![]() ![]() The king’s arms are glued to the body and he places his left hand extended on his knee. His face sketches a faint smile and his gaze is lost in infinity.īehind the pharaoh, a falcon, a representation of the god Horus, a divinity with which the monarch identified himself in life, spreads its wings around Khafre’s head, offering him its protection. The statue shows Khafre as a young man with a perfect, athletic physique, dressed only in a kilt, wearing the ceremonial nemes headscarf and the false beard characteristic of his position (which is broken). It represents Khafre, pharaoh of the 4th dynasty and architect of the second largest pyramid of Giza (the largest is the one built by his father Khufu), a monument that still preserves part of the original limestone cladding on its apex. This work of art, made to be seen from the front, measures 1.68 meters high, 57 centimeters wide and 96 centimeters long. One of them is in such a state of preservation that you might think it came out of the box yesterday”. Five of them are mutilated, but the other two are complete. ![]() The Egyptologist wrote in his diary: “These are seven statues representing King Khafre. Much later, some of these statues were buried in a pit that was covered with stone slabs, and it was there that, centuries later, Mariette discovered them. They were to serve as a receptacle for the ka or life force of the deceased pharaoh. In it, the ancient Egyptians arranged an ambitious iconographic program consisting of a set of 23 statues representing Khafre. The building has a square floor plan and its walls (which do not show any type of decoration) are covered with red granite slabs and the pavement is white limestone. The Valley Temple of Khafre is 500 meters from his pyramid and is located near the Great Sphinx. The Egyptologist was excavating the funerary complex of Khafre, specifically the Monarch’s Valley Temple (which he himself had discovered in 1852), an enclosure where the purification ceremonies of the sovereign’s mummy took place before it was taken to the high temple, located next to the pyramid, through a long ceremonial causeway. The statue, which with its half smile seems to contemplate from the abyss of millennia the astonished visitor who sees it for the first time, was discovered in 1860 by the Frenchman Auguste Mariette, then head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, during excavations in Giza. ![]() Although it was made not to be seen, today its beauty continues to fascinate travelers who visit it in Cairo. Depicting Pharaoh Khafre, son of Khufu, at the height of his power, this splendid 4,500-year-old work of art is considered a masterpiece of Egyptian statuary. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |