AN EGYPTIAN POLYCHROME LIMESTONE RELIEF WITH A ROYAL PORTRAIT

Sharply delineated in sunk relief, this fragment of temple decoration depicts a standing Ptolemaic king wearing the blue crown with uraeus cobra on his brow. His small nose, narrow lips, and pointed chin with slightly soft neck are reminiscent of the features of Ptolemy III Euergetes in scenes on the walls of the Temple of Horus at Edfu. The pharaoh wears a collar with drop-shaped beads, in a style originating in the New Kingdom or earlier, and his narrow arms are at his side. A similar portrait in Toledo (1972.17) that is said to derive from the Temple of Khonsu at Karnak is identified as Ptolemy III by a cartouche on the same fragment. Bernard Bothmer identified this fragment as depicting Ptolemy III, and suggested that it might derive from the site of Sharuna in Middle Egypt. A group of limestone blocks bearing Ptolemaic relief decoration and the cartouche of Ptolemy I were discovered there in 1907 by an Austro-Hungarian excavation, with the majority of fragments now in Budapest (Museum of Fine Arts 51.2156.1-2 and 51.2159), while the remainder are in Vienna (INV 6694e) and Krakow. Long ago, Bothmer himself however pointed out the difficulty in assigning royal portraits in relief during the early Ptolemaic period, a task made harder in cases like this one where no supporting inscriptional evidence is preserved on the block itself. For a more extensive discussion of royal reliefs from this period see B. Bothmer, 'Ptolemaic Reliefs III. Deities from the Time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus', in Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts 51, no. 281 (1953): 2-7.