Position 10 - Diorite Portrait Statue Of King Khafre, The Builder Of The Second Pyramid Of Gizeh, Cairo

We have stepped in from the busy streets of Cairo, the distant noise of which is still in our ears, as the descendants of this man's subjects throng past the door of the museum. We are standing here in the National Museum of Egypt, which is but a short distance from the great Nile bridge that will later lead us out to the pyramids of Gizeh . Meantime we are to have an audience with this mighty Pharaoh who built one of them. Does he not look every inch a king? Thus he sat in the presence of his assembled court 5,000 years ago, and thanks to the skill of his court sculptors, we are able to view him to-day almost as if he were in the flesh before us.

The mottled material somewhat detracts from the fine lines and clearness of the features; that material is diorite, and although it is so hard that it turns the edge of a steel tool to-day, the artist of 5,000 years ago, with his chisel of copper, has cut the fine lines of the mouth and the delicate curves of the nose, as firmly as if they were wrought in wood. For the artist of that ancient day possessed not merely the conception of such a king, but also the technical experience and skill to put it into the hardest of material, which no sculptor of today would dream of attacking. What was that conception? It was not an ideal conception; it was but the king as he saw him; so that the statue before us is the result of an attempt to put the king into stone by a process of exactly imitating his every feature, producing at last an exact counterpart of his person as he was wont to appear at court on great occasions.

There he sits, in calm and conscious superiority over the mere human creatures about him, the Pharaoh, whose ordinary designation was the “good god,” before whom all men kissed the dust, of whom his son-in-law and a great favorite relates with pride that he was not permitted to kiss the ground merely, but by special grace might also kiss the Pharaoh's toe.

His costume is the simplest; it dates from remote prehistoric days, and we shall find it 1,500 years later, on the statues of Ramses II at Abu Simbel (Position 95). It consists of a linen headdress with folds hanging to the breast in front, bearing the sacred uræus serpent on the forehead, the Pharaonic crest, which you can barely see from here; an artificial beard attached by straps passing up behind the ears; besides a plaited linen kilt from the waist to above the knees. Thus the body is largely exposed, and we can observe how superbly in such refractory material, the ancient sculptor has modeled the limbs.

While the muscular development of the upper arm is summarily rendered, the breast bones a little exaggerated, the hands, feet and lower limbs are admirably done. It is fortunate indeed that the nude or semi-nude was a common thing in Egyptian life; had it not been so, the sculptor would have been as unfamiliar with the human form as he shows himself in Babylonian and Assyrian sculpture. The throne upon which the king sits is a plain stool without a back, the slab or plinth behind the Pharaoh being merely a structural device for the protection and safety of the body, such as is found in all statues in stone, even where there is no seat. The stool or chair is conceived by the artist as supported upon two lions, one at each side.

The one on this side is clearly traceable, though much conventionalized; you see the head and the fore legs, with the paws resting on two bases ornamented with rings, while the hind legs may also be discerned at the back corner on this side. The space between the fore and the hind legs of the lion is filled with a symbol of the union of Upper and Lower Egypt , consisting of a papyrus stem, the plant of Lower Egypt , and the lily, the flower of Upper Egypt , intertwined about the hieroglyph for “union,” thus forming the Pharaoh's coat of arms.

This masterpiece is unsurpassed by any such work in the Old Kingdom, and it is unfortunate that its age has been called in question. The evidence adduced for a later date for the statue is, however, quite insufficient. We shall be able to appreciate the exalted character of this work if we now contrast it with one equally good, but of distinctly different spirit. Let us remember as we leave it that we shall later see the building by the Sphinx, in which this and several more statues of this king were found, just as they were thrown into the well there by ancient vandals.

There is also one other object visible from here, which it will be instructive for us to examine, before we visit the great Gizeh cemetery. Notice that massive stone tablet against the wall on the right of our statue. That represents roughly the front of an ancient Egyptian house, with the tall, narrow door in the middle. Of course, it is but a model much reduced in size. Such a house-front carved in stone was put against the west wall of every tomb chapel, such as we shall later see; the object being to provide for the deceased a door, through which he might come back from the world of the dead in the west, and rejoin the world of the living in his tomb chapel and there enjoy the offerings of food, drink, clothing and various other necessities constantly kept there by his surviving relatives. We call such a tablet a “false door.”