The reign of Amenhotep III was perhaps the most glorious in Egyptian history. Coming to the throne at the tender age of twelve (or perhaps as young as six), little could have been expected of Amenhotep III. Yet, he showed bravery and prowess from a young age: records from later in his reign suggest (perhaps erroneously) that the child-king killed either 102 or 110 lions in the first ten years. His martial prowess was also tested early; in regnal year 5, when Amenhotep was aged either eleven or seventeen, a local chieftain called Ikheny revolted in Nubia. The Pharaoh led an expedition south, and victoriously put down the rebellion, though it is possible that the young king was more of a figurehead than a tactical decision-maker. The reign of Amenhotep III, however, was marked by an extended period of peace. The Empire thrived, and Amenhotep was able to devote unprecedented resources to embellishing the temples. Amenhotep was able to celebrate his heb-sed, the jubilee festival which marked thirty years of his reign, in regnal years 30, 34 and 37. He did so in some style: it is known that the opulent festivals were repeated by the Pharaohs of later Dynasties in an attempt to relive the heyday of Amenhotep’s reign. Few Egyptian Pharaohs were able to celebrate their own heb-sed, since reigns in the dangerous ancient Mediterranean were notoriously short. Amenhotep could have expected to pass the throne to his eldest son, Thutmose, and, indeed, inscriptions show that Thutmose was being groomed to succeed him. But in one of history’s most important accidents, Thutmose predeceased Amenhotep, and the throne instead passed to his second son, Amenhotep IV. He would later change his name to Akhenaten, and abandoned the millennia-old Egyptian religion in favour of the solar god Aten. Perhaps one of the first great free-thinkers in history, his experiment ultimately failed: Akhenaten’s successor, the fabled Tutankhamun, reversed the religious reforms, returned the capital to Memphis, and began the process of erasing his father’s memory.

Amenhotep III’s exceptional reign was reflected in his huge appetite for self-promotion. There are more portraits of Amenhotep III than of any other Pharaoh in Egypt’s long history. His soft, sympathetic stare, can be found in over four hundred identified images in museum collections, and a great many more in private hands or in situ in Egypt. While a majority were produced for temple settings, others occurred in more intimate personal shrines. While all Egyptian Pharaohs were worshipped as gods, especially after their deaths, the allure of Amenhotep III (and his wife Tiye) ensured active devotion to his cult during his lifetime from numerous local communities in the Theban area. Thanks to the large number of extant portraits, it is possible to trace the development of Amenhotep’s royal image throughout the course of his reign. Early on, the Pharaoh’s portraits demonstrate continuity with those of his father, Thutmose IV. He is presented with a beak-shaped nose and a prognathous mouth and chin. Within the first few years, the nose straightens and the chin flattens. As his reign progressed, the facial features became at first fleshier and then more refined. The eyes are tilted downwards, so that even on smaller-scale portraits, Amenhotep appears to be looking down on the viewer. The nose remains fleshier and flatter, with broader nostrils and a round tip. Towards the end of his reign, the portraits, strangely, become more infantile: his eyes become larger and more almond shape, his face smaller in relation to his various crowns, his chin pointier. This recalls both the early age at which Amenhotep came to the throne, and reinforces his image as child of the gods. The slight weirdness of his later statuary begins to prefigure the strange and sinuous forms of his son Akhenaten’s famous Amarna style.

