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THREE ROYAL SCULPTURES

Since this head was found at Hermopolis Magna, a sitc which has yielded many monuments originally set up at El-Amarna, we can at least hazard the gucss that that site was also the original location of the head of Ay perhaps set up as symbol of his sympathy for the ideals of Akhenaten. I have recorded elsewhere my belief that the buildings at El-Amarna were not attacked or demolished until the reign of Ramesses II ^l9. Certainly through the reign of Horemheb the throne had an historical and perhaps a strong emotional connection with the Amarna movement. It is at least possible that the two inseribed and terribly shattered monuments of Horemheb found in the English excavations at El-Amarna were in the same category as this head of Ay, though the excavation report suggests that they were dedications to Amun²⁰. They were loo shattered to furnish conclusive evidence.

C. A Royal Sculpture of the Third Intermediate Period

A few years ago a New York dealer showed me a wooden statuette of a standing indi-vidual preserved only to the hips (pl. 6, A), 33cm in height (13in.). For some reason he thought it dated from the Middle Kingdom and was a female reprcsentation. He asked my opinion as to its datę but I was unable to give a quick opinion and there was little time. The episode went out of my mind until a few months later when the Director of the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio, wrotc to ask the same questions as he had recently acquired the sculpture for his museum. He forwarded excellent photographs which allowed a careful study of the sculpture²¹.

Even after a brief examination three facts were certain. The sculpture was royal, masculine and post New Kingdom. The clue to these cmphatic statements is the headdress, something I had failed to notice when I first saw this sculpture. The king wears what I cali the Junior Blue Crown and what John R. Harris in a most interesting and informative recent study calls the Cap Crown²². It matters little, in the absence of the actual ancien* name, which term eventually wins favor. What is important is a generał recognition of this unusual headdress and its datę rangę. Harris has traced its carliest appcarance to a few reliefs of late Dynasty XVIII, some of them on representations of queens. After these early appearances the Junior Blue Crown is frequent in reliefs of Scti I and later kings up to Herihor of the begining of Dynasty XXI and doubtless later for one example of shadowy Dynasty XXIII will be quoted bclow.

^,g Cooncy, Amartui Reliefs from Hermopolis in American Colleciions, p. 2.

²⁰    Pcndlehury, et al.. The City of Akhenaten, part III, vol. I, Text, p. 4.

²¹    Since writing the above I havc been informed that this sculpture was published in Bullelin, The Dayton Art Institute, 32. Dec. 1973. p. 10-1 and fig. 13, 14 w herc it is dated to Dynasty XII and identified as female. For the reasons 1 stale abovc I fmd it impossible to accept this datę or identification.

²²    AcOr 35. 10ff. and in particular footnote 33.