Bust from a Female Statuette

This small torso found in the Elephantine Island in Aswan originally belonged to a statuette of woman seated on a square seat with her arms placed on her thighs. The seat was extended at the back by a dorsal pillar which would have contained a column of hieroglyph that would have informed us on the name and title of this woman.

This statuette fits into a category of sculptures well attested in the early New Kingdom: a fine copy being the statuette of Tetiseneb, which is preserved in the Museum of Hanover. The hairstyle is typical of this period. She wears a wig, or at least a hairpiece connected to the hair. A heavy roll of hair goes along with the oval of the face and continues with two sections that fall on either side. At the back, the hair is brought back at the level of the occipital bone where three broad strands of hair are tied together and fall again on the shoulders.

Often hair is divided into three masses, one of which falls behind and the two others are brought forward onto the chest. The statue of Queen Nofret, kept in the Cairo Museum, reminiscent of a mode from the Middle Kingdom with Read more about this object on the UNESCO Museums for Dialogue website