Figure

Painted well-modelled wooden figure of a woman wearing a blue tripartite wig and broad collar. A dowel in the head suggests there was once a headdress/crown and that the figure may represent a goddess. Right eye shows how the facial features were well painted, but now little else of the original fine detail survives. Badly damaged by ants. Arms and legs from below the knees are missing. John Garstang described the find as a ka-statue: “It is a singular misfortune that only a portion of this statuette was found. The legs had been broken away, while the face and head and part of the front were decayed past restoration. The photograph shows, very imperfectly, the back view of what remained. But in spite of these blemishes, it may be seen from the delicate and sensitive modelling of the torso that in this instance at any rate the feeling of the human form was thoroughly understood.” (Garstang, 1907 p. 139). From Beni Hasan tomb no. 556, the cemetery below the Middle Kingdom rock-cut tombs: excavated by John Garstang of the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology, 1902-1904. CONDITION NOTE (1998): Incomplete, wood very dry, splitting around waist, face , surface dirt, damage from insect or other source?