrument of political and religious propaganda, statues showing a sitting king usually bear a decoration in relief that has symbolic value. The heraldic scene depicting the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt usually decorates the outer faces of the lateral panels in the royal throne, and figures of bound foreign captives appear on the base of the statue. Thus, the king is portrayed as the ruler of all Egypt, victorious over the rest of the world.

A representation of the king kneeling and offering two globular wine vessels is first found in the statuary of Khafre (now in the Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim). Besides this classical version of a kneeling king, there are also statues of pharaohs offering various other ritual objects, such as the statuette of a god, a small shrine (Merenptah, in Cairo), or an offering table (Sety II in Karnak, Ramesses III from Tanis). A standing king can also be shown as the bearer of an offering or a cult object. Three statues attributed to Amenemhet III (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; Museo Ludovisi alle Terme, Rome), as well as statues of Thutmose III (Cairo), Amenhotpe III (Cairo), and Osorkon (British Museum, London), represent the king offering fish. A similar statue of Horemheb (British Museum) shows him offering flowers. Several sculptures portray a standing king in the gesture of adoration. The oldest known examples of the latter are statues of Senwosret III (four in the British Museum and in Cairo). A small figurine in Cairo, showing Ramesses IV in the same attitude, is made of faience. Among the iconographic innovations of the long reign of Amenhotpe III, there is a type of statue depicting a standing king as bearer of a standard at his side (Karnak North and Egyptian Museum, Cairo). This pattern became particularly popular in the Rammesid period.

Several artistic innovations occur in the group of statuary showing a standing king. Unique of its kind is a wooden statue (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) representing the ka of king Hori (thirteenth dynasty); the nude “double” of the king, wearing the wig and beard of a god, bears two raised arms on his head. Another unique statue from the reign of Amenhotpe III, is a large representation of the king’s statue standing on a sledge; found in 1989 in the cache of the Luxor temple and now in the Luxor Museum, and unparalleled in many respects, it belongs among the masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture. Another unusual work is the only monumental representation of a Persian ruler of Egypt, the headless figure of Darius I found in Susa and now in the Iran-Bastam-Museum, Teheran. Its iconography combines Egyptian and Persian elements.

An important group of statues and statuettes shows the king as a mummiform Osiris with hands crossed on his chest. Monumental versions occur in Egyptian temples, on the frontal face of pillars in the façade. The pharaoh holds the usual attributes of Osiris. Small figurines showing a mummiform pharaoh with various tools in his hands are the shawabtis belonging to the equipment of royal burials. The largest group of such stone figurines ever found in a royal tomb came from the Taharqa’s pyramid at Nuri, Sudan; the largest groups are now in the Archaeological Museum, Khartoum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The oldest statue showing a striding pharaoh (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) dates from the reign of Senwosret I. The attitude of prostration first appears in the statuary of Amenhotpe III (Metropolitan Museum of Art). In the few later versions of this pattern, the pharaoh is represented offering a ritual object, such as socle with one or more heads of gods (Ramesses II, in Cairo), a socle with a scarab (Ramesses IX, collection of C. T. Trechmann, Great Britain), or a stela inscribed with a prayer (Osorkon II, Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and University Museum, Philadelphia), or a sacred barge (Osorkon III, Egyptian Museum, Cairo).

An important group of statues represents the pharaoh as a child. The oldest known example is a representation (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) of Pepy II as a seated nude boy; however, juvenile features do not necessarily represent a king in his youth. Recent studies of the art of Amenhotpe III have proved that Egyptian sculptors endowed his effigies with a boyish facial expression in the last phase of his long life, specifically after his sed-jubilee, in order to express the idea of his symbolic regeneration as king. A unique statue of Ramesses II, found in Tanis and now in Cairo, portrays the king as a squatting nude child with various attributes; it is a sophisticated anagram of his name, a cryptographic three-dimensional composition of hieroglyphic signs constituting the name Ra-mes-su. Some other royal statues may also be “read” as anagrams of a king’s name.