An exceptional full-length image of the King kneeling, this portrait probably dates from the middle of Amenhotep’s reign, coinciding with the second portrait type. His face is round, fleshy, and compact. His nose is somewhat flatter and broader than the beak-type which signalled a continuation with his father’s image. In this plumper guise, Amenhotep was presented firstly as sympathetic, even approachable; he was the paradigm of the listening monarch, able to hear the prayers of his people and transmit them to the gods (this also accounts for the large size of his ears). But his roundness also signified the wealth and prosperity of his reign. Presenting himself as full, but still athletic, Amenhotep demonstrated that he – and, by extension, his subjects – had more than enough food, not only to survive, but to thrive. This same mix of athletic proportions and symbolic fleshiness continues through the torso; no Egyptian portrait prefigured the taut musculature of the Greeks and Romans, but rather presented a softer, looser athleticism which exudes physical fitness, but to a different model of perfection. The slightly pendulous nature of his pectorals, less flat and well-defined than in many works of the period, is more akin to the portraiture of scribes, whose aesthetic esteemed the excess weight brought about by leisure and luxury. Amenhotep wears the nemes-headcloth, the favoured headwear of the New Kingdom monarchs, which consisted of a striped cloth worn over the scalp, with lappets hanging down in front of the shoulders, and the rear braded into a kind of tail. The headdress was held in place with a diadem bearing the rearing uraeus-goddess Wadjet, an Egyptian cobra (Naja haje) who spit fire at Pharaoh’s enemies. Amenhotep’s outfit is completed with the pleated kilt (shndyt or shnti) worn by elite men throughout the New Kingdom.

Amenhotep is depicted kneeling in a guise of devotion. This is not uncommon for Pharaohs: in the Egyptian view, the King, as an earthly avatar of the god Horus, was a unique intermediary between the gods and the people of Egypt. All sacrifices were ‘an offering which the King gives to…’ (htp-di-nsw), even when the monarch himself was not present. It simply was not possible for Pharaoh to be in every temple, shrine, and tomb, throughout the country for the daily offerings. Instead, images of the King making such offerings – carved into temple walls or, in this case, in the form of three-dimensional images – would act as a substitute. After all, the Egyptians believed that all images of an individual were potential hosts for that individual’s ba (spirit, life-force). This kneeling portrait falls into two types of kneeling images of monarchs used as substitutes in temples or shrines. The first involved the monarch offering nu-pots, small round jars of a very ancient type, which rest in the palm of the hand, and which carried milk or wine. These figures were by far the most common kneeling type, with examples from the Old Kingdom (e.g. Brooklyn Museum 39.121) to the New Kingdom (e.g. Metroppolitan Museum of Art 30.3.1). Other kneeling portraits involved the monarch, or another private individual, kneeling with a kind of offering table or plinth, balanced on a single pillar held between their legs. These are a variation on the common naophoros (shrine-bearing) type, in which a small box-shrine was cradled in the same position, featuring an image of the relevant god. Where an offering table is held, the table-top often contains an image of the kind of sacrifice being given. In our example, Amenhotep’s table-top bears a tilapia fish (Oreochromis niloticus), and two paddle-shaped hieroglyphs which probably represent jars containing the waters of the Nile (a variant form of Gardiner sign W14).

The pillar on the back of the statue bears two of the royal titles of Amenhotep. Each Pharaoh, upon accession to the throne, was given five names: the ‘Son of Ra’ (sa-ra) or ‘birth name’, by which we normally refer to each Pharaoh, and which they would have borne as a child; a throne name referring to him as ‘He of the Sedge and the Bee’ (nswt-bity), referring to the pseudo-heraldic symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt; the ‘Horus Name’ (srkh, named after a palace façade), which assimilated him to that god; the ‘Golden Horus Name’ (nb-hr), used on exceptionally rare occasions; and the ‘Two Ladies Name’ (nbty), which again referred to conjoined kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt, this time by their patron goddesses, Wadjet and Nekhbet respectively. The pillar on the reverse of this figure lists Amenhotep’s ‘Son of Ra’ name, ‘Amenhotep Ruler-of-Thebes (hqa-wast)’ in one column, and his Sedge and Bee throne name ‘Nebmaatra’ (literally ‘lord of the justice of Ra’). Both columns bear parallel inscriptions introducing the king as ‘Lord of the Two Lands’, and claiming him as beloved of the chief god Amun, given eternal life.

Translation: ‘Son of Ra, Lord of the Two Lands, Amenhotep Lord-of-Thebes, beloved of Amun, given life | He of the Sedge and the Bee (i.e. King of Upper and Lower Egypt), Lord of the Two Lands, Nebmaatra, beloved of Amun, given life.’