| Haremhab, The General Who Became King
By STAN PARCHIN
July 16, 2010
| | Egyptian, New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, Amarna Period (ca. 1336-1323 B.C.). Haremhab as a Scribe (1332-1322 B.C.). Gray granite. H. 113 cm; W. 71 cm; D. 55.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
The ambitious successor of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (r. 1332-1323 B.C.) is the subject of Haremhab, The General Who Became King, opening November 10, 2010 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. This landmark exhibition's objects are drawn entirely from the institution's collection of Egyptian art. Haremhab as a Scribe (ca. 1336-1323 B.C.), the installation’s life-sized gray granite centerpiece, portrays the able administrator as a wise man.
The Met's massive monument is accompanied by more than 40 wall reliefs, works on papyrus (paper), statuettes, textiles and facsimile paintings. Egyptologists recently used them to freshly interpret the non-royal Haremhab's fascinating reign during the transitional Post-Amarna Period, when polytheistic beliefs in ancient Egypt were restored. Through artifacts grouped thematically, the show also explains the scribe's role in Egyptian society and religion. The museum's presentation ideally complements Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at Manhattan's Discovery Times Square Exposition (April 23, 2010-January 2, 2011).
Haremhab: From General to Pharaoh
Haremhab (r. 1332-1309 B.C.) was the resourceful commander-in-chief of the boy-king Tutankhamun's army. This last pharaoh of the glorious 18th Dynasty organized successful military campaigns at Egypt's southern border with Nubia and in the Levant. As a lawgiver, he secured civilians' rights and restricted the army's power. A commemorative stela (stone monument) on display illustrates priests carrying the shrine of Amun, the oracular deity responsible for sanctioning Haremhab's kingship. Its narrative signifies Egypt's return to religious orthodoxy following the Amarna interlude.
The exhibition compares the artistic style of General Haremhab's abandoned tomb in the necropolis (cemetery) at Saqqara with contemporary funerary works. Early 20th-century facsimile paintings reproduce the interior of his grand royal burial site in the Valley of the Kings. There he attempted to obliterate the memory of the heretical ruler Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 B.C.), Tutankhamun's father, by using talatat or blocks from the disgraced pharaoh's dismantled temple at Thebes in his tomb's construction. Having done so, he inadvertently preserved fragmentary evidence of the earlier king's short-lived experiment in solar monotheism.
The Scribe and Thoth
Depicting noteworthy officials as scribes remained constant throughout pharaonic and pre-Christian times. Educated male writers appeared in ancient Egyptian art as far back as the Old Kingdom age of the pyramids (ca. 2687-2165 B.C.). During the imperial era of the New Kingdom (ca. 1569-1081 B.C.), they were often portrayed in the presence of Thoth, the god of wisdom who took the form of a baboon and a winged ibis. Some of the exhibition's artifacts show the deity in the guise of both animals.
The museum's first-floor installation includes statues of scribes from different periods of Egyptian history, their writing materials and implements. One stela's inscription refers to literacy. Garments like that worn by Haremhab in the Met's sculpture are displayed alongside representations of similar attire.
Haremhab as a Scribe
The famous Haremhab as a Scribe was commissioned when the leader was still an army general. Shown in the traditional writer's pose, the subject is seated on the ground with his legs comfortably crossed. The papyrus scroll across Haremhab's lap is incised with a hieroglyphic hymn to the god Thoth. While his missing right hand probably held a reed or pen, the left knee supports a shell of ink. Attached to each end of a strap draped over the statue's left shoulder is a miniature scribe's kit. A likeness of Amun, perhaps meant to imitate a tattoo of the Theban god restored to prominence during Tutankhamun's reign, is carved on the sculpture's right forearm.
Haremhab's youthful and subdued facial expression directly contrasts with his belly's fleshy folds, the torso apparently that of an older (and wiser) man. Gazing down upon the papyrus, he wears a diaphanous shirt and ornately pleated kilt. Along the sculpture's base is a prayer to Ptah, the Egyptian god of creation and patron of skilled artisans. The inscription is accompanied by the heirless Haremhab's titles, duties and account of his accomplishments. Overall, the sculpture's appearance strongly suggests that the monarch was both literate and devout in his beliefs.
Sources
Arnold, Dorothea, et al. Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids (exh. cat.). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, 61-62, 278-279, 373, 382-383.
Freed, Rita E., Yvonne J. Markowitz and Sue H. D'Auria (eds.), et al. Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen (exh. cat.). Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1999, 174, 183, 187-188, 190-195, 277.
Hawass, Zahi, et al. Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs (exh. cat.). Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2008, 60, 99.
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