April 18: Later Middle Kingdom royal

Royal jewelry from Dahshur and Illahun pick a few pieces to compare so we can get a good chance to look closely - Emily

Carol Andrews Ancient Egyptian Jewelry
Brunton Lahun I: the treasure

Senwosret III Abydos tomb - Peter
Wegner in Archaism and Innovation (on reserve shelf)
Ayrton, Currelly and Weigall Abydos III

Statuary of Senwosret III from Deir el Bahri - Müge
Naville's volumes on the excavation of D el B

British Museum Online Catalogue (available online at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research.aspx)

British Museum’s online catalogue was extremely helpful, (and in fact the only way!) to distinguish between the almost identical three statues of Senwosret III in the British Museum (EA 684-6). EA 684 and EA 686 also has decent explanations listed within the catalogue, which were helpful.

James, T.G.H., and W.V. Davies. 1983. Egyptian sculpture. London: The British Museum Press.

This is a catalogue of the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery in the British Museum. Apart from giving some detail about the statuery, I found it most useful for purposes of curatorial purposes. The book is arranged as a narrative following the outline of the galleries, and literally takes the reader through the exhibitions. A plan of the galleries also offers the reader to follow the museum narrative better.

Müller, M. 2009. “Self-perception and Self-assertion in the Portrait of Senwosret III: New Methods for Reading a Face.” In R. Nyord and A. Kjolby (eds.) ‘Being in Ancient Egypt’: Thoughts on Agency, Materiality and Cognition. Proceedings of the Seminar Held in Copenhagen, September 29-30, 2006 (BAR International Series 2019). Oxford: Archaeopress, pp.47-61.

Although some of the methodologies used by Müller are not convincing (especially comparing the statuary of Senwosret III with modern portraits), her effort to tease out the personality of Senwosret III from his statuary and writings is a positive step. Müller tries to develop both objective and subjective ways of looking at the facial expressions of Senwosret III in a range between pure stylistic description to interpreting textual sources, and offers a set of tools for examining Middle Kingdom Statuary.

Naville, E. 1907. The XIth dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari – Part I. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.

This was an invaluable resource as the original excavation publication. Although more than a century old, it contains detailed information about the findspots of the statues of Senwosret III as well as pictures of the statues. Chapter II – “The Temple and its Excavation” (by H.R. Hall) and Chapter V – “The XIIth Dynasty and the Worship of Neb-Hetep-Ra” (by E. Naville) were extremely helpful for setting the broader context of the Senwosret III statues and their meaning. This volume, however, does not contain detailed information about the techniques, materials and features of the individual statues apart from stating they most probably depict the king at different ages.

Naville, E. 1913. The XIth dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari – Part II. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.

This volume has very little information about the statuary of Senwosret III from the temple, but introduces highlights about the relationship between the kings of the 11th and the 12th dynasties, which have significance for understanding the veneration of Mentuhotep II by later generations.

Naville, E. 1913. The XIth dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari – Part III. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.

This volume of Deir el-Bahri excavations introduce the votive statues and stelae dedicated to the temple and its shrines. Chapter III – “The Statues of Senusrit III” (by H. R. Hall) was the most useful one for my purposes. Here, the four statues of Senwosret III are compared from a very stylistic yet useful way that highlights some details of each of the statues.

Russmann, E. R. 2001. Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum. New York: British Museum Press.

This was an extremely helpful source for both the statuary of Senwosret III and a general evaluation of the Middle Kingdom statuary. High quality visual material, bibliographical entries, and the detailed catalogue definition made this book more and more useful.

Saleh, M., and H. Sourouzian. 1987. Official Catalogue of the Egyptian Museum Cairo. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.

A decent catalogue with short entries, but still is worth looking at to get a grasp of Cairo Museum’s catalogue. The statue of Senwosret III was among the entries, and had a few paragraph of explanation.

Pyramids of Amenmhat III - Julia
Arnold, D. “Royal Cult Complexes of the Old and Middle Kingdoms” in Temples of Ancient Egypt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997, 31-85. This is an excellent place to jump to second (after Lehner) for a good overview of the pyramid complexes. Arnold provides more analysis and commentary on the potential function of the complexes and emphasizes the Classical author’s accounts of the Labyrinth.

