| The bronze statuary of certain non-royal personages is investigated---more specifically, the ancient Egyptian priest. Recent studies of ancient Egyptian bronze sculpture have focussed on royal bronzes (Hill 2004) and bronzes of deities (Gasser 2001); bronze statuary of the private individual, however, has never been thoroughly investigated. In my investigation I found that the 'priestly' figure comprised the majority of the non-royal corpus (90%). Approximately 350 individual statues, statuettes and figurines housed in museums in North and South America, Europe, Russia, Turkey, Israel and Egypt form the basis for this study. These figures were manufactured over a wide date range, from the possible predecessors of the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2000 BCE) to the Graeco-Roman Period (ca. 300 BCE to 360 CE) of ancient Egypt.; This study takes a multifaceted approach and is dependent on the available epigraphical, archaeological/contextual, and art historical evidence. The inscribed, dated and provenanced bronze figures that I investigated establish a chronological framework with which to examine the temporal aspect of the unprovenanced bronzes of the corpus. The size of the sculpture, style, technique, method of manufacture, frequency of production, and details of individual pieces are all features that I investigate for each object. In addition, I utilize several types of secondary sources to assist with dating the unprovenanced figures, i.e., two- and three-dimensional sources from the Egyptian artistic record.; This dissertation consists of nine chapters: Introduction, Methodology, the temporal chapters (Pre-New Kingdom, New Kingdom, Third Intermediate Period, Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, Late Period, Graeco-Roman Periods), and the Conclusions. Appendices include: a catalogue with brief listings of the 350 pieces investigated and analyzed, a general chronology, a provenance index, translations and analysis of inscriptions and a glossary. The final synthesis is an historical and stylistic typology of the priestly figure based on archaeological context, inscriptions, and stylistic analysis. This investigation contributes a broader understanding of the social, religious, artistic, and historical context of non-royal Egyptian bronze statuary. |
