Sculpture Fragment

Part of a foot of life-size statue in pink granite. All four toes preserved but tip of toe is chipped. Originally some of the royal buildings at the City of Tell el-Amarna were provided with statues of the royal family, often in hard stones. The largest group seems to have been in the Great Palace but others are known to have stood in the temples like this granite fragment of a right foot. This fragment was found dumped with other fragments outside of the Small Aten Temple. After the death of Akhenaten these statues were deliberately smashed into pieces as a ‘damnatio memoriae’ in condemnation of a pharaoh who people now wanted to forget. Wellcome Historical Medical Museum accession no. 153583. Find number 31/393. Excavated in the 'Dump opposite the South Door of Court II' of the Small Aten temple (Pendlebury's Hat-Aten) during the1935-6 excavations of the Egypt Exploration Society. Marked by the excavator in black: T.A./31.32 393 T.139.