تمثال لسيدة مستلقية على سرير جنائزي بمتحف الواحة الخارجة : دراسة أثرية برؤية جديدة

Abstract EN

This research deals with the study of one of the small-sized limestone fertility statues of a woman reclining on a funerary bed.

There is a young and small (boy or girl) below her feet.

This statue is preserved under no.

(801) in the Archaeological Museum of the New Valley in the Kharga Oasis among the monuments discovered in the excavations of the Egyptian Antiquities in the New Valley, particularly in the Cemetery of Tell Marqula in the new Town of Mut in the Dakhla Oasis (map no.

2) under no.

7/110.

The Current Condition of the Statue: It is destroyed and incomplete and has a broken neck.

The right arm is also broken and partly missed.

This missing part was restored and strengthened by the Restoration Committee in the Museum Sector on 23/6/1997.

There is also a break on the top of the bed and scratches on the surface of the statue as a whole.

This statue has been studied by other research and the results indicate that this statue was used as a hospital statue of rheumatic diseases.

But for the fact that this statue reflects special and distinctive artistic features whose artistic significance is not less than the large-sized artistic pieces.

Thus, these features must be studied in order to determine the identity of the statue, its function, and the purpose of its position as well as its design in this way.

Which the researcher sees from the technical details of the statue that he used for another purpose, so the researcher presented a new vision for his study.

The artist mixed the artistic features of the Egyptian and Greek Art.

He combined the Egyptian distinctive characteristics appearing in the general form of the statue and the position of the woman Reclining on the funerary bed and wearing the wig along with her servant boy or girl with the distinctive characteristics of the Greek Sculpture appearing in the facial features of the woman and the features of the servant boy who looks foreign combining between the features of Negroes and Nubians during that period as if he came from Southern Egypt.

Although the statues of naked women are not a new model in Ancient Egypt as evidenced by the beginning of their emergence in prehistoric times, their manufacture of ivory and terracotta and their continued production until the Late Period and the beginning of the Ptolemaic Period, the purpose of their use is due to the nature of their sculpting, the artistic characteristics associated with such statues, and the location where they were discovered.

The statues were discovered for the first time in tombs.

I think that they were statues of concubines accompanying the deceased to excite him and arouse the sexual pleasure upon the resurrection again.

These statues were also discovered in the tombs of women and children as well as temples and some houses.

I think that they were of the votive statues of fertility, motherhood, and the desire for reproduction in order to highlight parts of the woman's body anatomy such as large breasts and full buttocks.

So most probably, this statue is one of the funerary votive statues associated with the woman before and during childbirth to facilitate it.

The statue was sculpted in a way indicating motherhood and fertility and highlighting the features of fertility on the body such as the fullness of breasts and buttocks.