Statue of Karomama, Divine Adoratrice of Amun
Unknown · Twenty-second Dynasty, reigns of Osorkon II to Takelot II, c. 865-809 BC
A slim woman stands with her arms bent forward, hands closed around the handles of sistra that are now lost. She wears a short curled wig with a cobra at the brow and a long dress whose entire surface is worked as feathers, the wings of a goddess folded around her body. The statue is bronze, but move around it in the light and the feathers, the collar and the bracelets flash with inlaid gold, silver and electrum hammered into the surface. The proportions are elongated and elegant, the waist narrow, the face small and serene. A dedication engraved on the base gives her name and title.
Karomama was the Divine Adoratrice of Amun, the high priestess who ruled the god's estate at Thebes during the Twenty second Dynasty in the ninth century BC, a post of great political weight held by royal women. Jean-François Champollion, the decipherer of hieroglyphs, acquired the statue during the Franco-Tuscan expedition of eighteen twenty eight to twenty nine, and it entered the Louvre in eighteen thirty. It remains the finest example of the inlaid bronze work for which this period is famous.
Did You Know? Champollion bought this statue in Egypt himself and called it the most beautiful bronze he had ever seen.
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