Arnold, D. “Von Pyramidenbezirk zum ‘Haus für Millionen Jahre’” in MDAIK 34 (1978), 1-8. Arnold presents the argument for the development of the Pyramid complexes into the House for Millions of Years which is prevalent in the New Kingdom and could be an explanation for the function of Amenemhat’s Pyramid Complex at Hawara.

Arnold, D. Der Pyramidenbezirk des Konigs Amenemhet III in Dahschur. Mainz: 1987. Report of excavation under Arnold at Dahshur. The first volume discusses the Pyramid itself.

Lehner. The Complete Pyramids. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Best starting point for an in depth overview of the pyramids, their historical context. There is additional reading bibliography at the back, but no in-text citations.

Petrie. Hawara, Biahmu and Arsinoe. London: 1889. Excavation Report. Good for plans and drawings, but as is typical with Petrie much is left out of his reports including find-spots and whether or not architectural elements in his plans are from their original locations or possess evidence of a secondary deposition, etc.

Petrie, Wainwright and Mackay. The Labyrinth, Gerzeh and Mazghuneh. London: 1912. See Petrie description above.

Uphill, Eric. Pharaoh’s Gateway to Eternity: The Hawara Labyrinth of King Amenemhat III. London: Kegan Paul International, 2000. Uphill tries to combine all the known sources of information regarding the complex in order to best reconstruct its plan and function. His source material includes Petrie’s journals and letters, Classical authors, and Middle Kingdom texts. This is an excellent source, since he lays out all the known artifacts and plans attributed to the site – an inventory of knowledge including unpublished works with commentary on each artifact (albeit at times short and brief). Warning! His reconstruction is not thoroughly supported on the ground, as it is meant to be a hypothetical reconstruction.

Uytterhoeven, Inge and Ingrid Blom-Böer. “New Light on the Egyptian Labyrinth: Evidence from a Survey at Hawara” in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Vol. 88, (2002), pp. 111-120. This article details the new finds of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium survey at the site of Hawara. Included in this report is the rediscovery of statuary referenced in Lepsius’ and Petrie’s excavations.

Statuary of Amenemhat III - Kathryn
Freed in Revue d'égyptologie, 2002 ('Another Look at the Sculpture of Amenemhat III')

13th Dynasty statue of King Hor -Oren

The sources that I found were not very good. I think this statue must be really understudied, or I may have missed a more recent article or study.

De Morgan's Fouilles a Dachour I (Mars-Juin 1894) provide the most comprehensive coverage of both the statue and tomb of King Hor. The excavation report is in French, but isn't hard to get through. All things considered, I think de Morgan did an okay job recording his excavation of the shaft burial, given that this was the late 19th Century. For a basic overview of the statue itself as well as its archaeological context, this was by far the most valuable source I found.

Bruce Beyer Williams article in Serapis III, "The Date of Senebtisi at Lisht" was useful for thinking about intrusive burials in later complexes, but had little information specific to King Hor personally.

An illustrated guide to the Egyptian Museum in Cario by Farid Atiya, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo: A Walk through the Alleys of Ancient Egypt, had the best images and provided some additional information about the materials comprising the statue and naos.

The Lexikon der Ägyptologie entry on King Hor only had a sentence or two mentioning the statue itself, but provided some useful background information and a historical context. I believe the entry is from LdÄ II, p. 1274.

Seated statue of Sebekemsaf I - Mike
Davies, A royal statue reattributed - This is an extremely in-depth analysis of the statue. Davies first tries to prove the reattribution of the statue, then goes through its physical description very carefully, then talks about other statues and this one's place in Egyptian art. The second half of the article is just a long cataloging of other Second Intermediate Period statues.
Robins, The Art of Ancient Egypt - This is one of our textbooks and was very helpful giving background information about the changes in artistic style at the time and how those changes can be seen in this statue.
The British Museum website - This included some very basic information like when the object was found, when it arrived at the museum, and the statue's materials/proportions.
Romano, Review in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology - This article just gives a quick summary of Davies' article and is useful because it highlights the important points about what makes this statue unique.