Khafre Enthroned

Khafre Enthroned
Khafre Enthroned
Year	c. 2570 BC
Medium	Anorthosite gneiss
Subject	Khafre
Dimensions	168 cm (66 in)
Location	Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Khafre Enthroned is a

ka—the life force that accompanied a person with a kind of other self. After death, the ka leaves the body into the afterlife, but still needs a place to rest: the statue.^{[citation needed}

]

This sculpture, depicted in-the-round (versus

Mummification played a huge role in the Egyptian culture, a 70-day process to ensure immortality for the pharaoh. Starting in the 3rd millennium BCE, if the pharaoh's mummy was damaged, a ka statue was created to "ensure immortality and permanence of the deceased's identity by providing a substitute dwelling place for the ka".^[3]

Khafre rigidly sits in his royal throne, gazing off into the distance. The pharaoh wears a linen nemes headdress, which cover most of his forehead and folds over his broad shoulders. This royal headdress depicts the

predynastic period. The god Horus, depicted as a falcon, protects the backside of Khafre's head with his wings, another reference to the united Egypt.^[1] Besides the striking view of the falcon (unseen from the front) resting behind Khafre's head, Khafre's feet are emplaced upon a flat platform, engraved with nine archery bows, representing the king's and kingdom's dominance over foreign/domestic enemy tribes, the nine bows

.

The symmetrical pharaoh shows no movement or change, suppressing all motion and time to create an eternal stillness; his strong build and permanent stance demonstrate no notion of time—Khafre is timeless, and his power will exist even in the afterlife.

symmetric statue, symbolizing order and control in the pharaoh, is the same on either side of the vertical axis of the statue, only differing in Khafre's clenched right fist.^{[citation needed]} The tight profile and block-like aspect represent Khafre as a permanent being and part of the stone to keep his ka safe. Khafre will always exist, on earth and in the afterlife. The pharaoh's sculpture can be described as absolutely frontal, utterly immobile, and perfectly calm: the characteristics of Egyptian block statue.^{[citation needed}

]

Creating Khafre Enthroned

In order to create this sculpture in-the-round, the sculptor used the subtractive method. He began with a cube-shaped stone block of diorite. First, the sculptor drew the front, back, and two profile views of Khafre on the four vertical faces of the stone.[3] After the sketched plans were made, the sculptor chiseled away the excess stone on all four sides until the plans came together, meeting at right angles. The last step was sculpting specific details of Khafre's body and face, carving the falcon god Horus, and other designs on the throne. The subtractive method allows the sculptor to create a block-like look for Khafre's ka statue, a standard for Egyptian sculpture during this time period. In addition to the subtractive method, abrasion, rubbing or grinding the surface was used to finish the product off. The diorite statue stands at a final height of five foot six.^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b Davies, Penelope J. E. (2007). Janson's history of art: western tradition, 7th ed. Pearson.
^ ^a ^b Van Keuren, Frances (14 November 2010). "ARHI 3000: Ancient Art". Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2010-11-29.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Western Edition. Thirteenth. 1. Cengage Learning, 2008. 62–63. Print.

Creating Khafre Enthroned

References

Further reading