EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The granodiorite divine head found in the peristyle court
missing upon discovery, but a fragment with the left ear, found in spring 2002 in the north part of the court, turned out to join the head. The colossal head of a standing statue of Amenhotep III in red granite was discovered in the great court of the mortuary temple at Kom el-Hettan in 1957 by Labib Habachi, working on behalf of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Although photographs show that it was found with a beard, the head (Reg. No. J.133) has been exhibited in the Luxor Museum without it. Research in the storerooms of the SCA, in co-operation with Inspectors Ahmed Ezz and Mahmoud Mousa, revealed the beard and it was brought back, by kind permission of Mostafa Wazery and Yahya Abdel Alim, to Kom el-Hettan where it was cleaned, measured, photographed and scanned. In the Luxor Museum, thanks to the support of the Director General, Sanaa Ahmed Aly, the beard was reattached to the head by the stone conservators of the Memnon/Amenhotep III Project, showing the importance of research in storerooms and museums in the identification of missing elements of statuary.
Reattaching the beard to the Luxor Museum head of Amenhotep III q Hourig Sourouzian is Director of The Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project which is financially supported by matching grants from the Association des Amis des Colosses de Memnon, directed by Monique Hennessy, Föderverein Memnon, administered by Ursula Lewenton, and the World Monuments Fund® Robert W Wilson Challenge to Conserve Our Heritage. Mercedes Benz, Egypt, provides the Project with a four wheel drive company car. Photographs © The Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project.
The sandstone pavement in the great court with the reconstructed quartzite statues, one with the cast of the head in the British Museum, see EA 33, p.33
32