Saturday 6 November 2010

Senenmut - The Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell Art Museum, Texas, USA.

This is a chance for me to be able to show a Statue of Senenmut, Chief Steward of Queen Hatshepsut.

Two things stand out for me when looking at this statue:

1) - The material used - Gray green schist - is one of my favourite of the stone materials used in Ancient Egypt. I will post a photo of Thutmose III i have (at a later date) which could be my favourite Ancient Egyptian statue. This too is made of schist.

2) - The Rebus -
"A rebus is a message spelled out in pictures that represent sounds rather than the things they are pictures of: for example, the picture of an eye, a bee and a leaf in English might be used to make the English sentence "I Believe," or "eye-bee-leaf." The sentence itself has nothing to do with eyes, bees or leaves".
from: Tour Egypt

The Rebus in this case is the throne name of Hatshepsut, Maat Ka Ra. The upturned arms (Ka) at the foot of the snake (Maat)and the sun (Ra) between the horns atop of the head of the snake.

Regards,
Stuart

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