THIRD INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, 21ST-25TH DYNASTY, 1069-656 B.C.

Cast in bronze, this head displays features of a youthful king in the style of Third Intermediate Period portraiture. It was once inlaid with glass or precious metal at the eyes, eyebrows, and the chinstraps of the beard. The outlines of the forehead and ear suggest that this head was joined to a divine crown or nemes headdress, and perhaps once formed part of the figurehead of a sacred barque for a deified king or anthropomorphic deity. For a similar example at the Louvre (inv. no. E 2522) that once likely adored the front of a votive ship with comparable features to the present example, see no. 209 in D.C. Patch and B. Hainline, eds., Divine Egypt.

M. Hill has identified several bronze elements as fittings from divine processional barques (see Gifts for the Gods: Images from Egyptian Temples, no. 66 and “Gods on the Move,” in Patch and Hainline, eds., op. cit., pp. 210-213). A number of possible examples have been identified in museums worldwide (see D.A. Falk, Ritual Processional Furniture: A Material and Religious Phenomenon in Egypt, PhD. diss., University of Liverpool, pp. 159-160), but many more including potentially this example remain to be studied in this light. Alternatively, this piece could have formed part of a composite statue of a deity such as Osiris.