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A Statue of a Hellenistic King

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

C. C. Edgar
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Extract

The statue reproduced on Pl. II. was found two years ago in the village of Atfih which lies about forty-five miles south of Cairo on the edge of the eastern desert. Atfih preserves the name and occupies the site of the ancient Per nebt tep aht, the city of the cow-headed goddess Hathor. The Greeks, who identified Hathor with their own Aphrodite, translated the name into Aphroditopolis. The ruins of the town are covered by the modern village, but in the adjoining desert is a large cemetery, mainly of the Ptolemaic period, which Mr. Johnson has recently excavated in search of Greek papyrus.

The statue was found accidentally by a labourer digging in the village and was secured for the Cairo Museum by the local Inspector of the Antiquities Department. It is made of a block of rather soft limestone and is considerably more than life size, the height of the figure without the plinth being 2·5 m. Both forearms are missing. The right leg from knee to ankle and parts of the left leg are restored in plaster. The features are badly damaged. There are no remains of paint or gilding on the surface of the limestone.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 33 , November 1913 , pp. 50 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1913

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References

1 In Coptic Tpih, whence the Arabic Atfih.

2 Archaeological Report of Egypt Exploration Fund, 1910–1911, p. 5.

3 Catalogue du Musée du, Caire, ‘Coffins, Masks, and Portraits,’ Pl. II.

4 Perdrizet, , Bronzes grecs de la collection Fouquet, p. 39Google Scholar, doubts whether the statuettes represent the Philadelphi and questions whether any Ptolemy would have ventured to be portrayed with the elephant-cap. With all respect to his judgment I think the identification is sufficiently proved by the likeness of the heads to the coin-portraits, by the attributes, which are particularly appropriate to a king and queen of the Ptolemaic family, and by the provenance of the bronzes.

5 Schreiber, , Studien über das Bildniss Alexanders; ColligonGoogle Scholar, Lysippe, Pl. 10.