An Ancient Egyptian Wooden Female Figure

Thanks in part to the dry Egyptian desert, this beautiful wood sculpture has survived for some 4,000 years. Antiquities specialist Laetitia Delaloye describes the remarkable piece. ‘You can feel the combination of strength, grace and elegance in this representation of a 4,000-year-old noble woman,’ says Laetitia Delaloye, Antiquities specialist at Christie’s in London. Carved from deep brown wood with elongated limbs and a sinuous form, this female statue was made in Egypt during the second half of the third millennium BC, also referred to as the Age of the Pyramids. In this period, carvers, masons and architects began experimenting with monumental forms for the first time, and a figurative repertoire was developed that lasted for generations. Members of the elite ‘frequently had themselves represented in wood or stone,’ explains Delaloye, ‘and the statues would be placed in their tombs as receptacles for the soul.’ Find out more: http://ift.tt/2zKv39N