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Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · statue

Block Statue of Sheshonq (Shishak)

Source of record: Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

<p>This squatting figure has his knees drawn up and his arms crossed on his knees. He wears a wig. On the front is the deceased worshipping Osiris. There are incised hieroglyphics around the pedestal, the rear column, and the front dress.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/22.167' rel='external'>Block Statue of Sheshonq (Shishak)</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>

AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano

Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

Front-facing block statue with a human figure shown seated/standing on a base, wearing a nemes-style headdress. The front and base contain gold-toned incised hieroglyphic inscriptions.

The image shows a dark green/black stone block statue (likely a block statue type) with a frontal human figure. The head is rounded with a nemes headdress and flared ear ornaments visible on both sides. The body is simplified in a rectangular block form. A large, rectangular panel on the front is filled with gold-toned incised hieroglyphs, arranged in horizontal lines, with a central offering/figure-like grouping. The top surface and edges are worn but the inscription remains legible in places. A second band of gold-toned hieroglyphs appears on the top/fore edge near the feet and continues across the front of the pedestal/base area. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible. No clear deity figures are identifiable beyond the presence of royal/ritual-style hieroglyphic content; the name 'Sheshonq (Shishak)' is not directly legible in the provided image resolution.

royal Third Intermediate Period / early 1st millennium BCE (approx. Late/Libyan dynasty era); unclear precise reign from the visible text good
Royals unknown (catalogue title indicates Sheshonq/Shishak, but individual cartouche/name is not clearly readable in this image)
Materials stone (appears dark green/black)gold-toned paint/inlay for hieroglyphs
Signs incised hieroglyphic offering/ritual and possibly royal titulary signs (unreadable in detail) ×50

Inscriptions (2)

Inscription #1

English description

[Translation from G. Steindorff, 1946, Catalogue of the Egyptian Sculpture in the Walters Art Gallery, p. 56, no. 164] Inscriptions on front: “Osiris Sheshonq, the blessed (true of voice) before Osiris” and “Osiris, who is in the divine hall.” Inscriptions around base from right front: “An offering which the king gives to Osiris, lord of the divine hall, that he may give all good and pure things on which the gods live, to the Osiris, the excellent, who is the … of the Amun temple of the third phyle, Sheshonq, the blessed, son of the divine father Pe-kher-Khons (Pchorchonsis), the blessed, born of the chantress of Amon-re…” On rear column, the “Saitic Formula”: “The local god of the divine father and prophet-priest of Amun in Epet-sewet, the praised and high-spirited Sheshonq, the blessed, son of the divine father Pe-kher-Khons, the blessed,
Inscription #2

English description

[is] behind, like the Heliopolitan (sic).”

Connections

Deities Osiris

Cross-references (2)

  • Walters-AccNum 22.167 tier-2
  • Walters-id 6021 tier-2

Similar inscriptions · by content embedding

About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.