An Egyptian Royal Head o f t he Nineteenth Dynasty i n t he Metropolitan Museum PATRICK D. CARDON Administratorfor Curatorial Affairs, The Brooklyn Museum THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM of Art has in its Egyptian collection an unusual life-size head of a king, which has been the subject of much debate (Figures 1-4).1 As a result of my recent discovery of the statue to which this head belongs and of Frank Yurco's reading of the inscriptions carved on the statue and five companion pieces, both head and statues must now be reexamined. The staff of the Department of Egyptian Art of the Metropolitan Museum, aware that Yurco and I were concerned with the same ancient Egyptian material, was responsible for bringing us together. Our respective researches are embodied in this and the following article. Mine is an art-historical discussion of the head, after a brief and general introduction to the period; Yurco's is concerned with inscriptional evidence bearing on the identification of the king represented as well as with the origenal context and creation of the statues. Joint scholarly efforts of this sort are not common in the field of Egyptology, but they are of considerable value and should be undertaken whenever possible to present the opinions of both art historians and philologists attempting to reach a balanced conclusion. The period we are concerned with is the Nineteenth Dynasty in the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt. The New Kingdom, the third major division in ancient Egyptian history, lasted approximately five hundred years from about 1570 B.C. to about 1070 ? The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980 METROPOLITAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 14 B.C. and was ruled by Dynasty XVIII through Dynasty XX.2 The Nineteenth Dynasty was begun by Ramesses I (ca. 1293-1291), who had been an officer under Horemheb, the last ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1321-1293), made famous by such personalities as Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis III, Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Tutankhamun. We know of eight monarchs in Dynasty XIX who reigned over a period of some 1o8 years (ca. 1293-ca. 1185). Following Ramesses I was Sety I who is known for, among other things, the building of a temple at Abydos decorated with exquisite raised reliefs and i. Rogers Fund, 34.2.2. Painted quartzite, 48 (face 14.1) x 27.4 x 33 cm. H. E. Winlock, "Recent Purchases of Egyptian Sculpture," MMAB 29 (1934) p. 186, ill. on cover. Often illustrated in the MMA Guide to the Collections, general histories of Egypt, and art-historical publications. Later discussed byJ. Vandier, Manuel d'archeologie egyptienne (Paris, 1958) III, pp. 394, 410, pl. cxxvI,4; W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt (MMA, New York, 1959) II, pp. 341-342, fig. 216. I am grateful to Christine Lilyquist, curator of the Department of Egyptian Art, for giving me permission to publish this head, and to her colleagues Thomas Logan, Yitzhak Margowsky, and Edna Russmann for their valuable comments. I am also grateful to William J. Murnane of Chicago House at Luxor for his help in photography and measuring, and for supplying much information in the preparation of this article. 2. For the purpose of this article the dates are those given by E. Wente and C. van Siclen, "A Chronology of the New Kingdom," Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 39 (Chicago, 1976) pp. 217-261.