Things Which Are Not Sekhmet

I often come across this statue for sale on Ebay or elsewhere:



It's usually flogged as "Sekhmet in her male aspect" or some such. It's actually a pretty terrific piece of art - but who is it really? Possibly this chap:



One of four gods protecting the doors of the third shrine of Tutankhamun (ie the concatenated shrines containing his coffins, the third one from the outside). Piankoff translates his name as "Slaughter Head", which is fabulous. There are other, similar figures about the place, but Tut's fame makes it likely that this chap was the artist's model.

He's visible in context (just!) in these Flickr photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/plingthepenguin/5198606634/in/set-72157625445427446/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leonandloisphotos/3943211954/

And more clearly in this photo from the Griffith Institute:
http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/gif-files/Ross_photo_0072.jpg

__
Piankoff, Alexandre. The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1977.

Unreported Heritage News on LiveJournal

fwiw, I've created a syndicated version of the Unreported Heritage News blog:

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/unrepheritage/

Asterix and Cleopatra

And finally for today, Asterix fans may be amused by my efforts to translate hieroglyphs from Asterix and Cleopatra. :)

http://dreamer-easy.livejournal.com/92171.html