Late Dynastic Period Wooden Mask

This face in an extraordinarily excellent state of preservation is from an anthropoid, painted wooden sarcophagus and is preserved from about the middle of the forehead to the beginning of the neck. The face is well-modeled. Its features include hieroglyphic eyes over which are plastic cosmetic stripes, a thin-bridged nose, and a wide, almost horizontally oriented mouth with a thin upper and slightly thicker lower lip. The top of the head is provided with a single tang for its insertion into the lid.

The characteristic feather patterns of the headdress visible over the forehead and again at the sides of the head which are separated from one another by non-figural zones simply painted black in color are typical of anthropomorphic sarcophagi first created during the Kushite, or Twenty-fifth Dynasty (about 720-650 BC). These feathers belong to the powerful sky goddess, Nut, who is represented as a vulture on ancient Egyptian funerary equipment as early as Dynasty XVIII of the New Kingdom. When on the ground, the vulture spreads out its wings in a configuration which reminded the Egyptians of an enormous embrace and which they subsequently interpreted as an embrace of protection, shielding the deceased from all potential dangers.

On the basis of the style and colors used to decorate this exquisite work of art, one can date this portrait to Dynasty XXV. There are excellent parallels for this portrait in both the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.