Statue of Ity-sen
Description
Object Label: Ity-sen, son of the official Rawer, was carved as if in motion, left leg striding forward. But now, both feet and the head are missing from his severely damaged portrait sculpture. Iconoclasm in pharaonic Egypt had specific goals, and was done with precision. Several thousand years ago, Ity-sen’s iconoclastic attackers sought to incapacitate the spirit believed to reside in the sculpture by targeting specific body parts. The result would have been devastating. By damaging his image, his enemies had destroyed his ability to function in the afterlife; without his head and feet, Ity-sen could no longer see, speak, hear, breathe, or walk. Like a Kongo nkisi whose empowering materials were removed, this sculpture was no longer a vessel for a spirit, but simply a carving. Caption: Statue of Ity-sen, ca. 2500–2350 B.C.E.. Limestone, 61 x 20 1/2 x 15 3/16 in. (155 x 52 x 38.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.365. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
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.
Photograph of a standing, human-sized Egyptian statue carved in light stone, shown from head to feet, with a kilt and crossed/holding arms.
The image shows a freestanding male statue in a standing pose. The figure has a simplified/rounded head and narrow shoulders, with both arms held low at the sides (partly broken at the hands). The torso and hips are carved in a slender, elongated style. A pleated kilt/loincloth is visible in relief across the waist and down the upper legs. Behind/around the waist there is a textured element resembling a belt or sash. The surface bears minor losses and abrasions, and the lower feet are chipped. No clearly legible hieroglyphic inscription or name cartouche is visible on the shown surfaces; no Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is present. The visible attributes correspond to a standard Old Kingdom-style funerary/commemorative statue format, though the subject name (Ity-sen) cannot be confirmed from the image alone.
Connections
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.365 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3432 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- 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.