Guardian Figure

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This figure wears the red crown of Lower Egypt and the face appears to reflect the features of the reigning king, most probably Amenemhat II or Senwosret II. However, the divine kilt suggests that the statuette was not merely a representation of the living ruler. Together with its counterpart wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, the figure was discovered standing behind a shrine that contained an object sacred to the god Anubis, the so-called Imiut (14.3.18 and .19), and the two figures could be understood to have functioned as guardians of the Imiut. The ensemble was discovered in 1914 in the area surrounding the pyramid of Senwosret I at Lisht South during the Museum's excavation of a mud-brick enclosure surrounding the mastaba of Imhotep, a Twelfth Dynasty official. A chamber had been built into the south part of the enclosure wall and in it the statuettes and shrine were hidden, doubtlessly after having played a part in a dramatic funerary ceremony. Link to a blog post My Early Life with the Middle Kingdom

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art