Colossal Statue of the God Min

Colossal Statue of the God Min

 

Holding his erect phallus in his left hand, with a socket in the right fist for attaching a flail. The sash down the right leg is carved with symbols, including two plumes on poles (emblems of Min), plant fronds or sawfish saws, two Lambis shells, a harpoon and a hyena. The oval depressions on the body were probably produced by grinding to obtain limestone dust for its supposed magical properties.

 

The temple of Minm Koptos

Late Predynastic Period, about 3300 BC

 

Given by Flinders Petrie and H. Martyn Kennard.

AN1894.105e

 

***

 

Bibliography

 

W.M. Flinders Petrie, "Koptos" (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1896)

 

Pg. 7-9

"12. Turning now to another subject, we find an entirely different style or styles of stone-carving, quite apart from anything known in Egyptian work. The forming of these figures is entirely done by hammer-work, without any trace of chiselling or of metal tools. And in style they stand outside of any line of development to or from the Egyptian statuary. Two classes of these figures are known at Koptos — a class of animals, comprising a bird (V, 6) and three lions (V, 5) (Oxford), and a class comprising parts of three colossi of the local god Min...

 

13. But it is a different case with the figures of Min (at Ghizeh Museum and O.xford). The style of these differs much from the New Race sculptures. It is far better and more anatomical, and the animals figured on them in surface-reliefs are more correct and spirited than any carvings known of the New Race. The positions in which these figures were found unfortunately shew nothing, except that they are earlier than the Ptolemaic times, as they lay beneath the thick sand bed of the Ptolemaic temple. How much earlier we cannot prove, but only infer.

 

"The rudest of the three figures is broken off at the knees and the chest, only the legs and waist remaining. This fragment is 69 inches long, and implies a statue 13 feet high, which would weigh nearly two tons. The type is the same in all of these figures. The legs are parallel and joined together, with merely a groove down between them, on front and back. The knees are very roughly indicated. The arms are rudely formed, about half projecting from the surface of the figure. The left hand is in the usual attitude of Min ; the right hand is not raised with a whip, as in the figures of historic times, but hangs down the side ; the fingers are clenched, and a hole is drilled through the hand, as if for hanging something to it. Down the right thigh hangs a flap of some material in low relief ; this is seen to depend from the girdle. There is no other clothing or dress indicated, and this flap may represent a pouch or bag, especially as it bears figures

on it, which may imitate embroidery. On the rudest statue (III, I ; IV, l) these figures are : a stag's head, mouth down, with four tines on each horn, and from the mouth a long projection, which appears as if it were a stake, on which the head is spitted through the mouth ; below the stag's head are two pteroceras shells, upright, each with mouth to the right. The work is remarkably natural, and as artistic and exact as could be expected, working in such a rough manner. The whole of the figure is hammer-dressed ; and the objects upon the flap are indicated by hammering the outline as a slight hollow around the figures.

 

"The next of the three figures remains from the arm-pits to the knees. This portion is rather longer than the first one, being 77 inches long, but the original height was about the same, 13 feet. The attitude is precisely the same. The girdle is clearly shewn here, and consists of eight turns of material around the stomach. A girdle similarly composed of a large number of strips of leather, is now worn by the men in this region, not only by the desert-dwellers, the Ababdeh, but also

generally among the fellahin. The knees are better indicated, and the whole shews more desire for finish. But the surface-sculptures on the flap (III, 2 ; IV, 2) are less precisely natural and explicit, more conventional, and just what might be expected as a later development. The subjects are — two tall poles with a similar emblem on the top of each, two saws of

saw-fish of the Red Sea, and two pteroceras shells [Pg. 8] below. The emblem on the pole is manifestly an archaic form of the regular hieroglyph for the god Min, with the addition of a feather on the top. This form with the feather is only known on Egyptian work in one case, a coffin of the Vlth dynasty in the Ghizeh Museum. The feather also occurs above a Min sign, which is set on the top of a tall pole (rather more conventional than this, and nearer to the hieroglyphic form), carved on one of the mysterious slate slabs with archaic figures and hieroglyphs found at Abydos (see Louvre).

 

"The third and apparently latest figure is broken at the ancles and fork, only leaving the legs, which are 66 inches long. The work is more finished, the line dividing the legs is deeper, the knee-marking is more elaborated, and there is a fine tense curve in the thighs, though no anatomical distinctions of muscles are shewn. The attitude and arrangement appear to have been like the other statues. The surface-carvings, however, are more numerous ; but they are less carefully natural, and more conventional (III, 3 ; IV, 3). In place of the saw of the saw-fish being scrupulously hammered in outline, it is merely scored with incised lines cut by a flint. The whole group consists of the two poles, with Min emblems and feathers ; an additional pole with knobs on it between them ; the two saws of saw-fish ; an ostrich below one pole ; the two ptcroccras shells, mouths to right ; the forepart of an elephant, with its feet resting on conical hills ; a flying bird (?) ; and below all, a hyaena chasing a young bull, the feet of both being on conical mounds. The style of the animals is spirited, and shews a good idea of form and expression, though disproportionate and archaic. Beside these, the head of the last one was found

(V, 10). It is a rounded lump, without any face, the front being flattened, apparently to have a carved face attached — perhaps of wood. Down the sides is shewn the ribbing for whiskers, but no other hair is indicated ; the ears are large and prominent.

