Abstract
An Archaic Egyptian Figurine.—M. G. Loukianoff describes and figures in Ancient Egypt for June 1930 a rare type of small figurine of ivory, purchased in Cairo in 1927. The figure is one and a half inches high, almost entirely black and remarkably heavy for its size, weighing 12¢6 grains. It represents a seated infant with legs doubled back, and, as may be inferred from the inclination of the right arm, which is broken, and a mark on the lips, sucking its finger. The lips are a little twisted, as owing to the position of the finger in front of the mouth, the artist was unable to fashion them with an unbroken stroke. The left hand lies extended along the knee. The head is crowned by a little cap fitting close to the cranium. From the artistic point of view the minute accuracy of the work is to be remarked while equally characteristic is the cast of the features, which is not Egyptian, the nose being large and the cheek-bones prominent. The attitude of the figure is that which was traditional for the infant Horus from the early dynasties to the decline of Egyptian civilisation. It is the same as that of the lapis lazuli figurines recently found in the tomb of Tutankamen, in which the Pharaoh is represented as the infant Horus. The motive of the present example is so exactly repeated in the alabaster figurine of Pepy II., found last year at Saqqara, that it would suggest an identity of date, if it were not that there is a still closer resemblance to the ivory statuettes of pre-dynastic date discovered by Petrie at Abydos and Ballas. The type is, indeed, very different from that of the early dynasties—a fact which immediately suggested its attribution to the archaic epoch of Egyptian art. It has been examined by Dr. Reisner, who pronounces it authentic and assigns it to Dynasties 0.2.
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Research Items. Nature 128, 640–641 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/128640a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/128640a0