This statue portrays a falcon standing on a rectangular base. He has a tall, slightly rounded head; a short, curved beak; a round eye emphasized by a wide, encircling ring; and abbreviated eye markings with feathering behind but without the vertical line that usually descends from the eye. Viewed from the front, the downturned line of his beak gives the bird a decidedly sour expression. There is a sharp demarcation line where his rounded breast meets the long legs. His legs are topped with “pantaloons” of feathers and his talons below are very prominent. The front edge of each wing is curved. The long tips of the wings, which are squared at the ends, are crossed over his tail feathers. There is no crown, and there is no trace of an attachment for a headdress. His feathers are not indicated, and the hard stone has been polished to a beautiful velvety finish. The elements of the statue—the breast; the legs and their “pantaloons”; the wings, especially viewed from the side; and the crossing of the wing tips over the tail feathers—give the impression of a group of geometric shapes that have been joined in an almost abstract way, rather than creating a naturalistic depiction of a bird.1

A great number of statues like this one are known, most of them in hard, dark stone (basalt or graywacke) and measuring about fifty centimeters tall. Across this corpus, there is variation in the profile of the breast—it can be flat or round—the length of the legs, and especially the shape of the head and the markings around the eye. Many of these falcon statues wear the Double Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, while others have a small tang on the top of the head indicating where a crown was attached. A few, like the Chicago statue, apparently had no crown.
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Additional Views of Cat. 22

Date of Falcon Statues

Most of this these falcon statues have been assigned a date from the late Third Intermediate Period (about 1069–664 BCE) into the early Roman Period (30 BCE–CE 395). A few of them can be more surely dated by their inscriptions to the reign of Nectanebo II (360–343 BCE), the last native Egyptian pharaoh. These statues functioned as part of the cult of the king as the divine falcon, the image of the god Horus with whom the living king was associated.^[1] These statues show the king standing between the bird’s feet, his head against its breast. The falcon usually wears the Double Crown with a uraeus. At least one of these statues (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 34.2.1; see fig. 1) is a rebus of the king’s name, Nakht-Hor-heb (Nectanebo): “Nakht” being supplied by a scimitar (nakht) in one hand of the king; “Hor” by the falcon (Hor) who stands behind the king, protecting him; and “heb” by the hieroglyph for festival (heb) held in the king’s other hand.^[2]3

Given the quality and quantity of sculptures from the Ptolemaic Period, it seems likely that the Chicago statue should be assigned to that later period.4

Symbolism and Function of Falcon Statues

A falcon can represent many deities, most commonly Horus, Re, Re-Horakhty, or Montu. However, since many of these falcon statues wear the Double Crown, and the one from the cult of Nectanebo II not only wears that crown but also supplies the phonetic value “Hor” to the rebus of the king’s name, it is quite clear that they were intended to represent Horus instead of the other gods.5

Inscriptions on the Nectanebo II statues indicate that they were displayed in a temple as a part of the royal cult. Other falcon statues, including the Chicago example, may have served the same function but for an unspecified pharaoh.6

The worship of the king or members of the royal family was institutionalized by Ptolemy II (285–246 BCE), who decreed that a statue of his sister-wife, Arsinoe II be placed in temples alongside the statue of the resident deity, with Arsinoe II functioning as a “temple-sharing god” who also should receive offerings.^[3] By the first century BCE, the title Priest of the Lord of the Two Lands (“Lord of the Two Lands” being a title of the king) appears in connection with the maintenance of these royal statues.^[4]7

Some of these cults had a long life. For example, priests who served the cult of Nectanebo II are attested into the reigns of Ptolemy IV (221–205 BCE) and Ptolemy V (205–180 BCE), more than 150 years after Nectanebo’s death.^[5]8

Provenance of Falcon Statues

Very few of these falcon statues have a secure provenance. Two were excavated at Buto.^[6] Four others are in situ, arranged in pairs before the entrance to the First Pylon and the First Hypostyle Hall of the Temple of Horus at Edfu. They are enormous—almost three meters tall. They wear the Double Crown. The statue by the First Pylon has an image of a king standing between its legs. The original location of some of the smaller-scale Nectanebo statues can be determined by inscriptions on their base that refers to the deity’s temple in which the statue was established.^[7]
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Provenance

Jeanette Brun (dealer), Zürich, by 1966 [copy of letter to James W. Alsdorf dated November 21, 1966, in curatorial file]; sold to James W. Alsdorf, Chicago, 1966; given to the Art Institute, 2002.10

Publication History

Dean A. Porter, Stephen R. Moriarity, and Steve Toepp, Selected Works from the Snite Museum of Art, the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana (Notre Dame, IN: Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, 1987), 51 (ill.).11

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, with contributions by Mary C. Greuel et al., exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2014), 26, fig. 1-12; 101, no. 107.
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