Seated Statue of Sekhemka
Unknown · Reign of Niuserre (?), c. 2490-2478 BC
A man named Sekhemka sits upright on a plain cubic seat, his hands resting on his thighs, his kilt pulled tight over his knees. He wears a flaring wig that frames his face and a collar around his neck. The stone is pink granite, an extremely hard material, and the sculptor worked it into smooth planes and firm edges rather than fine detail. Look closely and you will still find colour: white, black, red and blue survive in the wig, the eyes and the ornaments, a reminder that even the hardest stone statues were painted. Hieroglyphs on the seat give his name and titles.
Sekhemka lived in the Fifth Dynasty, probably under King Niuserre around two thousand four hundred and eighty BC. The statue was found at North Saqqara, in a shaft to the north of the Serapeum, the burial place of the sacred bulls, during the years when Auguste Mariette was opening that site. The Louvre purchased it in December eighteen fifty four. Its compact, blocklike form is typical of Old Kingdom private sculpture, made to stand in a tomb chapel and receive the offerings that kept its owner alive in the next world.
Did You Know? Granite was the hardest stone the Egyptians carved, and its use for a private official rather than a king shows how far Sekhemka had risen.
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