The art: the statues

The statues

	Funeral statues that represented prince Rahotep and his wife Nofre (IV dynasty, 2575 – 2467 BC). Realized in limestone and painted, they were put in the prince’s tomb in Maydum. They are kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

	Amenemhat’s III statue in granite, a pharaoh who reigned in Egypt from 1842 to 1797 BC, it’s an example of the artistic production of the middle reign. The work celebrates with vigorous realism the pharaoh’s figure and power.

	Basanite – Ramses’s II reign (1290 – 1224 BC). Dovetti Collection – Tebe – The statue represents the pharaoh Ramses II sitting on the throne with the typical attributes of royalty: the cobra with the swollen throat in the attack (ureo) and the sceptre called heka by the Egyptians. The sovereign wears on his head an azure crown, in the shape of a helmet and wears the clothing of the court of the epoch, characterized by a lot of pleats and flared sleeves and a wide and long skirt. He wears sandals with which he walks over the Nine Arches, symbol at the foreign people submitted by the pharaoh and on the front base some figures of asian and nubian prisoners are represented, with their arms tied with the stems of the plants, symbol of the reign of Egypt, the papyrus of Lower Egypt and the lotus of Upper Egupt, the two lands, from the union of which the pharaonic state began at the beginning of the III millennium BC. Besides the king’s right leg there is his son, Amonherkhepeshef, who wears clothes similar to his father’s ones and has his head shaved except for a braid that comes down on his right shoulder, the typical hairstyle for boys and teenagers, the young boy grasps the “Flabello” with astrich feathers, the emblem of his title as “the flabelliere at the king’s right”, reported in hyeroglyphics between the king leg and the throne. Besides the king’s left leg there is queen Nefertari, who wears a long pleated tunic and on her head a hairstyle with high ostrich feathers, between the bovine horns and the solar disc. The queen’s names and titles are written in hyeroglyphics between the king’s leg and the throne. The sculpture is exposed in the I chamber of the Statuary.

	The colossal of Mamnone are two great statues that represent Amenhotep III that are fifteen meters high (without counting the supporting base) and a weight of seven-hundred tons. Their massive shape impressed the visitors in ancientness and particularly the Greek. Actually the sovereign didn’t have the impressive physique that the Egyptians have handed down to the descendants with the representation of the gigantic monuments. Actually the pharaoh was small, rather fat and of delicate healt.

	- Statue of the pharaoh AMENHOTEP II - Pink granite – 1,52 mt high - XVIII dynasty (1438-1412 BC). Drovetti Collection Tebe The statue represents the pharaoh on his knee as he present to the divinity the offering vases of wine. The pharaoh wears the traditional clothes: headgear of pleated cloth, called nemes, by the Egyptians, decorated with the diadem with the cobra with a sqollem throat as it attacks (urea); ceremonial heard and skirt, called by the egyptians shendyt. The pharaoh's names and titles are reported in hyeroglyphics on the belt of the skirt. Amenhotep II is Thutmosis's III son and heir, and he tried to emulate his father's greatness, celebrating the demonstrations of courage and strength, he had given during the years of his reign.

	Statue of the dignitary Anen (Petail) Diorite - 1,46 mt high Amenhotep's II Reign (1402 - 1364 BC) Drovetti Collection. The statue represents the queen Teye's brother, the queen was the pharaoh Amenhotep's III wife.

	Sculptural group of the pharaoh HOREMHEB and the queen MUTNEGEMET Diorite - 1,29 m high - Horemheb's reign (1333 - 1306 BC). Drovetti collection Tebe. The sculptural group represents the pharaoh Horemheb and the queen Mutnegemet sitting on the throne. The marriage had confirmed the legitimacy of Horemheb's incoronation, who from being a general had become the pharaoh of Egypt and on the back part of the throne, a long text in hyerohlyphics tells the story of the acquisition of his rights to the throne. On the side of the throne correspondant to the queen, on the inferior register a papyrus is represented and on the superior register there is a female winged sphinx with its arms raised in adoration before the queen's name written inside an oval sign, which we call cartouch; on the side of the throne correspondant to the king two asian and two nubian prisoners are engraved with their arms tied with the papyrus and lotus stems, the plants that were the symbol of the North and the South of Egypt, from the union of which began at the beginning of the III millennium BC, the history of the pharaonic state.

	Sculptural group of the pharaoh Ramses II and of the gods Amon an Mut. Pink granite - 1,74 mt high Ramses's II reign (1290 . 1224 BC) Drovetti Collection Tebe The group represents the pharaoh Ramses II between god Amon (at his right) and the goddess Mut (at his left) with the typical divine and royal attributes, on the goddess Mut's head there is the solar disk between the bovine horns, an attribute common even for other divinities, Hathor and Isis, protectors of royalty and reproduction; the sovereign wears a headgear of pleated cloth, called nemes by the Egyptians, decorated with the cobra with a swollen throat as it attacks (ureo) and surmounted by the horns of the ram, the animal sacred to Amon, that support two ostrich feathers and the solar disk. The test in hyeroglyphics on the back, reports the benevolence that both divinities give to the king.

	Statue of princess Redit Diorite - 83 cm III dynasty (2640 - 2575 BC) Drovetti collection - Provably from Sakkara this work is one of the most ancient examples of Egyptian stone sculpture and it shows the mature style reached in the Egyptian art at the beginning of the III millennium BC. The sculpture represents the princess sitting on a cubic throne; the royal name and title are engraved in hyerogliphics on the base besides the feet; the woman wears a tunic with braces, typical of the Egyptian clothing and has her left hand on her chest and the right hand on her knee according to the composing saheme used in the Egyptian art for the sitting figure.

	Statue of the pharaoh Sethi II Pink sand-stone - 5,16 mt high Sethi's II reign (1204 - 1194 Bc) Drovetti Collection Tebe. Colossal statue of the pharaoh Sethi II, originally placed in Karnak at the entrance of the chapel dedicated by the king to god Amon, together with a similar one, kept in the Egyptian collection in the Louvre museum in Paris. The sculpture represents the sovereign wearing the processional clothes with his left leg in the front as he goes ahead and the divine and royal attributes represented in the complicated ceremonial crown. In his left hand he has the staff surmounted by the god's image, in whose honor the ceremonies were celebrated. The king's name and titles are inside an oval sign, which we call cartouche, and are written in hyerogliphics on the dorsal pilaster, on the staff, on the skirt and on the base; a hollow in the front of the base has deprived the pharaoh's cartouche of the part with the god Seth's name.

	Nefertiti's bust, queen of Egypt, the pharaoh Amenofi's IV wife, who lived in the XIV century BC. Nefertiti was probably priestess of the new monotheistic cult to god Amon, introduced by Amenofi himself, who changed his name to Akhenaten.

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