Amenhotep I - British Museum, London, UK
N 51° 31.129 W 000° 07.575
30U E 699373 N 5711437
This statue of Amenhotep I is displayed in the British Museum in Bloomsbury, London. The museum is free to enter and non-flash photography is permitted.
Waymark Code: WMNBNC
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/08/2015
Views: 2
The museum's information board, next to the 2.7m high limestone statue, tells us:
Statue of Amenhotep I
18th Dynasty, about 1510 BC
From Thebes, Deir el-Bahari
Amenhotep I is here shown as Osiris, god of the dead, wrapped in a tight-fitting robe with his arms crossed on his chest. Holes in the clenched fists were intended to hold wooden royal insignia. The brick temple of Amenhotep I at Deir el-Bahari was dismantled and this statue moved to one side, placed near to the statues of Senwosret III which are also in this gallery.
The British Museum website gives more detail about the statue:
From Deir el-Bahari, Thebes, Egypt
18th Dynasty, about 1510 BC
The classic pose of Osiris
After the construction of the mortuary complex of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II (2055-2004 BC) in the Eleventh Dynasty (about 2125-1985 BC), the area of Deir el-Bahari became a holy place. This statue comes from a temple set up there by Amenhotep I (1525-1504 BC). It shows Amenhotep as Osiris. The temple itself was probably dedicated to the particular form of the goddess Hathor who was revered at Deir el-Bahari.
Relatively little is known about Amenhotep's temple, since it was dismantled when Hatshepsut (1479-1457 BC) started work on her own mortuary complex at Deir el-Bahari. A number of statues such as this were probably placed at the entrance to Amenhotep's temple, and when the temple was dismantled they were apparently moved to the site of the Mentuhotep temple, where they kept company with the statues of Senwosret III (1874-1855 BC), placed there at a much earlier date.
The history of this statue is evidence of the respect sometimes shown by one king to a predecessor when it was necessary to move a structure.
The museum's website also gives some information about the king:
Amenhotep I, King of Egypt (1525-1504 BC)
Amenhotep I was the second king of the Eighteenth Dynasty. He succeeded his father, Ahmose I, who expelled the Hyksos kings from Egypt. Amenhotep I probably ascended the throne as a child, when his mother Ahmose Nefertari may have acted as regent. Amenhotep I and his mother, Ahmose Nefertari, were revered for nearly five hundred years as local Theban deities.
Little is known of the reign of Amenhotep I. A few events can be established from inscriptions in private tombs. According to the autobiography of a soldier, Ahmose son of Ibana, Amenhotep I led a campaign to Kush. An inscription in the tomb of Ahmose Pen-Nekhbet states that the king also led an expedition to Libya. His chief architect, Ineni, mentions that he commissioned building work at Karnak.
The exact location of the tomb of Amenhotep I at Thebes is unknown, but it is mentioned in the Abbott Papyrus, which documents an inspection of the royal tombs under Ramesses IX. Amenhotep I's mummy was found in the royal cache at Deir el-Bahari in 1881. It was re-wrapped by priests in the Twenty-first Dynasty, and remains the only royal mummy which has not been unwrapped in modern times.