The colossal red granite statue of Amenhotep III is a granite head of the 18th Dynasty ancient Egyptian Pharaoh

Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ( egy, jmn-ḥtp(.w), ''Amānəḥūtpū'' , "Amun is Satisfied"; Hellenized as Amenophis III), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. According to different ...

. Dating from around 1370 BCE, it was found in the temple enclosure of Mut at

Karnak The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Construct ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient ...

. Two parts of the broken colossal statue are known: the head and an arm. Both parts are now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. The statue is made of red

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

. It is fragmentary: only the head and an arm are known to survive.

History

The statue is thought to have been erected by King

, one of the huge number of statues that he had ordered to be built in ancient Thebes (

Luxor Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...

). It is uncertain whether it was originally erected at its findspot at the Temple of Mut in Karnak, or if it came to be there having been removed in antiquity from Amenhotep's massive mortuary temple on the West Bank of the

River Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...

at Kom el-Hitan. Other colossal statues of Amenhotep III include the two

Colossi of Memnon The Colossi of Memnon ( ar, el-Colossat, script=Latn, italic=yes or ''es-Salamat'') are two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, which stand at the front of the ruined Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, the largest temple in the Theba ...

, which still stand at his mortuary temple at Kom el-Hitan. After its discovery, the statue was originally ascribed by scholars as a statue of King Thutmose III. The confusion has arisen from modification of the head by later rulers; it was common practice in Ancient Egypt for pharaohs to usurp statues of earlier rulers, modifying and re-inscribing them. The lips have had their corners drilled to suggest a smaller mouth, and the heavy cosmetic lines around the eyes, suggestive of the style of cosmetic fashion in Amenhotep III's time, have been largely erased. It is now thought that the alterations were made in the time of, and to represent,

Ramesses II Ramesses II ( egy, wikt:rꜥ-ms-sw, rꜥ-ms-sw ''Rīʿa-məsī-sū'', , meaning "Ra is the one who bore him"; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Along with Thutmose III he is oft ...

Discovery

The broken statue was discovered in the temple enclosure of Mut at Karnak by

Giovanni Battista Belzoni Giovanni Battista Belzoni (; 5 November 1778 – 3 December 1823), sometimes known as The Great Belzoni, was a prolific Italian explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities. He is known for his removal to England of the seven-tonn ...

and

Henry William Beechey Henry William Beechey (1788/89 – 4 August 1862) was an English painter and explorer. His father was the painter William Beechey, Sir William Beechey, Royal Academy, RA and his stepmother was Anne Beechey, Anne Jessop.John Wilson, 'Beechey, Si ...

in 1817. The head was found in front of the temple of Khonsupakhered. After being uncovered, the head needed to be moved to Luxor on the Nile for transport upriver to

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

and thence to London. Moving the head was not easy: it took eight days to transport it the single mile (1.6 km) to Luxor. Belzoni does not mention the exact location where the arm was found, though it is assumed to have been found with the head. The head was stored for a period in the house of a Signor Rossi in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

One evening
Salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
took him Captain FitzClarenceto call on Signor Rossi, where he had deposited some interesting items brought from the neighbourhood of Thebes, including a head of "Orus", "10 feet from the top of the mitre to the chin, having a band at the bottom part of it not unlike a turban ... made of red granite ... and in a very fine state of preservation ... an arm 18 feet long of the same statue with the fist clenched."Deborah Manley and Peta Rée, ''Henry Salt: Artist, Traveller, Diplomat, Egyptologist'' London: Libri, 2001, p. 150

The head

The head is 2.90m high, and is depicted wearing the pschent, the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The British Museum has been in possession of the head since acquiring it from Henry Salt in 1823. It has the reference number EA 15 and is displayed in Room 4 of the Museum.

The arm

The arm, a left arm, is 3.30m long and terminates in a clenched fist. The British Museum has been in possession of the arm since acquiring it from Henry Salt in 1823. It has the reference number EA 55 and is displayed in Room 4 of the Museum.

References

Reading

*T.G.H. James and W.V. Davies, ''Egyptian sculpture'' (London, The British Museum Press, 1983) *A.P. Kozloff and B.M. Bryan, ''Egypts dazzling sun: Amenhotep ''(Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992) *Deborah Manley and Peta Rée, ''Henry Henry Salt: artist, traveller, diplomat, Egyptologist'' London: Libri, 2001) *Strudwick, Nigel, ''Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt'', London: British Museum Publications, 2006 p160-1

External links

British Museum page on the headDetailed British Museum page on the headDetailed British Museum page on the arm
{{British Museum Ancient Egyptian sculptures in the British Museum Sculptures of ancient Egypt 14th-century BC works Colossal statues in the United Kingdom Amenhotep III