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

tuary studied by Friedrich Junge, it can be concluded that it bears similarities with statues from the second part of the Thirteenth Dynasty. The round visage, the calm expression, the facial features without signs of age, the bulging eyeballs, the vaulted eyebrows running parallel with the upper lids, the broad lower face, and the rough and stylised treatment of the body together suggest that the statuette was made no earlier than the reign of Neferhotep I.

35 Yet, even a later date is feasible: some characteristics of the Budapest piece

—crudencss, disproportions and loose and inaccurate rendering of costume

—is shown by a few Abydene statuettes from the Hyksos period.

56 In view of the high-waisted kilt and the shaven head, the person represented by the statuette appears to have been of a relatively high social status. According to the evidence of contemporary stelae, the high-waisted long kilt was worn by men of some importance: when individuals of different statuses were represented on the same stela, and a social ranking can be established between them, the high-waisted kilt is worn by those in a higher social position. A shaven head, the other attribute that might be taken to refer to social position, is sometimes associated with priestly office,

17 as it is with this statuette.

38 The opposite view, i.e. that a shaven head cannot "be identified with a specific function or office",

39 also prevails in Egyptology. Since many late Middle Kingdom sculptures were used by relatively low status people, some of them bearing unimportant titles or no title at all, it is evident that in their cases neither a shaven head, nor the high-waisted long kilt should be taken to refer to an important function. However, it is also obvious that these people wanted to define and represent themselves in terms of a high social status, in an attitude and with features conveying qualities that elevated them beyond their own group. Thus, with these sculptures, costume and hairstyle should be regarded as signs of self-representation rather than an indication of actual social rank. The lower social status of the owner of the Budapest statuette is confirmed by the quality of the work. In the case of small-scale sculptures of the late Middle Kingdom many pieces show asymmetries, misalignments, disproportions, and crude treatment, obviously due partly to the small size and the hardness of the stone, which made it difficult to carve accurately and to conform to standard proportions. Another reason was the general decline in the technical ability of artists who produced sculptures in greater numbers and of lesser quality than in the previous phase of the Middle Kingdom.

40 This "mass-production" possibly entailed new habits in sculptural production. While statues of high status people were made to order, low-quality sculptures used by lesser ranking individuals seem to have been manufactured in advance, the titles and names of the owners carved on at the time of or following purchase.

41 Hence sculptors of these lesser quality pieces,