LATE PERIOD, EARLY 26TH DYNASTY, CIRCA 664-600 B.C.

This fragmentary block statue of a high official depicts him in squatting pose holding his knees, and wearing the bag wig typical of Saite period officials. The inscriptions identifies him as Senbef, the son of a priest of Osiris, Lord of Ro-Setau named Ptah-di-iau. This information allows us to place the origin of this statue most likely in the Temple of Isis at Giza, where the goddess received cult during the Late Period in the midst of one of the queen’s pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. The inscriptional indications accord with the findspot, said to be the Coptic cemetery of Nazlet el-Batran, which is located to the south of the Giza necropolis, and just north of the tombs and village of the workers. Senbef’s father Ptah-di-iau is well attested on finds from the Isis Temple at Giza, and it is likely that Ptah-di-iau was buried inside the precinct of Isis at Giza. Zivie-Coche, who has published detailed studies of these finds including this statue, states “…there is every reason to believe that the statue was placed in the courtyard of the temple."

The five columns of vertical text inscribed on the front of Senbef’s kilt are in the form of the “Appeal to the Living,” while an additional two columns of the “Saite formula” on the back pillar further give the name of his mother as Seba-it-es(?) or Seneb-Hor-it-es, daughter of the count Pef-tjau-em-awy-Min. Both the formula of the inscription as well as the execution of the statue and its pose are typical of the early Saite period. Based on these criteria, de Meulenaere has concluded that we may say with near certainty that Senbef was a contemporary of Pharaoh Psamtik I.

A quartzite bust of a man also with the name Senbef from the reign of Psamtik I, may depict a different individual as the name was common during the Saite Period (pls. 16-17 in B.V. Bothmer, Egyptian Sculptures of the Late Period).