excavations at tell el-'amarnah, 1923-4. a. statuary

Egypt Exploration Society

Excavations at Tell el-'Amarnah, 1923-4. A. StatuaryAuthor(s): F. Ll. GriffithSource: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 17, No. 3/4 (Nov., 1931), pp. 179-184Published by: Egypt Exploration SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3854759 .

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179

EXCAVATIONS AT TELL EL-'AMARNAH, 1923-4 A. STATUARY

By F. LL. GRIFFITH

With Plates xxiii-xxvii.

The results of the Society's excavations carried on at Tell el-'Amarnah in January and February of 1924 have not yet been reported except in a general description printed in Journal, x, 299-305, supplemented by a brief article on a fine stela from the house of Pnehesi published op. cit., xn, 1-2. A memoir however was prepared shortly after our return to England, and it is proposed now with the consent of the Editor and of the Committee to print this memoir, chapter by chapter, in the Journal, each chapter describing the finds belonging to a particular class of objects.

The hope expressed in Journal, x, 304 that an expert would piece together the results of Petrie's excavation, the German expedition and our own, with an accurate

map of the ancient city with all the houses numbered and catalogued was disappointed, first by the death of Mr. Newton and secondly by the resignation of Dr. Frankfort, but still burns on. A reference to the report of an excavation, op. cit., x, 301-303 and to the plan, PI. xxxvi, may be useful to readers of the following catalogue of finds. The

expedition's southern house (L. 50, 9) is seen near the south end of the plan, west of the south end of High Priest Street. The house of Pnehesi (R. 44. 2), the other chief source of sculpture, is the more westerly of the pair of large houses marked at the north end of the shaded portion.

Pair of headless statues of Akhenaten and Nofretete, of Silsilah sandstone, found on 4th February in rubbish 50 cm. above floor in the north-east corner of small chamber at west end of L. 50, 12, very near to the shrine-platform of L. 50, 9 (the expedition's southern house), from which they had probably been thrown out (Pls. xxiii-xxiv).

Each was represented standing with feet together, on a plain rectangular plinth, with inscribed pilaster at the back; the arms are broken, and between them are remains of a plain thin slab, perhaps representing a papyrus or tablet, which was held against the chest outwards, but tilted upwards, with an inscribed support for it below against the stomach. The present height of the king's statue to the throat is 77 cm.1, of the plinth 13 cm.; the present height of the queen's statue (which has lost the plinth and feet) from the top of the pilaster behind the neck to above the ankles is 70 cm. The flesh of each is coloured red and the garments white, showing the flesh-colour through. Each has lost the right arm from above the elbow and the left arm from above the wrist. The surface of the tablet was plain, coloured white; a fragment of the front edge of the support in the queen's statue shows remains of an inscription, but the edges of the tablet are all broken away. The hands cannot have supported the tablet from beneath,

1 Measurements are in centimetres throughout this article.



Plate XXIII.

Statue of Akhenaten in painted sandstone, from Tell el-'Amarnah. Scale c. 4.



F. LL. GRIFFITH

but may have held it at the edges like a roll of papyrus; it was evidently not a table of offerings, which would have been held out horizontally.

The statue of Akhenaten, see P1. xxiii and profile in Journal, x, P1. xxxv, now in the Ashmolean Museum, has breasts, stomach and thighs very full, navel strongly marked, prolonged horizontally; flesh red; transparent pleated dress over shoulders, body and legs, with fall to near ankles, white, showing the red flesh through, and leaving neck, breast, lower arms and feet bare. The dress is gathered together over the right shoulder, where it reaches only to the middle of the upper arm. The fringed edge of this garment is on the left side, crossing the elbow and passing down the leg. The end of a fastening seems to be painted in black outline on the right side of the stomach below the tablet. On the right side there is an appearance of an opaque white loin cloth, the lower edge of which is carried nearly straight across the thigh, the upper edge curving upwards; but this cannot be distinguished on the back and left side, and it may all be due to loss of colour on the cement patches. On the chest, below the collar-bone, are a series of collars in dark blue, pale blue and red, rather indistinct, the broadest consisting of blue lotus-petals that pass round to the back leaving a space bare between the shoulder- blades. The feet and toes are shaped naturally and finely. The sandals themselves are hardly marked; the sandal strap between the toes is sculptured and coloured red, the thick pad over the instep white.

