Statuette of Osiris-Iah
Late Period, Dynasty 26–30 (664–332 BCE)
Ancient Egyptian
Copper alloy; 15 × 7 × 5.5 cm (5 7/8 × 2 3/4 × 2 1/8 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Henry H. Getty, Charles L. Hutchinson, and Robert H. Fleming, 1894.259
This seated male figure wears a knee-length, pleated shendyt kilt with belt, a narrow, curved false beard, and an elaborate crown. A uraeus rises from his forehead. The lappets of the tripartite wig have two horizontal bands at their ends. The back of the wig is detailed with lines that form inverted “U”s, and a horizontal band at the ends. The headdress is composed of the round disk of the moon nestled in a crescent moon. The moon’s disk is incised with a wedjat eye.[1] Above the crescent rises the tall, plumed, atef crown, topped with a sun disk. The crown is flanked by uraei with sun disks that rear from corkscrew horns. The beaked head of an ibis emerges from the base of the atef. The reverse of the crown is without detail.1
His right hand, curled into a fist, is on his thigh; his left hand, raised and turned perpendicular to his lap, is also fisted. Both hands were pierced to hold scepters, which are now lost. The statuette has fine details, including almond-shaped eyes with cosmetic lines, pursed lips, and toenails. It was affixed to a throne-shaped base (now lost) by a 2.3 cm long tang.2
This type of figure illustrates the difficulties associated with identifying deities on the basis of their iconography. Several of this style of statuette (including this one) have an inscription on the base stating that the god is Osiris-Iah (Osiris-Moon).[2] Yet this statuette has none of the characteristic features of Osiris—the mummiform body and the crook and flail scepters (see cats. 18, 28). This disconnect between the iconography and identity as given by the inscription is so stark that J. Gwyn Griffiths has suggested that the inscriptions were forgeries copied from those found on more conventional Osiris statues that show the god in mummy wrappings, holding the crook and flail, and wearing a crown with the moon’s disk.[3] Erhart Graefe, who collected other examples of similar non-Osirian-looking statues bearing the label Osiris-Iah, recasted the argument, proposing that the figurines, despite their very different forms, should be understood as representations of Osiris-Iah. Graefe divided them into two categories: seated or striding ones that wear a kilt (as in the Chicago example); and mummiform ones with the crook and flail. He concludes that the mummiform figurines represent the waning moon, and those with a kilt the renewed, juvenile moon. Thus, the two forms of Osiris-Iah jointly represent the totality of the moon’s cycle.[4]3
The Chicago statuette bears a partially legible inscription on the front and the sides of the base: “… May Osiris-Iah give life to Pimu, justified” (figs. 1–3).[5] Pimu is the name of the man who dedicated the statuette and presumably placed it in a temple or necropolis.4
Figs. 1–3
Fig. 1
Detail of cat. 29, inscription on front of base.
Fig. 2
Detail of cat. 29, inscription on right side of base.
Fig. 3
Detail of cat. 29, inscription on left side of base.
Egyptian artists called upon a very rich mythology to convey the identity of their deities, and elements of the religious iconography could be combined in creative ways, as in the headdress of this statuette. At the base of the crown, the crescent of the new, reborn moon is superimposed upon the orb of the full, “old” moon. Together, they represent the totality of the cycle of the moon’s waxing and waning that symbolized birth, death, and eternal rebirth. The tall atef crown is associated with Osiris (see cat. 28). The cycle of the moon, coupled with the crown of Osiris, refers to the eternal rebirth of Osiris and, by extension, of all the blessed dead who were assimilated to him. Osiris’s realm was not solar but the underworld, so linking him with the moon—the sun’s opposite—has a certain logic, referring to the totality of the movement of the sun from day to night and back to day. The head of the ibis is the symbol of the lunar god Thoth. He played many roles—he was the god of wisdom, the mediator between Horus and Seth, and the inventor of writing. As the recorder of fate, he also appears with his writing palette at the judgment of the deceased. In the context of the Chicago statuette, Thoth probably is an advocate of Osiris, and by extension serves as the defender of the donor of the figurine before the judges of the dead.5
Statuettes of Osiris-Iah are known from Dynasty 26 into the early Ptolemaic era. Many examples of this type of statuette were recovered from the catacombs of the Apis bulls at the Serapeum at Saqqara because of their shared lunar association.[6]6
The Chicago statuette differs slightly from other examples. Here, the ibis head emerges from the atef, while on others the head is attached to the moon disk or to the horns. Here, the disk also overlaps the bottom of the atef, while on other examples they are separate, with the horns above the disk.[7]
7
Additional Views of Cat. 29
Front of cat. 29.
Side of cat. 29.
Back of cat. 29.
Side of cat. 29.
Front of cat. 29.
Detail of cat. 29.
For more on copper alloy statuettes, see About Copper Alloy Statuettes.8
Provenance
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1894.9
Publication History
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 103.10
Bodil Hornemann, Types of Ancient Egyptian Statuary, vol. 3 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1957), no. 726 (as Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago, 18046).11
J. Gwyn Griffiths, “Osiris and the Moon in Iconography,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 62 (1976): 153–54.
12
- The wedjat eye on the statuette is the right eye (of Horus) that is associated with the sun. In this context, one would have expected to see the left eye, which is associated with the moon. The association of Horus’s eyes with the sun and moon stem from myths about both the god Horus the Elder, whose left eye was the moon and whose right eye was the sun, and the battle of Horus and Seth, in which Horus’s left eye was plucked out by Seth and made healthy (wedjat in Egyptian) by Thoth. Here the solar eye may have been intended to complement the crescent moon, symbolizing the totality of the solar cycle. For a summary of the symbolism of Horus’s eyes, see Carol Andrews, Amulets of Ancient Egypt (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 43.
- Osiris is also known by the more complete name “Osiris-Iah-Thoth.” See Georges Daressy, Catalogue générale des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, nos. 38001–39384, Statues de divinités (Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1906), 115–16. For the suggestion that “Thoth” is a determinative and not part of the reading of the name, see J. Gwyn Griffiths, “Osiris and the Moon in Iconography,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 62 (1976): 155.
- Griffiths, “Osiris and the Moon,” 157–59. See further examples in Katja Weiß, Ägyptische Tier- und Götterbronzen aus Unterägypten: Untersuchungen zu Typus, Ikonographie und Funktion sowie der Bedeutung innerhalb der Kulturkontakte zu Griechenland (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2012), pl. 20, nos. 373–75, 379.
- Erhart Graefe, “Noch einmal Osiris-Lunus,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 65 (1979): 171–73. See further comments by J. Gwyn Griffiths, “The Striding Bronze Figure of Osiris-I’ah at Lyon,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 65 (1979): 174–75.
- In this inscription, “Iah” (moon) is written with a plain disk, which usually represents the sun (fig. 1). If there is another crescent, it cannot be seen. The signs on the proper left side of the base, which presumably is the beginning of the inscription, are mainly illegible. The back of the base is not inscribed.
- For the statuettes from the Serapeum at Saqqara, see Weiß, Ägyptische Tier- und Götterbronzen, 108, 112. The Apis bull was the living incarnation of the god Ptah. For more on Apis and Ptah, see Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. John Baines (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982), 275.
- Weiß, Ägyptische Tier- und Götterbronzen, pl. 9f–h.
Emily Teeter, “Cat. 29 Statuette of Osiris-Iah,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865593213/44.
© 2025 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
