Statue of Prince Ahmose Sapair
Unknown · Reign of Seqenenre Tao, c. 1550-1545 BC
A young man sits on a cube shaped seat with a backrest, wearing the pleated royal shendyt kilt, a short wig cut in a step over the ears, a broad collar and bracelets. He is just over a metre high, carved in fine white limestone. The details make the statue precious: the collar and the sandals on his feet are gilded, the hieroglyphs of the inscription are painted blue, and red pigment fills the cuts of the carving. The text gives an offering formula and his name, Ahmose Sapair, and dates the statue to the reign of Seqenenre Tao, the Theban king who died fighting the Hyksos.
Ahmose Sapair was a prince of the family that drove the Hyksos out of Egypt and founded the New Kingdom around fifteen fifty BC. He died young, but his memory did not: for hundreds of years he was venerated at Thebes as a protective ancestor, and his image appears in the private chapels of Deir el-Medina. The statue entered the Louvre by bequest in nineteen thirty seven. Its combination of gold, blue and red on white stone gives a rare idea of how bright a temple statue once looked.
Did You Know? Ahmose Sapair died young, and centuries later the tomb builders of Deir el-Medina were still praying to him as a local saint.
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