Head of King Seti II Wearing the Blue Crown

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This elegant head originally belonged with the body of a statue that still stands in the great Hypostyle Hall of the Temple of Amun at Karnak whose inscriptions show that the statue had been carved for Seti II. Although resemblances in features are not particularly close, the rather severe tone of the head finds echoes in certain Theban statuary of Merneptah. Two uraei wearing red crowns are carved in relief on the proper left side of the king's crown in front of the ears, and two wearing white crowns are carved on the right side. Since the red crown is associated with Southern (Upper) Egypt and the white crown with Northern (Lower) Egypt, this may indicate that the statue itself was oriented by these coordinates and faced the east. Traces of pigment on the surface of the head indicate that the crown was painted blue, the band where it fits the forehead along with the crown's uraeus were colored with yellow ochre, and the face was red.

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