Hemiunu Seated
Title
Hemiunu Seated
Date
Fourth dynasty, later reign of Khufu, ca. 2570 BC
Artist or Workshop
Unknown
Materials
Limestone with traces of paint and paste inlay
Height of the work
155.5 cm tall
Provenience
Egypt, Giza, Western Cemetery, serdab of mastaba G 4000
Current Location
Roemer und Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany
Description and Significance
Description:
The portrait of "Hemiunu Seated" depicts a male figure, seated on a block of stone with his legs together and both hands resting on his thighs. His left hand rests flat, palm downward, while his right hand (restored from fragments after damage by tomb robbers) is curled in a fist and holds an enigmatic cylindrical object that at least one scholar has interpreted as a folded piece of cloth. The fingernails and knuckle wrinkles of both hands are finely rendered. The figure wears a short kilt knotted at the waist. His legs and arms are full and fleshy, as is his torso, which features large breasts, a heavy belly with a crushed navel, and rolls of fat along his back. The hair on the figure's head is close-cropped and smooth, imitating the texture of his skin. The figure has a sagging chin, and a thin, closed mouth. The figure's eyes and nose, both heavily damaged by looters, have been restored by modern conservators with the help of a relief fragment now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The eyes may have originally been crafted from rock crystal with gold casings. With the restorations in place, the statue's face is demonstrably serene. The shoulders and hips are in axial alignment, and the figure is frontal (looking straight ahead), giving the overall portrait a block-like appearance. The sitter's titles (including "priest of Bastet" and "overseer of Scribes") are listed in hieroglyphs on the upper surface of the block beneath his feet. The characters are carved in sunken relief and filled with colored paste. Traces of color on other parts the statue indicate that it was once painted.
Significance:
As rendered by the ancient artist, this portrait of Hemiunu clearly conveys the sitter's high social status as the grand vizier to the pharaoh Khufu, and as the purported architect of the Great Pyramid at Giza. His pose, facial serenity, and youthful features echo pharaonic portraits, while his fleshy body indicates that he was wealthy and well-fed. It has been noted by scholars that the rolls of fat on Hemiunu's torso are characteristic of a person of much larger size, suggesting that these elements were added as markers of status rather than as accurate reflections of the sitter's physical body. This incongruity aside, Hemiunu's face and body still give the impression of a specific individual rather than a generic "type," situating it among other relatively "realistic" productions of the Old Kingdom such as Ankh-haf. As discovered in 1912, the portrait was secreted away in a serdab in Hemiunu's mastaba tomb (among the largest constructed at Giza) where it could be inhabited by the ka of the deceased. Despite this ancient attempt to protect the statue, tomb robbers later broke into the chamber and damaged Hemiunu's portrait - a lamentable, yet all-too-common fate of many examples of Egyptian funerary art.
The portrait of "Hemiunu Seated" depicts a male figure, seated on a block of stone with his legs together and both hands resting on his thighs. His left hand rests flat, palm downward, while his right hand (restored from fragments after damage by tomb robbers) is curled in a fist and holds an enigmatic cylindrical object that at least one scholar has interpreted as a folded piece of cloth. The fingernails and knuckle wrinkles of both hands are finely rendered. The figure wears a short kilt knotted at the waist. His legs and arms are full and fleshy, as is his torso, which features large breasts, a heavy belly with a crushed navel, and rolls of fat along his back. The hair on the figure's head is close-cropped and smooth, imitating the texture of his skin. The figure has a sagging chin, and a thin, closed mouth. The figure's eyes and nose, both heavily damaged by looters, have been restored by modern conservators with the help of a relief fragment now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The eyes may have originally been crafted from rock crystal with gold casings. With the restorations in place, the statue's face is demonstrably serene. The shoulders and hips are in axial alignment, and the figure is frontal (looking straight ahead), giving the overall portrait a block-like appearance. The sitter's titles (including "priest of Bastet" and "overseer of Scribes") are listed in hieroglyphs on the upper surface of the block beneath his feet. The characters are carved in sunken relief and filled with colored paste. Traces of color on other parts the statue indicate that it was once painted.
Significance:
As rendered by the ancient artist, this portrait of Hemiunu clearly conveys the sitter's high social status as the grand vizier to the pharaoh Khufu, and as the purported architect of the Great Pyramid at Giza. His pose, facial serenity, and youthful features echo pharaonic portraits, while his fleshy body indicates that he was wealthy and well-fed. It has been noted by scholars that the rolls of fat on Hemiunu's torso are characteristic of a person of much larger size, suggesting that these elements were added as markers of status rather than as accurate reflections of the sitter's physical body. This incongruity aside, Hemiunu's face and body still give the impression of a specific individual rather than a generic "type," situating it among other relatively "realistic" productions of the Old Kingdom such as Ankh-haf. As discovered in 1912, the portrait was secreted away in a serdab in Hemiunu's mastaba tomb (among the largest constructed at Giza) where it could be inhabited by the ka of the deceased. Despite this ancient attempt to protect the statue, tomb robbers later broke into the chamber and damaged Hemiunu's portrait - a lamentable, yet all-too-common fate of many examples of Egyptian funerary art.
References
Book: Breckenridge, J. D. Likeness: A Conceptual History of Ancient Portraiture, 1968, p. 35.
Museum Publication (in print and online): Allen, James P. et al. Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 229-231.
Academic article found online: Fischer, H. G. "An Elusive Shape Within the Fisted Hands of Egyptian Statues," Metropolitan Museum Journal 10, 1975, pp. 9-21.
"Archaeology at Random" website: https://archaeologyatrandom.wordpress.com/hemiunu/
Museum Publication (in print and online): Allen, James P. et al. Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 229-231.
Academic article found online: Fischer, H. G. "An Elusive Shape Within the Fisted Hands of Egyptian Statues," Metropolitan Museum Journal 10, 1975, pp. 9-21.
"Archaeology at Random" website: https://archaeologyatrandom.wordpress.com/hemiunu/
Contributor
Professor Emily Egan
Citation
Unknown, “Hemiunu Seated,” Digital Portrait "Basket" - ARTH488A "Ancient Mediterranean Portraiture", accessed April 25, 2024, http://classicalchopped.artinterp.org/omeka/items/show/6.
Item Relations
This item has no relations.