An Egyptian red and yellow limestone breccia fragment from a striding male statue,
Late Dynastic...

An Egyptian red and yellow limestone breccia fragment from a striding male statue,
Late Dynastic Period, circa 600-400 B.C.,

with the lower knee and shin of the proper left leg partially preserved and a small section of shin from the proper right leg, two columns of hieroglyphs are partially preserved down the back pillar are part of a typical laudatory funerary biographical text found on Late Period statues of dignitaries and reads ‘… not accomplishing a wish in attending his ka at… I am your true attendant, loyal to you, spending the night...’; on the proper left face of the pillar, behind the preserved leg, is a small incised standing figure with cropped hair or skull-cap, wearing a collar and a high-waisted kilt, with arm raised towards the leg of the statue owner; this figure is probably the son and chief officiator on behalf of the deceased who is named Ankhrenef, the inscription behind this figure reads, ‘your ka, every right of the offering, saying “go behind....Attending...,”‘ 

7.3cm high x 7cm deep, 5cm max width

Provenance: The Estate of Philip Hewat-Jaboor

Ex private collection Roger Khawam acquired before 1970; With Charles Ede Limited; Charles Ede Limited, Egyptian Antiquities 2013, no.16; Acquired from the above on the 3 April 2013

Statuettes in this stone are extremely rare. As recently as 2000 it was noted that only one large figure in red breccia was known of Late Period date, a statue of Taweret, for which see P. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds) Ancient Egyptian Material and Technology (Cambridge 2000), p.43. For the subsidiary figure on the back pillar cf. K. Jansen-Winkeln, Biographische und Religiöse Inschriften der Spätzeit aus den Ägyptischen Museum Kairo -Ägypten und Altes Testament 45 (Wiesbaden, 2001), no.18, pl.39.