Tutankhamun’s ‘Guardian’ Statues: Symbolism and Meaning

One of the most striking objects in the exhibition ‘Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh’, which recently opened to sell-out crowds at the Saatchi Gallery in London, is a life-sized striding statue of the king. One of a pair (its mate remains in Cairo), in many ways these statues exemplify many of our misapprehensions about Ancient Egypt in general and Tutankhamun in particular.

In dramatic black and gold, the statues were said to be really ‘life-size’ because they represented the pharaoh at the same height as discoverer Howard Carter claimed the ‘boy king’ had been in life after measuring his mummified body.

The Tutankhamun exhibition – of which I was lucky to get a preview – emphasises the status of the king’s funerary assemblage as priceless, luxurious, consisting of one-of-a-kind treasures. In fact, it is clear from the broken remains of the contents of other tombs in the Valley of the Kings and elsewhere that such statues were part of a standard set of funerary furniture that a king of Egypt’s New Kingdom could expect to be buried with. Tutankhamun’s was if anything a pared down version of the set.

Tutankhamun’s statues, with remains of shrouds, in situ. Photo by Harry Burton. Griffith Institute

The closest parallels to Tutankhamen’s statues come from the tomb of Ramesses I (KV 16). Giovanni Belzoni describes their discovery in the burial chamber in 1817:

…in a corner a statue standing erect, six feet six inches high, and beautifully cut out of sycamore-wood: it is nearly perfect except the nose… in the chamber on our right hand we found another statue like the first, but not perfect. No doubt they had once been placed one on each side of the sarcophagus, holding a lamp or some offering in their hands, one hand being stretched out in the proper posture for this, and the other hanging down.

Two similar, though less well-preserved, statues come from the tomb of Horemheb (KV 57). Like those of Ramesses I, these are somewhat over-lifesize in scale. One other statue of this type originates from the tomb of Ramesses IX now in the British Museum, and is roughly lifesize. All of these are resin-coated, and seem to have originally been gilded. The presence of this statue type throughout the Eighteenth Dynasty is indicated by fragments: in KV 20, the tomb of Hatshepsut/Thutmose I, the excavators noted “a part of the face and foot of a large wooden statue covered with bitumen”; Amenhotep II was provided with a resin-coated example in the same pose as later statues but at only 80 cm in height and fragments of sculpture on the same scale come from the tombs of Thutmose III and IV. Parts including “two left ears and two right feet” for “lifesize wooden statues” were found in the cache tomb WV 25 but perhaps washed in from the neighbouring tomb of Ay (WV 23). Taken together, this evidence suggests that such royal images increased in scale over time. Depictions of statues exactly similar to Tutankhamun’s appear in a scene of sculpture being produced in the tomb of the vizier Rekhmire (temp. Tuthmose III/Amenhotep II) – suggesting a consistent iconography over time.

Scene from the tomb of Rekhmire (TT 100)

In Tutankhamun’s pair, one wears the nemes headdress and the other a khat bag-wig. The same head coverings also occur on the pair of statues of Ramesses I, although other statues are insufficiently preserved to know if this pattern was standard. The khat-wearing statue of Tutankhamun has a text on the kilt apron labelling it as: “The Perfect God… royal Ka-spirit of (the) Horakhty, (the) Osiris… Nebkheperura, justified”. This favours the interpretation of the statue(s) as a home for the royal Ka-spirit.

The supposed function of these sculptures as “guardians” arises from the position at the doorway of the burial chamber of Tutankhamun’s (albeit truncated) tomb, the seemingly threatening maces they hold and especially the over-lifesize scale of the Horemheb and Ramesses I examples.

Carter initially coined the term “guardian statue” and the contemporary press accounts emphasised this apparently defensive function in descriptions; that is still how the statue is described in the Saatchi exhibition interpretation. However, in no simple way is the statue a ‘guardian.’ The root of this persistent misinterpretation – absolutely typical for Egyptology – may lie in a deep-seated anxiety that the tomb was not supposed to be entered – the same apprehension that has fuelled countless examples of mummy fiction.