The oldest known group statues date from the fourth dynasty. The first dyads show Djedefre with his wife, and the first triads represent Menkaure with the goddess Hathor and the personification of one of the nomes of Egypt (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Later, particularly in the time of Ramesses II, monumental triads become a popular instrument of political theology, showing the king as a child of an important divine couple or emphasizing his affinity to particular gods shown in his company. In exceptional cases, this propaganda includes other members of royal family or royal ancestors. Thus, Senwosret I is represented with his three predecessors (in a statue at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo), while a statue of Merenptah found in Heliopolis shows him with his father, Ramesses II, and the god Osiris. Another statue of Merenptah (from Bubastis, now in Cairo) portrays him with his son Sety II, while a colossal statue of Amenhotpe III (also in Cairo) depicts him with his wife and their own propaganda; for example, the vizier Panehsy is shown standing behind Merenptah and his wife in a work from Deir el-Medina. A fine, large calcite dyad of Amenhotpe III, showing the king with the crocodile-headed god Sobek, was found in Dahamsha in Upper Egypt and is now in the Luxor Museum.

Dyads and triads represent a group of persons frontally, standing or seated side by side. A specific case of this artistic concept appears in groups composed of two or more figures of the same king; the only visible difference between the parallel figures is in their facial features. The earliest such dyad is a double standing representation (Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptischer Kunst, Munich) of Newoserre Any, which allegedly emphasizes the double—human and divine—nature of the pharaoh. One of the two faces is young, while the other reveals features of advanced age. Next in date are the double royal statues of the Middle Kingdom. One, attributed to Amenemhet III and now in Cairo, shows the ruler as the Nile god offering fish, fowl and lotus plants. A group statue of Ramesses II (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) shows two kings kneeling in front of the god Heh, raising an altar. Unique in Egyptian statuary are the four colossi representing the seated Ramesses II, hewn in the façade of his temple at Abu Simbel. Their differentiated facial features probably express the Egyptian idea of totality symbolized by the sacred number four, which would fit the political megalomania of this king.

Contrasting with the large number of groups of linear composition are the less numerous statues depicting an action between two or more persons. In many cases, their sophisticated, mostly asymmetrical composition appears as a three-dimensional version of scenes that occur repeatedly in Egyptian relief and painting. Although some conventions of this group were copied in subsequent periods, there are many innovative forms. One of the most popular patterns shows a small king seated on the knees of another person, usually a god or one of the king’s parents. The king does not always have the features of a child. The oldest known example is a small calcite statue (Brooklyn Museum, New York) showing Pepy II on the knees of his knees of her nurse, Satre (Egyptian Museum, Cairo). Her successor Thutmose III is represented in the same attitude with the goddess Renenutet (also in Cairo). An unfinished limestone statuette from Tell el-Amarna portrays Akhenaten kissing one of his daughters, who is seated on his knees. The theme of a child seated on his mother’s knees was more popular outside the royal context. Its purely religious version, showing Isis with her child Horus, is one of the most popular images among Egyptian bronze statuettes; this later became the prototype of a popular representation of the Virgin Mary.

Two types of group statues were particularly popular from the New Kingdom on: scenes of the coronation ceremony, and representations of an offering or adoring king kneeling in front of a seated divinity. In the first case, the god, seated behind the pharaoh, puts his hands on the king’s crown and shoulder. Large sculptures showing the coronation ceremony are particularly numerous in the statuary of Tutankhamun; most of them probably constituted an integral part of the decoration of the Luxor temple. An unusual statue, found in Medinet Habu and now in Cairo, shows Ramesses III crowned by two gods, Horus and (probably) Thoth. Associated with the coronation groups is a type of statue showing a divinity striding behind a king and putting hands on him a gesture reminiscent of coronation scenes. This patterns is found, for example, in a large anepigraphic statue from Tanis and now in Cairo, showing a Ramessid king followed by a goddess.

An iconographic invention of the Ramessid period is the three-dimensional version of the scene showing a pharaoh killing an enemy. First occurring in the statuary of Merenptah (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) this pattern was copied for Ramesses IV (Cairo) and Ramesses VI (Cairo, Turin), who appear accompanied by a lion.

Representations of a pharaoh protected by an animal, or a zoomorphic incarnation of a god, are popular from the eighteenth dynasty. They paraphrase the earlier concept of a king protected by a falcon, the animal embodying Horus, the divine original of the pharaohs. In the Old Kingdom, the falcon is shown either folding its wings around the head of the king (first in the statuary (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) of Khufu—a diorite statue of Khafre from Giza (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) is the type’s classical example) or standing transversely behind the king’s head. The first pattern was in use at least until the Ramessid period. A specific case is the royal child squatting in the shadow of a falcon, constituting an anagram of the name Ra-mes-su, described above.

