AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER HEADREST OLD KINGDOM, 5TH-6TH DYNASTY, 2494-2181 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER HEADREST, OLD KINGDOM, 5TH-6TH DYNASTY, 2494-2181 B.C. Carved from a single block of translucent calcite alabaster, the headrest is composed of three integral elements: a curved crescent-form neck-cradle, a fluted columnar shaft, and a rectangular plinth base. The upper surface is gently concave along its length and rises at either end into softly upturned terminals, shaped to receive the nape of the sleeper. Beneath the cradle, a shallow block collar transitions into the shaft, which is treated as a stylised papyrus or reed column with vertical channelling running its full height. The base is a plain rectangular slab with slightly bevelled edges, retaining warm honey and amber striations natural to the stone, together with pale russet inclusions along one long edge. The form belongs to a well-established Old Kingdom type in which the headrest is conceived architecturally, the shaft treated as a miniature column supporting the curved cradle as though it were an entablature. The fluting on the shaft references the bundled plant columns of contemporary temple and mortuary architecture, drawing the object into the same visual vocabulary as the funerary complexes of the 5th and 6th Dynasties. The proportions here, with a broad low base, a relatively short shaft, and a wide shallow cradle, are characteristic of the mature Old Kingdom form before later dynasties elongated the shaft and reduced the base. Headrests of this kind were placed beneath the head of the deceased in burial, and they also served in life as sleeping supports. Their funerary role was significant: the head was understood as the seat of identity and vital force, and its elevation and protection during the vulnerable state of sleep, and by extension the sleep of death, carried protective and regenerative meaning. Later funerary literature associates the headrest with the raising of the head at rebirth, and Chapter 166 of the Book of the Dead is devoted specifically to the headrest as a protective object. Even in the Old Kingdom, well before that spell was codified, the presence of headrests in elite burials indicates that this protective function was already understood. The choice of Egyptian alabaster, more properly calcite or travertine quarried at Hatnub and other Middle Egyptian sites, is not incidental. The stone was reserved in the Old Kingdom for objects of high status: royal and elite funerary vessels, offering tables, statuary, and the ritual furnishings of the tomb. Its translucency, worked to a fine polish, was associated with purity and with the luminous quality proper to objects destined for the eternal household of the deceased. A headrest in alabaster, as opposed to the more common wood, signals a burial of some rank. This headrest exemplifies the Old Kingdom conception of funerary furniture as architecture in miniature, where a functional object is dignified by the vocabulary of the temple column and rendered in a material reserved for the elite dead. The clarity of the three-part composition, and the restraint with which the fluting and the curved cradle are handled, place it within the mature phase of a type that would remain in use, with variation, for the remainder of pharaonic history. Dimensions: Height: 22cm

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