Fifth Dynasty falsedoor of Khainpu (Acc.no TN R4567/1937), showing the same iconography in two dimensions as Tutankhamun’s ‘guardian’ statues show in three-dimensions

One wonders if the statues actually represent a much more general freedom of movement and power for the deceased; spells from the Book of the Dead are illustrated by vignettes of the deceased holding a cane and sceptre and the same iconography notably occurs frequently on falsedoors from the Old Kingdom onwards. These images are not usually interpreted as ‘guardians’ of the tomb – although the precisely parallel in two-dimensions the ‘scene’ set up in front of the door to Tutankhamun’s burial chamber in three-dimensions.

As ever, Tutankhamun’s ‘treasures’ say more about our modern anxieties about looking inside the tomb than they do about the ancient functions of objects such as sculptures.

Object Biography #24: An erased stela of Tutankhamun(?)

This unobtrusive limestone stela (Acc. no. 2938) was found by Egyptian workmen employed by Egyptologist Arthur Mace (1874-1928) at the sacred site of Abydos. Like many other monuments set up there over the centuries, it might be assumed simply to be a tribute to the local god, Osiris, but the iconography and composition of the scene is unusual. Although found broken, and with clear evidence of erasure to the identifying inscription, is one of the most intriguing – but little-known – pieces in Manchester’s collection.

Stela 2938. From Abydos. Photo: Julia Thorne @tetisheri

To begin with the lower register; this shows the expected figure of Osiris, seated at the right, with five figures approaching him – four of them uncaptioned and therefore unidentified. These consist of two women and two men, each of apparently elite status and in the pose of adoration – in keeping iconographically with depictions of kinship groups on many late New Kingdom stelae. However, the group is led by a royal male figure identified as ‘Djeserkare’ – the revered king Amenhotep I. This is unusual, as the overall iconography of the piece dates to very late Dynasty 18  – long after Amenhotep I had died. Usually, posthumous depictions of this deified king show him as passive and in receipt of offerings; it is also uncommon to find a king (let alone a deified king) leading – and in some sense in the same sphere as – a group of apparently non-royal people.

Detail of the stela of the sculptor Qen, showing the deified Queen Ahmose-Nefertari and King Amenhotep I. MMA 51.93

The upper register is even more intriguing. It shows three royal figures approaching Amun-Re, who is captioned with his name and the epithet ‘Lord of the Sky, Ruler of Thebes’. He is accompanied on this top register by the standing figures of (from left to right) the deified Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, the ‘Lord of the Two Lands’ Nebpehtyre (= Ahmose I), and an active (i.e. living/reigning) king, whose name has been erased. The stela thus shows no fewer than three historical royal figures – reflecting an awareness of history at Abydos that is echoed in another Abydos monument (possibly a statue base) naming several kings also in Manchester. In addition to being regarded as a founder of the New Kingdom, Ahmose I is well-known as a builder at Abydos – while Amenhotep I and his mother Ahmose-Nefetari were venerated at the Theban workers town of Deir el-Medina.

Ahmose I(?) embraces Osiris. Detail of a block from his Abydos complex. Manchester Museum 3303

The style of the figures, and the offering Pharaoh in particular, have a distinctly Amarna feel – but given the scene shows the worship of Amun, it can hardly show Akhenaten or his immediate successor(s). Tutankhamun is a strong possibility, perhaps a way of reasserting the dominance of Amun even at Abydos and reconnecting with the orthodoxy symbolised by older rulers. Certainly, Tutankhamun’s name was erased after his death because of his association with the Amarna interlude. His short-lived successor Aye may also be considered for the same reason. Horemheb and Ramesses I are also a less-likely possibility, as it is not clear why their names would have been subsequently removed.

It is perhaps ironic that the pharaoh who commissioned the stela to show his connection with great kings of the past should have been so conspicuously forgotten.

 

The stela will appear with several other objects from Manchester Museum in the exhibition ‘Toutankhamon. À la découverte du pharaon oublié’, in Liége in Belgium between December 2019 and July 2020.

The exhibition ‘Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh’ opens at the Saatchi Gallery, London, on Saturday 2^nd November.