Seated Figurine of Imhotep or a Scribe
Unknown · Not dated in the museum record
A small bronze man sits with a papyrus roll unrolled across his knees, bare-chested, wearing a broad pectoral, a long kilt and sandals. His head is shaven and his gaze is level, the standard image of a scribe in Egyptian art. Just under fourteen centimetres high, the figure was cast solid and finished with a graver, and a Phoenician inscription is engraved on it. Look at the roll on the lap, which in Egyptian bronzes of this type is often the sign of Imhotep, the sage of King Djoser who became a god of wisdom and medicine.
The statuette was found in Phoenicia and bought by the Louvre in eighteen ninety-eight. Egyptian gods were popular along the Levantine coast, and Phoenician merchants and craftsmen imported or copied bronzes like this one for their sanctuaries. The inscription in Phoenician letters marks it as a local dedication rather than an Egyptian import used unchanged, whether the owner saw the seated man as Imhotep or simply as a learned scribe.
Did You Know? A Phoenician inscription on an Egyptian-style bronze shows a Levantine owner adopting Imhotep, the deified architect of the first pyramid, as his own healer god.
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