Offering Figurine

CultureEgyptian

PeriodLate Old Kingdom - Middle Kingdom, reign of Senwosret

Date2300-1819 BCE

MediumWood, paint

Credit LineGift of the Georges Ricard Foundation

Dimensions4 3/4 x 1 5/16 x 1 1/4 in., 19 g (12 x 3.4 x 3.2 cm, 11/16 oz.)

Object number2018.010.124

Label TextThe female offering figure once stood holding an offering in one hand and supporting a basket on top of her tripartite wig with the other. On the top of the figure’s head is a small hole for a dowel to attach to a basket containing food or object offerings. Unlike catalog number 76, this offering figure is naked, which is not uncommon in the depiction of offering bearers.

Over the millennia, this figure lost its arms and legs and sustained loss of pigment and the wearing away of the face. It is the loss of the legs, however, that has had the most impact on its interpretation since, at the same time as offering figures, truncated female figurines were deposited in tombs. Truncated female figures were purposefully missing the legs from the mid-thigh down. They had a different role from the offering bearers, embodying ritual dancers, in the revivification of the deceased. We know this figure is an offering bearer since she is wearing a lappet wig, which is not worn by truncated female figurines.
Exhibition HistoryLife and the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Art from the Senusret Collection, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 4 - August 6, 2023
Published ReferencesMelinda K. Hartwig, ed., Life and The Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Art from the Senusret Collection (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2023), catalogue entry 77.

ProvenanceEx coll. Georges Ricard Foundation, Santa Barbara, California, possibly purchased from Jean-François Mignon, Aix-en Provence, France.

Status

Not on view

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