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Lot 1816
Attractive Early Hieroglyphic Fragment, in Limestone. Egypt, Old Kingdom, 6th Dynasty, c. 2295-2255 BC. A large fragment, comprising two vertical moldings from the right side of a false door for a mastaba tomb. On each molding, a line of neatly carved hieroglyphs: beneath each, a male (in two sizes) walking left and using a staff. The representations stylized, but done with more care than is often seen on these; with each wearing a wig, a broad collar, and a kilt with stiff triangular apron jutting forward. The inscription reads: "Ichy, Chief Lector Priest, Barber to Pharaoh Pepy I." In very fine condition, with some roughness at the top left, and some at the figure's kilts and lower. Height: 19-1/8" x 7" x 1-7/8"; on custom base. A good-sized and quite pleasing example of early dynastic Egyptian art: derived from one of the key aspects of their ritual and architectural tradition -- the "False Door."
Estimated Value $17,000 - 20,000.
Ancient World Arts, NY; the cover the piece for their 1992 retail catalog. For a complete, but somewhat later example of a false door, see C. Ede, Collecting Antiquities, fig. 227.
The 6th Dynasty oversaw the decline and final collapse of Egypt's Old Kingdom, the historical and cultural cornerstone of Egyptian civilization. From a cultural point of view, the 6th Dynasty is the continuation of the end of the 5th Dynasty. The kings still embarked on pyramid building projects, but on a smaller and more limited scale. The high mark of these edifices, in Giza in particular, was already a 150 years in the past. The interiors of this dynasty's pyramids are inscribed with Pyramid Texts, following the example set by Unas of the 5th Dynasty. Militarily and politically, expeditions and interactions with, or against, their neighbors continued, but on a reduced scale compared to the previous dynasties.
The malaise of the 6th Dynasty is believed more and more to result from climatic changes that caused a period of low Nile waters and along with it, great famine. The kings and their authority would have been discredited by this natural disaster since pharaonic power rested, in part, on the belief that the king, as a god, controlled the Nile's irrigations, and thus the country's vitality and prosperity. Especially during the extraordinarily long reign of Pepi II, the last king of the dynasty, Egypt experienced a severe weakening of the central government in which more and more power may have been relegated to, or assumed by, local administrators or governors to try and deal with havoc of the drought. Hereditary landowners attempted with some success to take control and assume responsibility for maintaining order in their own areas. For their efforts, their domains, in essence, turned into miniature courts and Egypt splintered into a number of feudal states. It would be another 100 years, with emergence of the Middle kingdom (11th Dynasty) that the central authority of the government would again begin to regroup.
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