CG 24620 / JE 32327
We had the great good fortune of being able to visit Melbourne for the King Tut exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. It's beautifully presented, and there was a mix of objects I've been seeing photos of all my life, such as some of Tut's pectoral ornaments, and things I don't think I've ever laid eyes on before.
One of these was a wooden statue of an enthroned, lioness-headed, mummiform goddess, 54 cm high, which was found in the sarcophagus chamber of Amenhotep II. The catalogue describes it as being "carved from ten separate blocks of light reddish wood and coated with bitumen". The eyes, which may have been inlaid with semi-precious stones, have been crudely gouged out, revealing the wood beneath the sticky-looking black coating. There's a picture of it online here.
The label at the exhibition compared the figure to the Sekhmet found in Tut's tomb, but suggested this particular one might be a deity from the Book of the Dead - there are a couple of similar figures, wielding knives, visible in Hunefer's copy (top left in this flickr photo). I'll see if I can find a clearer image. (ETA: Here's a hippo-headed one from Ramesses I's tomb.)
(Surprisingly, the exhibition didn't include any of Amenhotep III's statues of Sekhmet. This may make the Melbourne Museum one of few institutions on Earth which doesn't have one. :)
One of these was a wooden statue of an enthroned, lioness-headed, mummiform goddess, 54 cm high, which was found in the sarcophagus chamber of Amenhotep II. The catalogue describes it as being "carved from ten separate blocks of light reddish wood and coated with bitumen". The eyes, which may have been inlaid with semi-precious stones, have been crudely gouged out, revealing the wood beneath the sticky-looking black coating. There's a picture of it online here.
The label at the exhibition compared the figure to the Sekhmet found in Tut's tomb, but suggested this particular one might be a deity from the Book of the Dead - there are a couple of similar figures, wielding knives, visible in Hunefer's copy (top left in this flickr photo). I'll see if I can find a clearer image. (ETA: Here's a hippo-headed one from Ramesses I's tomb.)
(Surprisingly, the exhibition didn't include any of Amenhotep III's statues of Sekhmet. This may make the Melbourne Museum one of few institutions on Earth which doesn't have one. :)