High Priest of Ptah or Crown Prince

It has been conjectured that this head belonged to a headless statue in the British Museum, EA25, which has remains of a sidelock. However, stone is missing between the two pieces so that no potential join area remains to be tested, and scholars have pointed out various problems with the proposal. The British Museum piece has been shown to be a Ramesside high priest of Ptah, probably of Dynasty 19, usurped by a Dynasty 22 high priest of Ptah named Shedsunefertum (see Leahy in the bibliography). If this head were originally part of that piece, it should then have originally dated to the Ramesside Period.

Barring very extensive reworking (of which no trace remains), this seems unlikely for stylistic reasons. The head wears the lock attached to a tight wig with echeloned curls and rounded hair tabs in front of the ears. The features are very finely modeled, Cheekbones and nasolabial furrows create between them slight ridges of flesh alongside the nose. The brows are straight, following the eyes closelly and very slightly overhanging the lids, then dipping to short extensions that parallel the extensions at the outer corners of the eyes. Neither the wig nor the treatment of the brows/eyes and face is typical of the Ramesside Period; Ramesside round wigs are large and thick so as to form ledges out from the head at their lower edges. While Ramesside eyes vary, they tend to emphasize fullness in the eye sockets; faces tend toward roundness without so much modeling. On the other hand, close fitting wigs that may have rounded ear tabs do occur in the later Third Intermediate Period including the Kushite Period, as for example a head likely depicting a late Third Intermediate Period king in Munich, SMÄK 5550, or kings wearing the Kushite royal cap/hair (for example, 2002.8), and the round wig remains trimmer and rather more fitted when it occurs in the Saite Period as in the statue of Bakenrenef in Brussels, MRAH E.7049. The brows and eyes of this head are reminiscent of treatment that occurs in a number of Kushite royal and private statues or transitional Kushite/Saite private statues, and the modeling is at home there too.

For now it seems possible to suggest the head belongs to the depiction of a high priest of Ptah from the late Third Intermediate Period / Kushite Period.

Marsha Hill, 2018



See now Jurman 2020 in the bibliography for the most recent discussion of the question.

Collection of Albert Gallatin, purchased by the Museum in 1966. Purchased from K. J. Hewett, London, May 1951. Previously purchased at Sotheby's London, F. Bruce sale, January 1951.

Cooney, John 1953. "Egyptian Art in the Collection of Albert Gallatin." In Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 12, p. 14, no. 68.

Fischer, Henry G. 1967. "The Gallatin Egyptian Collection." In The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, new ser., vol. 25, no. 7 (March), frontispiece.

Leahy, Anthony 2006. "A Battered Statue of Shedsunefertem, High Priest of Memphis (BM EA 25)." In Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 92, throughout.

Brandl, Helmut 2008. Untersuchungen zur steineren Privatplastik der Dritten Zwischenzeit. Typologie-Ikonographie-Stilistik. Berlin: Menschundbuch (MBV), p. 215.

Jurman, Claus 2020. Memphis in der Dritten Zwischenzeit: Eine Studie zur (Selbst-)Repräsentation von Eliten in der 21. und 22. Dynastie, 2 vols.. Hamburg, pp. 471, 474-5; 1173; pl. 110f.

Trismegistos. no. 90226.