Ankhwennefer is shown squatting on the ground. Only the head, hands and feet emerge from a cloak that he has drawn tightly around his body. Since the Middle Kingdom this statuary type, called a "block statue," served to represent non-royal persons in a general context of solar beliefs. The artist of the Ankhwennefer statue has achieved a sensitive blend of the abstract block form with organic details that are especially noticeable in the face, in the profile view of the body and in the beautifully expressive feet. The slight lift of the face is thought to be directed towards the sun.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Block Statue of Ankhwennefer
Period:Late Period
Dynasty:Dynasty 25–26
Date:ca. 690–650 B.C.
Geography:From Egypt
Medium:Limestone
Dimensions:H. 46 × W. 19.8 × D. 35 cm, 38.8 kg (18 1/8 × 7 13/16 × 13 3/4 in., 85.6 lb.)
Credit Line:Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift and Rogers, Fletcher, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1993
Accession Number:1993.161
Front
(1) Anyone who enters the sanctuary of Bastet, mistress of Tell el-Muqdam, (2) let him have a libation-vase and incense and let him bend his hand and say: "An (3) offering that the King gives — a thousand of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, cloth, and oil, and everything good and clean (4) on which a god lives — for the ka of the one who is dedicated to the Mother of Mahes, Great of Power, that he (Mahes) might give (5) a good burial, going forth revered, and clean bread that comes from (7) the sanctuary at a festival every day forever, for the ka of the servant of Bastet who ties on the red cloth, sem-priest, royal acquaintance, servant of Horus, and papyrus-scribe Ankh-(8) Wennefer, justified, and his son, the priest of Amun, the one who ties on the red cloth of Bastet, (9) royal acquaintance, and servant of Horus, Pef-tjau-a-Bastet."
Base (Front-Right-Back-Left)
Everything [that comes] from the offering-table of Bastet, mistress of Tell [el-Muqdam ... for the ka of ... Ankh-Wennefer ... son of ... ]-mert, son of the holder of the same offices, priest of Amun, City-overseer and vizier, Hor-wedja, son of the holder of the same offices, Pa-aa-peni, son of the holder of the same offices, Es-Banebdjed, son of the holder of the same offices, Nakht-her-hab, son of the holder of the same offices, Es-Banebdjed.
Back Pillar
(1) Osiris Servant of Bastet Ankh-Wennefer, your mother Nut has spread herself over you in (2) her identity of the Wadi Natrun. She has caused you to be a god with no enemy. The one who is dedicated to Osiris, Lord of (3) the West, Ankh-Wennefer, [justified, born of T]a-sekhet-netjer, justified.
James P. Allen 2007
Purchased in 1993 through Peter Sharrer Ancient Art, representing ADF International, New York, who had acquired it from The Merrin Gallery, Inc. in New York, 1989. An Egyptological colleague indicated the piece was with Galerie du Sycomore in Paris (now in Geneva) in the 1980s. Published in MMA Bulletin Fall 1994, continuously exhibited.
Arnold, Dorothea 1994. "Block Statue of Ankh-Wennefer." In Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. Recent Acquisitions: A Selection 1993-1994, 52/2, pp. 10-11.
Guermeur, Ivan 2005. Les cultes d'Amon hors de Thèbes : recherches de géographie religieuse. Turnhout, pp. 194-196.
Jansen-Winkeln, Karl 2014. Inschriften der Spätzeit, Teil IV: Die 26. Dynastie, 2 vols.. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 829-830.
Klotz, David 2014. "Regionally Specific Sacerdotal Titles in Late Period Egypt: Soubassements vs. Private Monuments." In Altägyptische Enzyklopädien : die Soubassements in den Tempeln der griechisch-römischen Zeit. Soubassement Studien I, p. 749.
Fay, Biri 2016. "Let the Old Kingdom end and the Middle Kingdom begin!." In Change and Innovation in Middle Kingdom Art. Proceedings of the MeKeTRE Study Day held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (3rd May 2013), edited by Lubica Hudáková, Peter Jánosi, and Andrea Kahlbacher. London: Golden House Publications, p. 22, n. 24; pp. 25, 29, figs. 25–26.
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