![]() It probably would have originally included his name and his titles. We would know more about him if the base on which he sits was not cut. But you're right, this is a funerary sculpture meant for a tomb. You said a moment ago that he's intended to be seen from the front, but that raises an interesting question: Was this sculpture meant to be seen at all? Well, he was found in a necropolis southwest of Cairo in a place called Saqqara, an important Old Kingdom necropolis, and we don't know his exact findspot, so we don't know as much about him as we would have if we did. His right would have originally held a brush or a pen and his left holds a rolled piece of papyrus that he's writing on, which is interesting because it suggests the momentary even though the Egyptians are so concerned with the eternal. He's meant to be seen- pretty much exclusively- from the front and there's almost a complete symmetry to his body. That's true, but there is also a real formality here. He looks so relaxed, almost like he's just exhaled. He's not idealized the way that we would see a figure of a pharaoh- the Egyptians considered pharaohs to be gods and would never have represented the pharaoh in this relaxed, cross-legged position and with the rolls of fat that help make him more human. It collapses the 4,500 years between when the sculpture was made and today. ![]() All of this comes together to create a sense of alertness, a sense of awareness, a sense of intelligence, that is quite present. And there's also an indentation carved to represent the pupil. And that's because they're made of two different types of stone: Crystal, which is polished on the front, and then an organic material is added to the back that functions both as an adhesive but also to color the iris. The exceptions are the nipples, which are wooden dowels, and the eyes. With a few exceptions, the sculpture is painted limestone. And that was not unusual for ancient Egyptian sculpture, although the amount of pigment and coloration that survives here is rather unique. It's painted, which adds to its lifelike quality. So this is more than 4,000, almost 5,000 years old, and I think what draws people to this relatively small sculpture is how lifelike it is, given how old it is. We're in the Egyptian Collection in the Louvre, in Paris, and we're looking at the Seated Scribe.
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