NARRATOR: Take a moment to compare this remarkable fragment from a statue of King Senwosret III to the sphinx, nearby. The resemblance is striking—it’s obvious these pieces depict the same person—but there are important differences too. One important difference is, of course, the material. The brownish-reddish quartzite on this piece seems to glow from within, and gives it an amazing life-like quality.

Dorothea Arnold is Lila Acheson Wallace Curator in Charge of the Department of Egyptian Art.

DOROTHEA ARNOLD: You see this is the same man as the one depicted in the head of the sphinx. But, clearly, another artist is at work here. The king looks more benign, less forbidding. And instead of the brooding expression on the sphinx’s face we see a deeply thoughtful man. A king to whom one might indeed trust to lead the country in the right way.

Egyptian sculptors were especially naturalistic in works created from this brown crystalline stone: quartzite. Here it is almost uncanny how the artist conveyed real flesh in a human face. Senwosret the Third was a very effective ruler, who centralized everything that happened in Egypt in the power of the pharaoh, putting down feudal lords, and consolidating neighboring regions—especially the gold mines and other riches of Nubia, to the south of Egypt, which was controlled by a chain of military forts.

This realistic portrayal of the king’s rugged maturity may have had a political purpose. Earlier kings had assumed power by associating themselves with the gods. But psychological portraits like this one could have made Senwosret the Third ‘s earthly power frighteningly clear to his enemies as well as his subjects.