With the New Kingdom came new types of statuary. While moral values found their way into writing on artefacts of the earlier Middle Kingdom, it was now the entire composition that shouted personal piety.
In our example from Deir el-Medina, a man wearing a long tripartite wig, standing bare-chested in a long pleated kilt with triangular apron, holds a falcon-headed standard under his left arm, the right arm parallel along the body, fist clenched on an attribute now missing.
But the individual was no priest. Karo or Kel (Kr) (i), identified by the inscriptions on the statue, was "one who heard the call" (sDm(.w) aS, too often translated as ‘servant’), chief carpenter (Hmww wr) in the artists' village. His professional skills let us speculate that the statue might be a 'self-portrait', sculpted, painted and inscribed in a fashion typical of the site. Even if he had the representation made for him by a colleague, he wanted to be shown worshipping or processing in close contact with the god. Texts on the statue address with three types of formulae no less than eight deities, covering all the bases while appealing to “grant [his] name to remain in the Place of Truth, that […] name be pronounced”. The crossing of genres suggests that the statue may have served either in a funerary or cultic context, or even both.
In any case, like many colleagues from Deir el-Medina as well as other contemporaries, Karo wanted to advertise not only his skills or means to own a painted wood statue, but even more so his odd religious role beyond his earthly job, his deep piety, forging a lasting relation with both god and audience.
LOCATION INVENTORY No
On display in Gallery 124
TYPE
Striding Standard-Bearer
SIZE
H. 48 x W. 13.5 x D. 28.8 cm
MATERIAL
Wood
DATE
New Kingdom, Dynasty 19,
first half of Ramesses II’s reign
c. 1250 BCE
PROVENANCE
Deir el-Medina (possibly TT330), Luxor West Bank, Upper Egypt.
Acquired from Collection Koutoulakis (Geneva) in 1965.
MAIN PUBLICATION
Fischer-Elfert, H.G. (1977). The Orientation of Hieroglyphs. Part 1, Reversals. Egyptian Studies II. New York: MMA, pp. 137-140.
PARALLEL
Comentários