An Egyptian Granite Figure of Pakhom, Governor of Dendera, Late Ptolemaic Period, circa 50-30 B.C.

Professor Herbert Kühn (1895-1980), Mainz, likely acquired while traveling in the Middle East in the 1920s, and in his collection by 1955

then by descent to the current owner

Sotheby's, London, 9th July 2020, no. 60

University of Bonn, Switzerland, October 2016-June 2020

Pakhom was an Egyptian official of Ptolemaic period who was the governor of Dendera, an Egyptian province on the west bank of the Nile about 60 kilometers north of Thebes, from approximately 50-30 B.C. This sculpture is closely related to another depiction of Pakhom now in the Detroit Institute of Art (no. 51.83: https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/figure-pakhom-44006). Both sculptures provide insight into stylistic canons of late Ptolemaic art since Pakhom’s tenure as governor roughly coincides with the reign of the last (and most famous) Ptolemaic ruler, Cleopatra VII. In Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period, Bernard V. Bothmer describes the Detroit Pakhom as being typically Ptolemaic in its dual adherence to both traditional Egyptian artistic canons (the use of granite, inscriptions and the striding stance of the figure) while also adopting the fashionable flowing garments and short curling hair of the ethnically Greek Ptolemies (p. 178). Unlike the Ptolemies themselves, Pakhom was a native Egyptian, who adapted this syncretic style utilized by the ruling class when commissioning his own image.

There are two columns of hieroglyphic inscriptions on the back pillar, which read:

Text right column:

prince, count, only friend, brother of the king, priest of the god Ihi, the great, son of the goddess Hathor, Harsomtus, the child, son of Hathor, mistress of Dendera, the eye of the god Re, mistress of heaven, mistress of all gods, priest of Isis, the great mother, the gods of lat-di (sanctuar in Dendera), priest of the goddess Nut (?)

Text continuation after break below in the left column:

of the gods and goddesses in Dendera, priest of the goddess Nechbet of el-Kab, priest of Isis, mistress of Philae and the gods of Philae, priest of Horus Behedeti (of Edfu), of the great god, lord of heaven Pakhom, the first troop leader (=strategist) son of strategist Paschu (end of line unclear and destruction)