The inscription on the back pilaster has lost a few characters at the top; it gives the names of the Aten in the later form, of the king and of the queen: "[Lives the Father CR r] ruler of the two horizons, rejoicing in the Horizon) Cin his name of father of Rer who comes (back) as Atenj, given life eternally and for ever. The lord

of the two lands (Beauty of the forms of R6r, the sole one of err , lord of diadems

CAkhenatenlI, long in his duration. The chief royal wife CBeauty of the beauties of

Aten, Nofret-ete), living eternally and for ever." There has been a large amount of mending of the stone with cement on each side;

parts of it lie in protected positions, so that it hardly seems intended to repair wanton injury to the statue, but rather to mend imperfect patches of the original stone or to fill out places where too much had been cut away by the sculptor. There is a large patch on the left thigh from above the knee, against the fall of the dress and including the fringe, and upwards taking in the whole of the projecting portion of the fringe where it hangs from the elbow. There is also a small patch on the outside angle of the left shoulder, travelling downwards behind it almost to the end of the shoulder-blade near the pilaster. On the right side there is a large addition in cement extending from above the knee upwards behind the arm to the armpit. The lines of sculpture are carried over these patches, which in some places join smoothly to the stone surfaces, in others project slightly above them, suggesting that the whole figure may have been re-surfaced.

The narrow rectangular sandstone base has been set in a rectangular block of oolitic limestone with a free use of cement; this block is plain, rather roughly sawn and has both back corners mended with cement.

The statue was found in two principal fragments, the base with the feet to the ankles being separated from the torso. Another fragment comprised the remains of the right arm and shoulder. A small fragment fitted to the fall of the garment in front and two others to the tablet or papyrus.

The statue of Nofretete (Pls. xxiv-xxv, now in the British Museum) has lost head, feet

180



Plate XXIV.

Statue of Nofretete in painted sandstone, from Tell el-'Amarnah. Scale c. ,.



Plate XXV.

Statue of Nofretete in painted sandstone, from Tell el-'Amarnah. To show details of construction.



EXCAVATIONS AT TELL EL-'AMARNAH, 1923-4

above ankles and base, most of the tablet with the right lower arm and the left hand. The flesh is red; a pleated dress, without fall, white showing red flesh through, covers the shoulders, body and legs, leaving neck, breast, most of right arm and left arm from elbow bare. The edge of the cloak is shown as a plain band (not fringed) falling from elbow to ankles on the left side. Down the front of the stomach are two girdle ends continued along the front of each leg to below the middle of the shin and widening evenly downwards. The garment, as in the king's statue, is gathered up on the right shoulder and reaches only to the middle of the upper arm; unlike the king's statue, the navel is round. Bead necklaces and collars cover the chest and shoulders and reach the back pilaster. The uppermost on the collar-bone appears to have consisted of boat beads with pendant petals in the following order repeated: red, dark blue, light blue, dark blue; below this in succession are a string of broad red petals, two strings of barrel (?) beads, the colours as before, and a necklace of blue lotus-petals followed by ill-defined red and blue strings ending above the bare breasts. Height 69'5 cm.

The inscription on the back pilaster is complete. Below the symbol of the sky the names of the Aten are written as on the king's statue and are followed immediately by the description and name of the queen without mention of the king: "The principal royal wife, mistress of the palace, great of love in the House of Aten, mistress of the two lands (Beauty of the beauties of Aten, Nofret-ete , living." ?

The base of the support to the tablet remains, showing the hieroglyphs ] between parallel lines incised and coloured blue.

The head, back of the neck and top of the pilaster are in a separate piece of stone; this slides into an undercut groove, see P1. xxv; perhaps this was done from the right before the shoulder was completed in cement; but the appearance here is that of a break, not the smooth grooving for the insertion of the head, which can be, and probably was, effected from the left side. There is a patch of cement on the bulge of the left thigh continued up the projection of the garment where it falls from the elbow, over the whole of the elbow to the middle of the lower arm, and along the upper arm to the back at the armpit. There is also a small patch on the under side of the left breast where the stone was absolutely protected from fracture, probably therefore due to a fault of the sculptor. The projection of the garment on the right shoulder is also in cement, as well as the top of the right shoulder already referred to.

