About the Work

Statuette representing the funerary god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, shown mummiform and wearing a tall crown composed of two plumes flanking a solar disk and a pair of curved ram’s horns. The gilded face, adorned with a polychrome usekh collar, rests upon a body wrapped in painted bandages and decorated with vertical columns of hieroglyphs. The figure is mounted on a rectangular base painted with a frieze of alternating ankh and djed symbols. On the front of the base lies the protective deity Sopdu, depicted as a mummified falcon symbolizing the ba-soul of the deceased.

The inscription running down the front of the body indicates that the figure was made for a woman whose name, unfortunately, has been erased. The text continues on the back.

The combination of these three deities within the figure of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris represents the transition from life to death and the promise of rebirth in the afterlife. Ptah embodies creation; Sokar represents death and the protection of the deceased; and Osiris symbolizes resurrection. This triad is often associated with funerary rituals intended to ensure the passage of the deceased to the afterlife and their spiritual renewal.

Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statuettes were placed in tombs beginning in the Third Intermediate Period. They symbolized regeneration and the union of the creative forces of Ptah, Sokar, and Osiris—divine powers associated with the rebirth of the deceased.

Translation of the Hieroglyphic Inscription:

“An offering which the king gives to Osiris, who presides over the Westerners,

the great god, lord of Abydos,

that he may give an invocation offering of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, wine, milk, incense, oil, cloth, offerings, food—every good and pure thing—for the ka of the Hathor Tar[…], true of voice, daughter of the sematy (?) of Min (?) Hor[…, born of …] the musician (?) of Min Taimen, true of voice, eternally enduring without destruction.”

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Provenance

Provenance: Bouillon Collection, Late 19th Century, Bergerac
Mr. Bouillon, then director of the Sugar Factories in Erment, Hosted Gaston Maspero during his excavations at Luxor in 1885

Literature

Raven, M. J. “Papyrus-Sheaths and Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Figures.” Oudheidkundige Mededelingen uit het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden 59–60 (1978–1979): 251–296.

Aston, D. A. “Two Osiris Figures of the Third Intermediate Period.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 77 (1991): 95–107.

Rindi Nuzzolo, C. Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Statuettes in the Collections of the Egyptian Museum of Florence: Chronology, Typology, History of the Collections. PhD diss., Monash University, 2012.

Taylor, J. H. Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press, 2001.

Quirke, S. Ancient Egyptian Religion. London: British Museum Press, 1992.

British Museum Online Collection. Entries on Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figures (accessed online).