An examination of non-royal statues from the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty reveals an expansion of types similar to that for royal ones. Recently the statuary of the Steward and Royal Nurse Senenmut has been discussed with regard to new types developed during the reign of Hatshepsut (Keller 2005b; Roehrig 2005a). In particular the introduction of statues depicting royal children held by officials may have been the invention of this steward, but was certainly a form that he offered in temples in numbers: standing holding Nefrure, in block form with only her head visible, seated with Nefrure enclosed within his cloak, and squatting with the princess shown seated on his lap. Other innovations appear in statues of Senenmut making offering of divine emblems, including over-sized sistra, curled cobras, and a surveyor’s cord (figure 40.7). Many of these new forms included within their design cryptographic writings of Hatshepsut’s name, and further cryptograms were invented to incise on the statues. This interest in hiddenness characterized Senenmut’s approach even to his construction works on Hatshepsut’s behalf, when he placed secret images of himself behind doors and recessed behind door jambs at Deir el-Bahri and elsewhere, and it should be seen in the larger context of elite knowledge display as mentioned above (Dorman 2005). Although Senenmut commissioned what amounted to a program of statuary for the temples, his contemporaries and those who lived in ensuing Thutmosid reigns continued to have similar types of statues created. Additional types seen in this period both in tombs and temples include the stelo-phore, used frequently atop tomb entrances with a kneeling figure of a tomb owner holding a stela with a hymn to the sun carved on it (Stewart 1966) (figure 40.8). The naophore, perhaps also introduced by Senenmut, was dedicated in temples by officiants who showed themselves carrying a shrine containing the statue of a deity (Keller 2005b; Wildung 1982), while another naos type showed the statue dedicant
Figure 40.7 Senenmut holding sistrum. Quartzite. Temple of Mut. CG 579. Courtesy Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Within a shrine and emulated a type used for royal statues in the Second Intermediate period (Gaballa 1970). At the same time traditional non-royal types continued to be produced, including seated, striding, scribal, block, and family group statues. As with the royal statuary produced in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty, elite sculpture sought to represent the dedicants in a variety of roles vis a vis the gods and that could amplify the inscriptions carved upon them.
World History
