Head of an Official
Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 13 (about 1773–1650 BCE)
- Medium
- Granite
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 33.8 × 46.3 × 26 cm (13 3/4 × 18 1/4 × 10 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Egypt
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Africa
- Credit line
- Museum Purchase Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This head of an official, with his striped wig tucked behind his ears, comes from a larger statue that was likely once displayed in a tomb chapel. Such sculptures served as receptacles for the ka (soul). To animate statues, priests performed a ceremony called the Opening of the Mouth so that the individual represented could benefit from offerings left by the living and breathe, eat, hear, and see in the afterlife. Although this man’s name, which would have been written on the statue, is now lost, the sculpture’s large scale and the choice to carve it from costly granite suggest that he was a high-ranking official.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
