Nefertem's head

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nefertem's head
Tête de Toutânkhamon enfant (Musée du Caire Egypte) .jpg
Head on a lotus flower
material Wood, painted
Dimensions H. 30 cm;
origin Valley of the Kings , KV62 , Tutankhamun's tomb
time New Kingdom , 18th Dynasty , Tutankhamun period
place Cairo , Egyptian Museum , JE 60723
Tutankhamun as Nefertem on a blue lotus flower, Cairo Egyptian Museum

The head of Nefertem , also known as the head on the lotus blossom or Tutankhamun as the sun god , comes from the tomb of Tutankhamun ( KV62 ) in the Valley of the Kings in West Thebes , which was discovered by Howard Carter in November 1922 . The bust shows the king ( Pharaoh ) as a child and dates to the 18th Dynasty ( New Kingdom ). The object with the find number 008 is today as an exhibit with the inventory number JE 60723 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Find history

The history of finding the head of Nefertem is controversial as Howard Carter did not document the piece in his excavation diary.

The head of Nefertem was found in March 1924 by Pierre Lacau and Rex Engelbach during an inventory of KV4 , the grave of Ramses XI. that was used as a warehouse. The bust was in a red wine box between supplies. At that time, after the strike and the closure of the tomb and the revocation or revocation of the excavation license of Lord Carnarvon's widow, Lady Almina, Howard Carter was not in Egypt and was preparing for his series of lectures in the United States. The origin of the "lotus head" was unclear at the time. Carter later said he found the head in the rubble in the entrance corridor of KV62. In its first digging season, the head is not noted. To clear the entrance corridor, Howard Carter only noted finds of partially broken or fully preserved alabaster vessels or vases made of painted clay. Documentation through photos of the head, as with other finds, is also not mentioned in his excavation diary. This fact led not only to further disagreements with the Egyptian antiquities administration, but also to the suspicion, which in some cases continues to this day, that Howard Carter tried to “suppress” the find. In his first volume on Tutankhamun's tomb, Howard Carter did not mention the head either, but he did mention in detail the objects found in the layers of rubble in the corridor and the stairs, such as a scarab with the name cartouche Thutmose III. It was published almost six months after the bust was found by Pierre Lacau and members of the Commission of the Administration of Antiquities.

Herbert E. Winlock sent a telegram to Carter on April 2, 1924, asking for clarification on the matter, as this would cast a bad light on Carter. Winlock gave alternative information in Egypt in the absence of Carter that the head had been purchased in 1923 for Lord Carnarvon as "Akhenaten". Carter's answer was that everything that was stored in KV4 had been found in the entrance corridor, before the antechamber opened, and was previously listed under a group number, but not as an individual item in the directory. Especially since the laboratory that was later set up in KV15 and other storage facilities were not yet available. There followed a lively exchange of telegrams and in one of them Howard Carter expressed his displeasure with the approach taken by the antiquities administration staff to bring the head to Cairo, as it was in poor condition. He and Arthur Callender would have laboriously picked up the fallen fragments of the painting, cleaned them and carefully stowed them in a small box to keep them for later work on the bust. He was particularly concerned about the fragments and whether they had been handled just as carefully during transport in order to restore the head.

The portrait

The partially damaged head of the Nefertem is made of wood and measures 30 cm high. The stucco cover is painted brown. The eyebrows, the eyes rimmed with kohl, typical of ancient Egypt, and the pupils of the bust, on the other hand, were highlighted with a dark blue color. The king's head is shaved bald, but stubble of hair can be seen. The portrait has the features of Tutankhamun, with a straight nose and curved lips. Tutankhamun's ear lobes are pierced, as in the case of the golden death mask. IES Edwards suspects that the head could have been part of a sculpture.

Among all previous finds around Tutankhamun, this bust is the only image of him as a child.

State of preservation

Zahi Hawass described Nefertem's head as a good example of the work of the conservators in the Egyptian Museum. The bust was shown as one of the original objects at international exhibitions. Often the concern is expressed that precisely such exhibitions could lead to damage to loans. However, particular importance is attached to preservation of such exhibits for traveling exhibitions.

meaning

Talisman of Osorkon (Third Intermediate Period) with Nefertem rising from the lotus ( Louvre , E10943)

Mythology and the cult of the dead

The find shows the head of a child rising from a blue lotus flower . The blue lotus was considered a sacred plant in ancient Egypt. The blue painted base symbolizes the water. The image depicts the birth of the king from the lotus flower, just as in Egyptian mythology the sun god rises from the lotus, who rises from the floods of the primal waters of Nun . On the other hand, like the scarab , the lotus blossom is a sign of rebirth, regeneration and resurrection. This meaning of the lotus goes back to the ability of the plant to close its flowers at sunset, to dive under water and to rise again from the water at sunrise. The lotus, like the scarab, also symbolizes the sun.

The importance of regeneration and resurrection becomes clear with reference to the cult of the dead. In chapters 76 to 88 of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, there are proverbs or formulas that should enable the deceased to assume different forms in order to cope with the afterlife. According to Proverbs 81 A (short version) and 81 B (longer version), however, the deceased can assume the shape of a lotus flower:

“I am that pure lotus blossom that emerged from the shine of light that is on Re's nose. I spend my time and measure it to the Horus. I am the pure one (blossom) that emerged from the field. "

- Egyptian Book of the Dead, Proverb 81 A

“O you lotus blossom of this Nefertem picture! I am a human being and yet I know these sayings, I know the saying of those who are with these gods, the lords of the realm of the dead. "

- Egyptian Book of the Dead, Proverb 81 B, 1st section

The transformation of the dead with the help of the two proverbs was linked to the hope of being equipped with the regenerative powers of this plant in order to be reborn.