This torso consists of two main fragments, having been broken across at the base of the support for the tablet; a small fragment of stone fitted the right shoulder and the stucco mend completing it was recovered. The inserted piece was found in place with coarse mending in stucco; the inscription upon this portion of the back pilaster was cut in a smooth coating of cement which retains both marking-out in red and blue filling. The queen's head had been broken off from the neck-piece and the break smoothed and covered with a very rough overlapping patch of plaster to receive the replaced head. The head was finally knocked off again and is now missing, but the patch of plaster remains.

Statues of the king and queen holding tablets vertically before them are seen at the boundary stelae A and S, Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amarna, v, 23, Pls. xxxvi, xli, xliii; cf. the statuette of the king, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, Nr. 50, 26. Tables of offerings are held by many statues found by Petrie and Carter, and by that illustrated in Mitteilungen, Nr. 50, Blatt 2. The action shown in the present case seems new.

Two fragments in hard white limestone or marble (P1. xxvi, fig. 1), showing apparently a pleated dress with fringe at side and fall coloured red in front; lths. 6'8 and 6-0 cm.;

Journ. of Egypt. Arch. xvII. 24

181



F. LL. GRIFFITH

from M. 50, 32. A fragment in the same material of a blue khepersh head-dress, showing part of the side and top, ith. 6-5 cm., seems to be from the same statue. See Pl. xxvi, fig. 1.

The following fragments of limestone statues were found in or about the house of Pnehesi (R. 44. 2) and the temple attached to it. Unless otherwise stated they are from the central room of the temple.

539. Limestone head of king, high cheek bones, right cheek broken away together with mouth and chin, the nose and uraeus injured, flesh red, wearing smooth khepersh cap coloured blue; ht. 21'0. See Vol. x, P1. xxxiv, 1. From north-east corner of chamber 14 of the house.

The remainder are of fair workmanship but show no fine detail. Fragments of arms coloured red, all in Ph. 1131, viz.: (1) Wrist and beginning of hand, apparently of right arm. (2) Most of forearm from elbow, apparently belonging to the last, with remains of

plain tablet(?) or papyrus held by it. (3) 546. Upper left(?) arm from shoulder with elbow and half of forearm, sharply

bent, smaller than the last; below shoulder, faint cartouches of Aten, form doubtful; Ith. 15 cm.

(1) and (2) must belong to the king's statue of a pair; (3) to the queen's statue.

Thirteen(?) fragments of arms and legs, similarly of two sizes, four of them yellow, the rest red.

Feet (1) 548 (numbered 538). See P1. xxvi, figs. 2-3. Coloured red, wearing sandals, the sole of the sandal and ties shown, much damaged, on thin rectangular base (probably to be inserted in a large plinth). Base 31 >x 18 x 5 cm.; pilaster remains to height of 11 without trace of having been inscribed; width at base 10'5; lth. of foot 18.

(2) Remnant of smaller right foot coloured red, having almost exactly 4 of the linear

proportions of the last; lth. of fragment 9 cm.; Ph. 116, 120. P1. xxvi, fig. 2.

Offering-table 545. Fragment (outer right-hand corner from the middle of the front), the upper surface engraved with offerings, supporting hand of the statue and central

support traceable; edge inscribed: "Lives the father CRer ruler of the two horizons (Cin his name as father of Rer

who comes (back) as the Aten [1 . . .] the Lord of the two lands." It must have measured 24 cm. along the front, in thickness 3. Ph., top 128,

edge 133. Back pilasters of statues; see PI. xxvii, fig. 1. (1) 544. Fragment with lower half of first cartouche of Aten and all of second

(later form); tapering upwards, ht. 17; width 6-4-7-2. Inscription had been filled with blue. Ph. 133.

(2) 536. Fragment with end of first cartouche of Aten and most of second (later form). Width at lower end 7'7; lth. 8. From Room 2 of house. Ph. 246.

(3) 543. Fragment with end of queen's cartouche and epithets, "living eternally and for ever" (probably broken off immediately above base) tapering upwards, width 8-0 to 9'0; ht. 14'5. Ph. 133.

(4) 542. Fragment showing end of epithet of king "great in his duration," reaching to level of base, a portion of which is preserved. Width of pilaster at base 10'0; total ht. 6'3 (border line coloured red on a fragment which apparently belongs). Ph. 133.

1 Numbers under Ph. refer to the catalogue of photographs taken during the season 1923-4.

182



Plate XXVI.

2 3

Fragments of statuary from Tell el-'Amarnah. Scale of fig. 1, J; the rest J.

