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Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileHead of a King, possibly Amememhat IV
The sculpture is a fragment showing the head and upper neck of an Egyptian ruler. The figure wears a nemes headdress with deeply incised horizontal stripes and a uraeus positioned centrally on the forehead. The facial features are characterized by almond-shaped, heavy-lidded eyes, prominent ears, and a damaged nose and mouth area. The surface of the light-colored limestone shows wear and pitting consistent with an antiquity from the Middle Kingdom.
This portrait is associated with the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, a period marked by a shift toward more naturalistic and occasionally melancholy-looking royal portraiture, often attributed to the reign of Amenemhat IV. It serves as an example of state-sanctioned pharaonic iconography intended to communicate both divine authority and the mortal gravity of the king.
The Middle Kingdom royal canon
The stylistic approach to royal portraiture in the 12th Dynasty represents a distinct philosophical pivot from the idealized youth of the Old Kingdom.
Object
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
08.200.2
Egyptian Art
Limestone
carving
limestone
Middle Kingdom
Egyptian
sculpture
Digital Source
Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public domain
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview on April 20, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.