Head of a King
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Object Label
Granite is extremely hard, but the sculptor of this statue was able to give the king’s plump face and small features a softly natural quality, perhaps suggesting the subject’s actual appearance rather than an idealized version. Originally, this fragment surmounted an oversize figure, achieving the same monumental quality as the pyramids being built at this time.
Caption
Head of a King, ca. 2650–2600 B.C.E.. Granite, 22 × 11 × 13 in. (55.9 × 27.9 × 33 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 46.167. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 46.167_SL1.jpg)
Title
Head of a King
Date
ca. 2650–2600 B.C.E.
Dynasty
late Dynasty 3 to early Dynasty 4
Period
Early Old Kingdom
Geography
Place made: Egypt
Medium
Granite
Classification
Dimensions
22 × 11 × 13 in. (55.9 × 27.9 × 33 cm)
Credit Line
Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
Accession Number
46.167
Rights
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
Frequent Art Questions
May I have some information about this head?
This head depicts a king, that much we know for certain based on the type of crown he's wearing. It was made around the time of the Great Pyramids or a little earlier. It is possible that this dead depicts a king named Huni who ruled in the latter part of the 3rd Dynasty.It's made of granite, an extremely hard stone to carve. Even though we don't know where specifically it stood, or whom exactly it represented, we can still have a sense of what its purpose would have been. A larger-than-life size statue in granite like this one likely comes from a temple or a funerary site.In what year was this carved?
This head is over 4,600 years old! It was carved somewhere between 2650-2600 B.C.E. This would be the late 3rd or early 4th Dynasty in Egypt. It is about the same age as the Great Step Pyramid!Is there a reason why so many noses are missing on the sculptures?
There are two reasons for the missing noses. First, noses protrude from the face of a statue, which makes them easier to fall off. Similar things happen to the hands and ears of sculptures, for example.The second ties into ancient Egyptian beliefs and the purpose for the statues in the first place! Statues were able to house the spirits of the deceased so by ritually "killing" the statue, one could stop the process. Smashing off the nose or scratching out the name are two ways of "killing" a statue.That could happen anytime after a statue was completed. We know from records that, when Christianity took hold in Egypt, groups of Christian monks would go around "killing" statues, believing that spirits of gods or the deceased were demonic.That makes sense. Thought I had heard that before. Thank you!
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