Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2007)

KATALIN ANNA KÓTHAY: A Defective Statuette from the Thirteenth Dynasty and the Sculptural Production of the Late Middle Kingdom

A DEFECTIVE STATUETTE FROM THE THIRTEENTH DYNASTY AND THE SCULPTURAL PRODUCTION OF THE LATE MIDDLE KINGDOM KATALIN ANNA KÓTHAY This crudely carved small statuette (fig. 1), formerly belonging to the collection of Bonifác Platz, a Hungarian Cistercian monk and scholar (1848-1919), came into the possession ol the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts in 1951.

1 It had been purchased by Bonifác Platz himself at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries. He made several visits to Egypt between 1896 and 1908, during which time he acquired a number of Egyptian antiquities. His collection consisted of over hundred-fifty pieces, about which he compiled a manuscript catalogue.

2 The serial numbers of this catalogue are said to follow the sequence of acquisition. Though the particular entries usually do not refer to dates, in a few cases a year of acquisition is indicated: entry no. 6, a wooden statue, is recorded as having been purchased in 1901, while entry no. 15 is a limestone ostracon that Bonifác Platz found himself at Deir el-Bahri during his first visit to Egypt in 1896. This shows, as a matter of fact, that the items are not strictly arranged in a chronological order but instead form a vague list of acquisitions suggesting an approximate order of the purchases. Since the Budapest statuette is listed under no. 23 in the manuscript catalogue, it is plausible that it was bought during one of the earlier journeys made by Bonifác Platz, i.e. possibly in 1896 or 1901, during his first or second visit. Around one third of the catalogue items are provenanced, including the Budapest statuette, which is thought to have originated from Abydos. Various provenances occur around the same number: item no. 17 originated from Benha, no. 18 fromMeidum, no. 20 from the Fayyum, no. 21 from Saqqara, no. 22 from Karnak, no. 24 from Benha, nos. 27-29 from Karnak, while nos. 19 and 25-26 are not provenanced. This random collection of topographical names may imply that the antiquities were typically not purchased at their places of provenance, but rather acquired from dealers trading in antique objects from