Beginning in the reign of Amenhotpe II, who is shown standing before the Hathor cow and the Meretseger snake (both in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo), the type of statue representing a small king in the shadow of a large animal is a standard pattern in royal statuary. Representations of kings protected by sphinxes with the heads of various animals—for example, of rams or falcons—occur particularly often. Several statues showing a falcon as the protector of the king date from the reign of Nektanebo II, the last indigenous pharaoh (e.g., in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Some royal sculptures served a magical function. An example is a group statue representing Ramesses III with a goddess (perhaps Isis, the work, from Heliopolis, is lost). The magic formulae engraved on its surface bring to mind the “healing statues” of nonroyal figures popular in the Late period.

The individuality of each royal effigy was achieved not only by rendering specific facial features but also through the king’s garments and other attributes. These details emphasize the affinity of the pharaoh with particular gods, define his ritual functions, or commemorate historical events of political or religious significance. Most frequently the king is represented barefoot, wearing a short apron and a broad collar on his nude torso. Some statues, including the oldest known figurine of the Early Dynastic period (British Museum, London), show him wrapped in the temple long overcoat worn by the pharaohs on the occasion of their sed-jubilee. Other kinds of long gown characterize the king celebrating his coronation. A specific kind of dress (“Horus gown”), known since New Kingdom, identifies him with Horus; it looks like a large scalp of a falcon, the head of the animal forming a kind of hood over the king’s head. Some statues show a pharaoh wrapped in a panther skin, which brings to mind his function as head priest. In many other cases this function is indicated more symbolically by a panther’s head hanging from the king’s belt.

Headdress is one of the most diagnostic elements in royal attire. Pharaohs are represented wearing various kinds of kerchiefs, crowns, and wigs. The nemes-cloth is the most popular royal headgear in Egyptian statuary of all periods. The most popular crown is the Double Crown composed of two elements symbolizing Lower and Upper Egypt; their combination, expressing the unity of the country, associates the king with the Heliopolitan god Atum, with whom he also shared the epithet “Lord of the Two Lands.” Various kinds of feather crowns associated the king with different gods, particularly Osiris, whose most typical crown (the atef) often appears in royal iconography, especially in funerary contexts. From the New Kingdom on, many statues show a pharaoh wearing the Blue Crown ḫprs, which has the shape of a high vaulted tiara with sharp edges. The oldest known statues of a standing pharaoh wearing this crown (Brooklyn Museum; Egyptian Museum, Cairo; Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim) date from the reign of Amenhotpe III. Diagnostic primarily of a monarch’s military victory, this crown is also associated with the coronation ceremony, as in the fine seated statue of Ramesses II in the Museo Egizio, Turin.

Short wigs are often adorned with a circlet, sometimes with two ribbons hanging behind it. Some types of royal headgear co-occur with an artificial beard of rectangular shape attached to the headdress with lateral bands. A constant element of royal headdress is the uraeus set above the king’s forehead. Its shape, and specifically the arrangement of its coils, varies according to the type of headdress and the artistic trend of the period, so that it is one of the most useful dating criteria in royal sculpture. Two parallel snakes often appear at the forehead of Kushite kings (twenty-fifth dynasty), whose iconography constitutes a specific chapter in Egyptian art. Another characteristic feature of their effigies is the tightly fitting skullcap, in which one may discern an affinity with the Memphire god Ptah, one of the most venerated divinities of that dynasty. All pharaohs share another common feature with Ptah: the rectangular shape of their artificial beard, contrasting with the beards of all other gods, which are curved forward at the base.

Queens and other members of the royal family appear less frequently than kings in Egyptian statuary. Statues of various size, made of various materials, show the queen alone. She is usually portrayed in a long, close-fitting dress, with various types of headgear associating her with different goddesses. She often wears a wig, which sometimes supports a crown, frequently a feather crown. The scalp of a vulture seen on the heads of some queens emphasizes their affinity with goddess Nekhbet in their role as mothers.

Like the majority of statues showing nonroyal subjects, most royal effigies are carved in one monolithic block with a back pillar, a rectangular plate at the rear of the statue. The inscription on the pillar usually contains significant information about the subject.

