Critique of Senwosret III: formal elements and cultural historical context

¶ … Senwosret III

Faces on the statues of Senwosret III (circa 1878-41 BC) show more individualized features than those of his predecessors, and also portray the image of a king exhausted by service to his people and country. At the same time, though, his body was always portrayed as powerful and muscular, befitting a great warrior and leader of men in battle. Hymns, monuments and inscriptions celebrated his courage in battle, and how he terrified and crushed his enemies, which was standard in the royal ideology of Egypt. By Egyptian standards, the Sphinx erected on the plain of Giza as the guardian of the pyramids was the normal and acceptable way to portray the kings and divinities, having the faces of humans but the bodies of lions. Only the odd statues of the pharaoh Akhenaten during the New Kingdom broke with this tradition, and were therefore considered highly eccentric and perhaps even evil and demented. Unlike Akhenaten, though, Senwosret III honored the traditional gods of Egypt, and even expanded the worship of Osiris, the god on the dead and the underworld, as the common people began to hope for the same type of afterlife that was once reserved only for the kings and nobles. For whatever reason, perhaps because questions lingered about whether his dynasty was legitimately of royal descent, Senwosret took steps to broaden the popular support and appeal of his reign, humanizing his image, opening up the administration to commoners and even promising them an opportunity to enter the afterlife that had once been reserved only for kings and aristocrats.

Senwosret III was described as being over seven feet tall, which would indeed have made him appear to be a giant by ancient standards and quite a towering and commanding figure even today. Royal hymns praised his leadership and bravery in battle, as was customary, calling him "a dike that keeps back the river's floodwaters," and like his father and grandfather, he "wanted to rule the Two Lands as one nation, and he intended to protect the country's international trade interests" (Baker and Baker 71). For this reason, he increased the number and size of the forts and garrisons in Nubia to protect the gold mines in that distant province. He reorganized the administration of Egypt into three districts, appointing a governor in each that reported directly to the vizier (royal chancellor) and also established councils to oversee economic, agricultural and military policy. Under his rule, these were opened to "artisans, farmers, merchants, and traders," giving the middle class a share of the administration for the first time (Baker and Baker 72). These lower strata also came to believe that the afterlife would be open to them, and not only to kings and nobles, and under Senwosret III the worship of Osiris became a popular cult for the first time, with the pharaoh constructing more temples to the god of the dead in Abydos and other locations.

His statuary faces appear in a more realistic and human style compared to those of his predecessors, although this does not necessarily mean that he no longer had god-like attributes of great strength, power and determination. Possibly he was considered "a human whom the gods had chosen to rule their beloved nation" and endowed with special qualities, although there were also persistent questions about the lineage of his dynasty as whether its members were truly of royal descent (Baker and Baker 73). In all the artwork portraying Senwosret III and others in his line, their faces are depicted as exhausted from the burdens of office, with "haggard features" and a "worn look" (Baines 321). Like the Sphinx, though, their bodies were still idealized as perfect, powerful and muscular, and in the art of the Egyptian pharaohs only Akhenaten's physical image did not fit this ideal. Compared to any other Egyptian artworks, Akhenaten's statues were not simply iconoclastic but monstrous, and archeologists like Maurice Pillet theorized that they were intended to make a statement about the male and female nature of Aten, who was both father and mother of all creation (Manniche 86). In contrast, the Sphinx at Giza was the guardian of the burial place of the kings in the pyramids, and was named Horemmakhet (Sun on the Horizons), although the Arabs called it Abu-Hol (Father of Terror). Made out of limestone, it had the body of a lion and face of a human, possibly the pharaoh Kafre later altered to resemble that of his successor Chephren, although for some reason the lion's features were much larger and out of proportion to the human head -- perhaps to emphasize the statue's lion-like qualities and "latent power and ferocity" (Regier 10). A lion is a kingly symbol, of course, signifying "agility, stealth, lightening reflexes, and overwhelming strength, all of which suit warlike kings" (Regier 8). Texts from the dynasty of Senwosret III also "emphasize the burdens of the king's office and the responsibilities he must bear," which also served to make him a more human and accessible figure (Baines 321). During his reign, the royal style of art and statuary also began to be copied lower down on the social scale, which is another indication that he sought to broaden popular support for his rule.