Fragment de bas-relief

Fragment of bas relief

This fragment of a relief preserves the effigy of a sovereign in an attitude of worship. With his right hand, the figure is saluting a deity who was facing him and, with his left, is presenting an offering. The king appears to be wearing the khepresh, or blue crown.

That crown was worn by the pharaoh when he led his troops into battle or when he performed a ritual gesture in a temple. On the helmet, the furious cobra is lifting its dilated throat in the attitude of the uraeus, protector of royalty.

The face, in slightly hollow relief, bears a smiling mouth and a sharply defined ear, giving life to the royal face. In the back, a band is slipping out of the crown, below the right shoulder. Around his neck, the king is wearing a large necklace with several rows of beads and pendants. Finally, the torso has broad shoulders, giving the bust a triangular shape.

The style of that relief is close to that used for the last indigenous sovereigns and suggests it should be dated to about the fourth to third centuries B.C. To the left of the relief, two hieroglyphic signs, engraved behind the crown and under the right shoulder, form the components of a legend assuring the sovereign of “[all] life’s protection [behind him] [1].”

[1] Among very similar exemplars, cf. the Calouste Gulbenkian relief, Inv. 167 (Assam 1991, pp. 96–97), and the Christos G. Bastis reliefs, nos. 28 a–c (Bothmer 1987, pp. 76–77).