Statue of the Goddess Nephthys
Unknown · Reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1349 BC
A slender goddess in black stone walks toward you with her left foot advanced, the pose Egyptian sculptors gave to figures full of life. She wears a long close fitting dress, a heavy wig falling in three parts over her shoulders, a broad collar and a bracelet, and in her right hand she held the was sceptre, the forked staff of power that still leans against her side. Her left arm is lost. On her head sits the sign that spells her name: a basket resting on the plan of a house. This is Nephthys, sister of Isis and of Osiris, who mourned the murdered god and watched over the dead beside her sister.
The inscriptions give the throne name and birth name of Amenhotep III, the king who filled Thebes and its temples with statues of gods in dark, polished stone during the fourteenth century BC. The diorite, hard and cold to the eye, was chosen because it was almost indestructible. The Louvre bought the statue in 1954, a late arrival among the temple sculptures that surround it in this room.
Did You Know? Her name is written as a basket sitting on a house, and that is exactly the sign she wears on her head.
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