:, . . .



Plate XXVII.

I

2 3

4 5

Fragments of sculpture from Tell el-'Amarnah.

I. Pilasters from backs of statues. Scale c. i. 2 & 3. Unfinished figure of a slave. Scale c. *. 4 & 5. Inscribed statue-base. Scale c. T.



EXCAVATIONS AT TELL EL-'AMARNAH, 1923-5

541. Limestone unfinished figure of man standing on a rectangular base, bearing a circular object on his shoulders supported by both hands (see P1. xxvii, figs. 2-3). It is

only roughed out and has in the hollows many blotches of dark paint which hardly seem to be guides for the sculptor. Ht. 21 5, base 10 5 x 8; found in two pieces, having been broken at the knees, on the floor of the passage on the south side of the temple proper. Ph. 114, 115.

Corner of rectangular limestone block with polished top, apparently the base of a statue or group, 32 x 34, ht. 17; inscribed round the sides with two lines of large well- cut hieroglyphs (P1. xxvii, figs. 4-5):

" .... Mistress of the whole land, the principal wife of the king, whom he loves, lady of the two lands, [Beauty of the beauties of] Aten [Nofret-ete] ..."

" .... Daughter of the king of his body, whom he loves, 'Ankhesen[p]aten, born of the principal wife of the king [Beauty of the] beauti[es] of Aten, Nofr[et-te]" ....

The queen's cartouche has been defaced in each line, only the name of the Aten

being spared and a portion of the nfr-sign. In the second line p has been erased from the name of the princess and all the filiation words after her name, leaving only traces.

Brought from Et-Till and said to have been used in a house there. Probably therefore from the central royal palace.

It may be supposed that on this plinth had stood a group of the king and queen with their children, or at least of the queen and her daughter Ankhesenpaen, set up in the neighbourhood of the Great Palace.

The mistake in orthography at the end of the first line, where r dr-f should be read, is curious. The erasures, however, are of real importance in connexion with the erasure of the queen's name in favour of her daughter Merit-aten, both at the Maru-aten palace (The City of Akhenaten, i, 151 ff., especially 155) and at Mr. Newton's Northern Palace, as well as on the statue-base published by Sharpe. The present statue-base is the first monument on which the name of the third daughter has been observed accompanied by such an erasure.

Merit-aten was Akhenaten's eldest daughter; she married Smenkhkerer, who succeeded his father-in-law. Mekt-aten, the second daughter, died in the lifetime of the king and

queen, who are associated in the mourning for her (Bouriant, Monuments du Culte

d'Atonou, i, P1. x). rAnkhesenpaten, the third daughter, became 2Ankhesenamun, queen of Tutrankhamfun; her name is written once as 'Ankhesenaten on the north altar of the

boundary stela A at Tuinah, L., D., III, 91 c= Davies, v, P1. xxxiv, which is probably the earliest written example known1. It is curious that, evidently at a considerably later date, after the birth of three or four more children and the death or suppression of the queen, objection was taken to the article written before Aten to the extent of

erasing it from a well-cut monument. It might be suggested that as both Merit-aten and 'Ankhesenpaten became queens,

the erasures of their mother's name took place as they successively advanced to her

royal position; but since Merit-aten's name is substituted at Maru-aten distinctly as eldest daughter of the king and not as queen, such a supposition would be groundless. Mr. Davies has suggested that the queen went over to the enemy and set up an opposi- tion court at Thebes (Journal, ix, 133) under the name Nefer-nefru-[Amiin?]; but was not this latter rather the fourth daughter Nefer-nefru-Aten tsheere, "the little

1 Presumably it was the same on the south altar of B (see Davies, op. cit., p. 24); but Mr. Davies can

find no record of it in his notes.

24-2

183



184 F. LL. GRIFFITH

Beauty of the beauties of Aten," assuming a regal style at some crisis? Alterations of the kind referred to above appear to be confined to monuments in the various palaces, where the royal family resided, but it would be worth while to look carefully whether they can be traced so far away as the boundary stelae and the sculptures in the tombs. On the Sharpe pedestal the filiation was allowed to remain by Merit-aten, while 'Ankhesenpaten destroyed not only the name of her mother but also the connecting phrase. One would like to know more precisely the occasions and circumstances of these unfilial acts.



excavations at tell el-'amarnah, 1923-4. a. statuary

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