Statue in a Niche in the Brooklyn Museum, August 2007

Statue in a Niche
Limestone
Old Kingdom, Dynasty IV-V, circa 2600-2345 BC
Possibly from Saqqara
Accession # 37.24E

In the tomb a statue of the deceased served as part of a rite of commemoration, functioning as the focal point for remembering the person when family members visited the tomb on religious holidays. It also provided an alternative body for the ba of the deceased if the mummy were destroyed. This niche served yet another purpose. Its cutting three-quarters in the round suggests the idea of coming forth, one of the powers that the deceaesd possessed as an akh, a transformed being who had overcome the constraints of death and could effectively move about in the hereafter.

Text from the Brooklyn Museum label.