According to the find situation

According to Thomas Hoving , the "lotus head" was unlikely to have been found in the hallway or on the stairs unless it had been left there by the grave robbers because it was worthless to them compared to gold, precious oils or ointments and they had only stolen the golden earrings from the bust. On the other hand, grave robbers were not careful and the ears of the head were undamaged, so that no use of force to remove them is evident. He goes on to say that it is unlikely that the priests would not have carelessly covered the "image of the king as the embodiment of the sun god" with rubble after the grave robbery. Zahi Hawass assesses the find situation with regard to the grave robbers similar. However, there is no evidence that the bust ever wore earrings, nor was there any evidence of this in the entrance area to the antechamber. However, if the head had actually been placed in the entrance corridor by priests, this could, according to Hawass, be a link to rebirth, since the king could leave the tomb through the eastern corridor and be born again with the rising of the sun.

In Egyptian art

two daughters of Akhenaten, wall painting from Tell el-Amarna

Compared to the depictions of the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti found in Tell el-Amarna , Nefertem's head also shows the characteristic elongated back of the head and the folds in the neck typical of Amarna art. This allows an assignment of the origin to the Amarna period . The portrait of the king as a child is one of the most beautiful in all of Egyptian art at the end of the 18th dynasty. The head of Nefertem was shown as an exhibit in the world's first special exhibitions of selected original finds from Tutankhamun's grave treasure. For example at the Tutankhamun exhibition in Cologne from 1980–1981 .

See also

literature

  • Zahi Hawass : The Head of Nefertem. (= King Tutankhamun. The Treasures Of The Tomb. ) Thames & Hudson, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-500-05151-1 .
  • Zahi Hawass: Discovering Tutankhamun. From Howard Carter to DNA. The American University Press, Cairo 2013, ISBN 978-977-416-637-2 , pp. 68-69.
  • Thomas Hoving: The Golden Pharaoh - Tut-ench-Amun. Gondrom, Bayreuth 1984, ISBN 3-8112-0398-3 , pp. 326-335.
  • TGH James : Tutankhamun. Müller, Cologne 2000, ISBN 88-8095-545-4 , p. 133.
  • TGH James: Howard Carter - The Path to Tutankhamun. Tauris, London 1992, new edition 2001, ISBN 1-86064-615-8 , pp. 363-3365.
  • Peter Munro : Tutankhamun as the sun god. In: Exhibition catalog Tutankhamun in Cologne. von Zabern, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-8053-0438-2 , pp. 140-141.
  • MV Seton-Williams: Tutankhamun. The Pharaoh. The grave. The gold treasure. Ebeling, Luxembourg 1980, ISBN 3-8105-1706-2 , p. 120.
  • Francesco Tiradritti, Araldo De Luca: The Treasury of Egypt - The famous collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Frederking & Thaler, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-89405-418-2 , p. 230.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Hoving: The golden Pharaoh - Tut-ench-Amun. Bayreuth 1984, p. 327.
  2. ↑ a b c Zahi Hawass: The Head of Nefertem. London 2007, p. 16.
  3. ^ Griffith Institute, Oxford: Howard Carter's diaries and journals. Part 1: October 28 to December 31, 1922. The first excavation season in the tomb of Tutankhamun. November 25 and 26, 1922
  4. ↑ Andreas Austilat : Archeology: Savior or Robber? In: Tagesspiegel from January 22, 2010.
  5. ↑ a b Thomas Hoving: The golden Pharaoh - Tut-ench-Amun. Bayreuth 1984, p. 333.
  6. ↑ Thomas Hoving: The golden Pharaoh - Tut-ench-Amun. Bayreuth 1984, p. 331.
  7. ^ A b T. GH James: Howard Carter - The Path to Tutankhamun. London 1992, p. 364.
  8. ↑ Thomas Hoving: The golden Pharaoh - Tut-ench-Amun. Bayreuth 1984, p. 329.
  9. ↑ Francesco Tiradritti, Araldo De Luca: The Treasury of Egypt - The famous collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. P. 230.
  10. ↑ a b Peter Munro: Tutankhamun as sun god. In: Exhibition catalog Tutankhamun in Cologne. P. 140.
  11. ↑ Erik Hornung : The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Unchanged photomechanical reprint of the 1979 edition, Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-7608-1037-3 , p. 465.
  12. ↑ Alessia Amenta, Maria Sole Croce, Alessandro Bongioanni: Egyptian Museum Cairo (= National Geographic Art Guide. ). 2nd edition, National Geographic Germany, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-934385-81-8 , p. 291.
  13. ↑ A. Amenta, M. Sole Croce, A. Bongioanni: Egyptian Museum Cairo. Hamburg 2006, p. 291.
  14. ↑ Erik Hornung: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Düsseldorf / Zurich 1997, p. 167.
  15. ↑ Erik Hornung: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Düsseldorf / Zurich 1997, p. 168.