For many reasons, these and other inscriptions found on royal statues may not be a satisfactory criterion in their dating. Many statues were usurped by later rulers, sometimes more than once and their inscriptions were then recarved. Some pharaohs, deified and venerated by their descendants, are known to have posthumous representations that bear their names but belong stylistically to a later epoch. Archaization, the copying of earlier works, as well as other sorts of imitation and artistic inspiration, occurs frequently in royal statuary, which results in controversial attributions and interpretations. Many statues are preserved only fragmentarily, and if a fragment is anepigraphic or bears only a part of its inscription, criteria of style and iconography remain the only tools for its chronological or topographical attribution.

Each period had its particular style. Representations of some rulers display easily identifiable diagnostic features, and a diachronic development within a reign may be observed only in exceptional cases. The latter is true of a few pharaohs whose rule was long and whose artistic production is known from many inscribed works (e.g., Amenhotpe III, Ramesses II). In some cases, geographic attribution may be proposed as well. Differences of style prove that various workshops or sculptors were simultaneously active in various parts of the country, and even in the same center or temple. In regard to the rendering of facial features, it seems that Lower Egyptian workshops were generally more open to innovative trends and perhaps more inventive than Upper Egyptian artists. Contrasting with a naturalistic approach to the physiognomy of a king, often found in the work of Lower Egyptian sculptors, is the attachment of Upper Egyptian artists to traditional, classical, conservative patterns, especially after the Amarna period. A late exemplification of such differences may be found in the representations of Nektanebo I.

In spite of the naturalistic trends, it remains an open question, to what extent, if at all, Egyptian sculptors created “portraits” in the modern sense of a direct likeness of the object to its model. On one hand, the existence of gypsum casts of human faces (e.g., from Tell el-Amarna) proves that the desire to preserve the original facial features of a person for posterity was present in Egyptian mind. On the other hand, the idealized, impersonal, rather timeless features characterizing the majority of royal sculptures demonstrate that it was much more important to express the king’s strength and self-satisfaction than his physical likeness or any particular emotion. However, there are many departures from this general tendency, particularly in the periods of great political and social change. Thus, an unprecedented naturalism may be observed in the representations of some twelfth dynasty kings, such as Senwosret III and Amenemhet III. Their “pessimistic portraits,” emphasizing the sadness of their tired faces, sometimes have the impact of psychological studies, bringing to mind the social problems known from this period’s literature.

Another period that reveals a naturalistic approach toward royal physiognomy is the “religious revolution” of Akhenaten, which seems to have been the culmination of a long evolution reflecting profound religious and political changes that started with the rule of Hatshepsut and reached their climax in the time of Amenhotpe III. Many representations of Akhenaten and his family endow their physiognomy with exaggerated, almost caricatural features which exceed the notion of “naturalism” to approach a mannerism that must have had a more ideological than artistic motive. Not only the overemphasized dolichocephaly of the king, but also his female characteristics—broad hips, thick thighs, narrow shoulders, thin arms, and the unnatural elongation of the face—characterize the unparalleled individuality of his effigies. The feminine aspects may be a visual expression of the bisexuality of the king in his identification with the primeval god. In spite of an official return to religious and artistic orthodoxy after the fall of Akhenaten, stylistic echoes of his sculpture are clear in many representations of later kings, in both statuary and relief.

Specific iconographic and stylistic features also distinguish the statuary of the Kushite twenty-fifth dynasty. In respect to the physiognomy and attire of these kings, two tendencies may be observed. Besides representations following traditional patterns of pharaonic sculpture, there are statues emphasizing the Negroid facial features and strong musculature of the Kushites. A new type of headdress with a double uraeus at the forehead, and a characteristic necklace with small ram’s heads, also individualize the representations of these pharaohs.

New trends in the style of royal statuary appear in the time of the last indigeneous thirtieth dynasty. They display rounded faces with protruding cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes with long thin cosmetic lines paralleled by a straight extension of the eyebrow, smiling mouths with slightly raised corners, and the slanting profile of the double chin. This prototype, possibly of Lower Egyptian origin, strongly influenced royal sculpture of the Ptolemaic period, even some effigies that were executed principally in the Greek style.

From the beginning of Egyptian art up to Roman times, royal statuary had an obvious impact on the representations of Egyptian noblemen and gods. Both their facial features and elements of their attire express a homogeneous trend which is also found in relief sculpture of the same period. This proves that royal sculpture and effigies of other subjects were made in the same workshops.

• Share
• Tweet
• "&title=""">