Nonroyal Statuary (Continuación)

Conformity and Generalization

Fig. 35. Ka-em-ked Kneeling
Fig. 35. Ka-em-ked Kneeling

Beginning in the reign of Shepseskaf, at the end of the Fourth Dynasty, the locale of nonroyal cemeteries and royal tombs shifted from Giza to Saqqara, and most of the statuary of the Fifth Dynasty comes from the latter site. The "king's son and vizier" Ba-baef55 chose to build his tomb at Giza, and it affords fine examples from the transitional phase when statuary of high quality was made for a small number of privileged individuals. The archaeologists who discovered the tomb recovered fragments of between thirty and fifty statues.56 Types, sizes, and media are extremely varied. A small, perfectly preserved statue in granite of Ba-baef as a scribe57 is notable for the slight inclination of the prince's head, suggestive of his concentration on the papyrus he is reading. A series of lifesize limestone standing statues shows Ba-baef with an athletic body and large shoulders. The modeling is excellent but simplified. The heads have, unfortunately, disappeared. There is little variation in his clothing, which consists of either a short kilt with pleated flap or a midlength kilt with hanging belt. In a series of alabaster statues, however, three styles of coiffure are displayed: curls clinging tightly to the subject's skull (cat. no. 87); a short, round wig; and a flaring wig that leaves the ear-lobes exposed. The face, which in one example once had inlaid eyes, is doll-like, and the fullness of the cheeks is accentuated by furrows at the edges of the mouth.58 In the same tomb were fragments of two pseudogroups in granite. In each group, two images of Ba-baef appear side by side, one seated and one standing. These constitute the earliest evidence of this special type of statue, of which there exists only a single royal example—that of Niuserre59—although perhaps thirty such works showing nonroyal persons are known (see cat. no. 187).60

During the course of the Fifth Dynasty, as the administration of Egypt became more complex, an increasing number of private persons had access to a wide range of careers. Nonroyal tombs multiplied, and the statuary that filled them is abundant, although of less homogeneous quality and often smaller in size than the earlier examples. For these sculptures wood seems to have been the material of choice, but this impression may be the result of the vagaries of preservation.61 Even in the most finished examples the workmanship seems perfunctory, and the types are so generalized that they can be compared to hieroglyphs.62 Countenances, suffused with a timeless youth, are less distinctive, and the repertoire of accessory elements diminishes. It is difficult to say whether this development is a consequence of mass production63 or of a shift in funerary beliefs. That there are exceptions to the rule must be noted, and we can point to original poses and details. The kneeling figure of the funerary priest Ka-em-ked64 (fig. 35) is remarkable for its pose and the superb treatment and brilliance of its eyes inlaid with black stone—a novel technique. The otherwise unremarkable statue of Ma-nefer65 is noteworthy for the scepter lying across the subject's breast; here the artist revived a theme dating back to the Third Dynasty. Unusual, too, is the procession of offering bearers that decorates the cubic seat of Sekhem-ka.66 On one of the three statues of Akhet-hotep recently discovered at Saqqara, the emblem of the goddess Bat, suspended against a beaded sash, is picked out in sharp relief.67

Fig. 36. Nen-khefet-ka Seated
Fig. 36. Nen-khefet-ka Seated

This subdued and less expressive style of the Fifth Dynasty, often achieved with a sure technique, is found in two diorite statues from the tomb of Nen-khefet-ka, a courtier of King Sahure (figs. 36, 37).68 A fragmentary sculpture shows the courtier beside his wife, who stands with her hand on his arm.69 A second Nen-khefet-ka, who probably lived at the same time and was buried in the provincial cemetery of Deshashah, in the south of Faiyum, commissioned statues in all respects analogous to those from the Memphite region.70 Made some twenty years later, the monumental statue of Ti (fig. 38), a contemporary of Niuserre, is striking for the simplification of the musculature and the schematic modeling of the face. This statue is very different from the subtle bas-reliefs that adorn this official's famous funerary chapel at Saqqara.71 We can detect a refined sensibility and a taste for detail in the series sculpted for Overseer of the Granary Ni-ka-re (see introduction to cat. nos. 127-130), a less important contemporary of Ti. Several family groups accompany individual statues of the deceased, who is rendered in a variety of poses and materials.

Some tombs at Saqqara that probably date to the end of the Fifth Dynasty have yielded clusters of stuccoed and painted wood statues of exceptional size and condition. Of eleven acacia-wood statues showing Mit-re and his family—located in New York, Cairo, and Stockholm— many are lifesize. Despite the plasticity of the medium, the group is very rigid, the postures are stiff, and the modeling of the faces is rough. Special mention must be made of a female figure in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, who wears a rare tripartite wig,72 and the large figure of a scribe with inlaid eyes in the same museum.73 It should also be noted that in the serdab of Mit-re was found a wood statuette of a hunchback (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 52081). Hunchbacks are among the subjects depicted in a sequence of models from the end of the Fourth Dynasty; the material prefigures the statuettes of servants of the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom.

Of quite a different quality is the splendid statue of Senedjem-ib Mehi, chief architect of King Unis, which was found at Giza (fig. 39). The entirely nude large-scale figure stands with one arm extended. The treatment of the slim body is extremely delicate, and the modeling of the face, with eyes that were once inlaid, is done with close attention to realistic details. The oblique lines between mouth and nose, and the mouth with its thick lips and truncated corners announce the advent of what Egyptologists call the "Second Style" of the Sixth Dynasty,74 as do the subject's nakedness and his elongated silhouette.

Some of these features, as well as the long kilt with quilted front panel worn by Ti, are also found in two representations of Metjetji,75 whose tomb is customarily dated to the reign of Unis (cat. nos. 151-157), while other statues of him are executed in the style of the earlier Fifth Dynasty.76

  1. LG 40 = G 5230; archives of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, unpublished.
  2. Smith 1946, p. 50.
  3. Ibid. (Reg. No. 14-12-7,82).
  4. Compare also a head of a statue of Ba-baef (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, ÀS 7786).
  5. Staatliche Sammlung Agyptischer Kunst, Munich, AS 6794.
  6. Eaton-Krauss 1995, pp. 57-74.
  7. Eaton-Krauss 1984, p. 58; Harvey 1994.
  8. Most recently, Assmann 1996, pp. 65-67.
  9. Wildung 1982b, pp. 8-10.
  10. Funerary priest of Wer-irni, whose titles mention Neferirkare.
  11. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, 53, no. 11.
  12. Central Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton, England; James 1963, pp. 5-12; see also Egyptian Museum, Cairo, CG 21.
  13. SA 96/7 (= OAE 42); Ziegler 1997c, pp. 237-43.
  14. Saqqara, mastaba D 47; this person figures in the reliefs of Sahure, and in his tomb the names of Userkaf and Sahure occur. The tomb yielded sixteen statues in various positions. Two represent scribes, and many, unfortunately, are headless.
  15. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, CG 94, limestone.
  16. British Museum, 1239.
  17. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 10065 (= CG 20; h. 1.98; Saqqara D 22); Smith 1946, p. 78; Cherpion 1989, p. 131.
  18. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 51738.
  19. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 93165; Russmann 1995a, p. 275, n. 66.
  20. Ibid., p. 276.
  21. Brooklyn Museum, 51.1; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 51-1.
  22. Russmann 1995a, p. 274.
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