Statuette of a nude woman with moveable arms, one missing

Statuette of a nude woman with moveable arms, one missing

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This statuette of a woman is an ancient mechanical figure. Both of her arms were attached to an axle that runs between her shoulders; a string was wound around the axle, then ran through a channel in her body and left leg to emerge beneath the base under her feet, so that pulling the string caused the axle to turn and the arms to rise. Such figures, called automata, are known: the museum’s figure of a pygmy (34.1.130) was part of an ensemble of dancing pygmies that turned on a base by a string mechanism, and the mouth of the ivory dog (40.2.1) opens by a simpler lever system. The figurine had been considered problematic, but a recent study has adduced strong technical evidence to support its antiquity, thus restoring it to a place in our displayed collection. The study also endeavored to place the statuette in terms of style, suggested a reconstruction for the pose of its missing left arm, and posited an identity that the author viewed as a clue to understanding a larger group of first millennium figures.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Statuette of a nude woman with moveable arms, one missingStatuette of a nude woman with moveable arms, one missingStatuette of a nude woman with moveable arms, one missingStatuette of a nude woman with moveable arms, one missingStatuette of a nude woman with moveable arms, one missing

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.