 

"14. The question now arises as to the date and origin of these figures of the great god of that region. Of parallels to the type of the Min emblem we have already noted two, one of the Vlth dynasty, the other on the slates of unknown age. These slates with relief figures shew many traces of being of prehistoric times, especially the very pictorial and unconventional hieroglyphs, on a piece from Abydos at the Ghizeh Museum. Another instance of this Min sign occurs, on a pole exactly similar with feather and side pendants, as the ensign of galleys on painted pottery from Nagada. This pottery is found in graves of the New Race, who are now believed to be Libyans. But this ware, as well as some other varieties, appears to have been imported and not made by the invaders. The whole case will be seen argued in the description of it ; suffice to

say here, that the conclusion is that it was probably made on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, by a people with whom the Libyans traded, but certainly not by the Libyan invaders of Egypt them-selves. Thus, of the three instances of such an arrangement of the Min emblem, one is of the Vlth, one of the VI Ith-VI I Ith dynasties, and one apparently before the IVth dynasty. As in all later Egyptian representation the Min hieroglyph became more and more formal, and farther from any resemblance to its earlier type, it does not seem likely that any sudden reversion to an unconventional original would be likely to arise after that was apparently quite forgotten. The mode of working also shews an ignorance of metal tools, and a dependence upon hammering and bruising the stone, which would be very unlikely to be the case after metals were in familiar use in that part of the world. There is, then, a presumption for a prehistoric date for these sculptures.

 

"It may be needful to clear away any supposition that these figures belong to the New Race, whose rude hammer-dressed animal carvings were also found in the temple. The style and subjects of the work preclude our supposing any such connection. No figure of Min is found in all the New Race remains ; nor is there among those any instance of the pteroceras shell, the saw-fish, the hyaena, or the ox with crescent horns. On the other hand, among the several objects on the Min figures there are none of the sacred animals of the New Race, the couchant lion, the hawk, the dog, or the goat. The styles of work are also very difterent. The best of the New Race figures has none of the spirit and fidelity shewn in the Min carvings ; and in no instance are the feet of animals figured as upon hillocks. While on the Min figures there is no trace of the cross-line hatching which was regularly used by the New Race to cover the bodies of animals. In short both in subjects and in style there is no resemblance between the New Race carvings and the Min statues.

 

"15. Whence, then, came the workers of the Min statues? The objects shewn are all African. The elephant and the ostrich are common to North Africa ; for the former, compare the Carthaginian elephants [Pg. 9] of Hannibal. But the saw-fish and the ptcroceras shell imply a people from the sea ; and that the Red Sea, rather than the Mediterranean. And, moreover, there is no trace of anything characteristic of the Nile ; no crocodile or lotus, as on the primitive pottery, no hippopotamus, no hawk. We are led then to look to the Red Sea, and to suppose that the people from thence had formed their religious ideas and emblems before they entered Egypt. That they resided a long time at Koptos is shewn by the three Min statues varying in style of art and details. Such differences of work in a very early stage imply a considerable difference in time. And the presence of three such colossi, so large that any one would be a notable centre for worship, makes it unlikely that all were used at once ; they rather seem to have been each substituted in succession, as the earlier ones became injured.

 

"We are led then to suppose that the statues were wrought by a people ignorant of metals ; who resided for several generations at Koptos ; who came from the Red Sea as strangers to the Nile, but who had the same worship as the people of Koptos, without borrowing from the Nile ; whose Min emblem was in a more primitive and pictorial form than any known in Egyptian carvings, though like some of the earliest examples ; and who had real artistic taste and feeling which was steadily developing. These characteristics will, so far as we can at present imagine, only agree in one race, that supposed people from Punt, whom by portraiture and other considerations I have already stated to be probably the founders of the dynastic Egyptian race, the last immigrants who came in before the historic period. If so, a considerable time must have passed for them to adopt Egyptian emblems, as the crocodile, lotus, and hunting dog, upon the primitive pottery ; and for the further development of modelling, up to the highest pottery level, which is equal to the fine archaic stone carving of the IIIrd and IVth dynasty. If we suppose some centuries to have elapsed between the earliest Min statue and the finest pottery modelling, it would not be improbable.

 

"16. The nature of the Min emblem we have not yet noted, as it does not bear directly on the age. In historic times we find it a ball between two wedges, in earlier times it was more like a bolt with two rings or shanks on either side of a central ball, on the slate carving it is thicker in proportion, on the boat and ostrich pottery — which is probably Mediterranean — it is like the form on the Min figures, though roughly painted. As it is represented as being on the top of a tall pole, it cannot be a heavy object ; and the form is most like the early mode of shewing a garland upon statues. It seems then most likely that it was a garland of flowers and a feather, on the top of a tall pole, round which hung saws of saw-fish and pteroceras shells : in fact, much such a derwish pole as the southern tribes carry about at the present day. The questions of how the same emblem comes to be connected with a people from the Red Sea, and again with a sea-going people in the Mediterranean (on the pottery), we shall discuss when dealing with the New-Race in the volume on Naqada."

 

PLs. III & IV

Done