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Amenmesse n gypt i an R o y a l e a do f t h e Nineteenth y n a s t yin t h e MetropolitanMus e umPATRICK D. CARDONAdministratorforCuratorialAffairs, TheBrooklynMuseum

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM of Art has in itsEgyptian collection an unusual life-size head of aking, which has been the subjectof much debate (Fig-ures 1-4).1 As a result of my recent discovery of thestatue to which this head belongs and of FrankYurco's reading of the inscriptions carved on thestatue and five companion pieces, both head and stat-ues must now be reexamined. The staff of the De-partment of Egyptian Art of the MetropolitanMuseum, aware that Yurco and I were concernedwith the same ancient Egyptian material, was respon-sible for bringing us together. Our respective re-searches are embodied in this and the followingarticle. Mine is an art-historical discussion of thehead, after a brief and general introduction to the pe-riod; Yurco's is concerned with inscriptional evidencebearing on the identification of the king representedas well as with the original context and creation of thestatues.Joint scholarlyefforts of this sort are not com-mon in the field of Egyptology,but they are of consid-erable value and should be undertaken wheneverpossible to present the opinions of both art historiansand philologists attempting to reach a balanced con-clusion.

The period we are concerned with is the Nine-teenth Dynasty in the New Kingdom of ancientEgypt. The New Kingdom, the third major divisionin ancient Egyptian history, lasted approximately fivehundred years from about 1570 B.C. to about 1070

? The MetropolitanMuseumof Art, 1980METROPOLITANUSEUMJOURNAL4

B.C.and was ruled by Dynasty XVIII through Dy-nasty XX.2The Nineteenth Dynastywasbegun by Ra-messes I (ca. 1293-1291), who had been an officerunder Horemheb, the last ruler of the EighteenthDynasty (ca. 1321-1293), made famous by such per-sonalities as Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis III, AmenhotepIII, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Tutankhamun.We know of eight monarchs in Dynasty XIX whoreigned over a period of some 1o8 years (ca. 1293-ca.1185). Following Ramesses I was Sety I who is knownfor, among other things, the building of a temple atAbydos decorated with exquisite raised reliefs and

i. Rogers Fund, 34.2.2. Painted quartzite, 48 (face 14.1) x27.4 x 33 cm. H. E. Winlock, Recent Purchases of EgyptianSculpture, MMAB 29 (1934) p. 186, ill. on cover. Often illus-trated in the MMA Guide to the Collections,general histories ofEgypt, and art-historical publications. Later discussed byJ. Vandier, Manuel d'archeologieegyptienne(Paris, 1958) III, pp. 394,410, pl. cxxvI,4; W. C. Hayes, The Scepterof Egypt (MMA, NewYork, 1959) II, pp. 341-342, fig. 216.I am grateful to Christine Lilyquist, curator of the Depart-ment of Egyptian Art, for giving me permission to publish thishead, and to her colleagues Thomas Logan, Yitzhak Margowsky, and Edna Russmann for their valuable comments. I amalso grateful to William J. Murnane of Chicago House at Luxorfor his help in photography and measuring, and for supplyingmuch information in the preparation of this article.

2. For the purpose of this article the dates are those given byE. Wente and C. van Siclen, A Chronology of the New King-dom, Studies in Honor of GeorgeR. Hughes, Studies in AncientOriental Civilization 39 (Chicago, 1976) pp. 217-261.5

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