A rare mechanical figure from ancient Egypt

• Published in: Metropolitan Museum Journal Vol. 50; pp. 42 - 61
• Main Author: Reeves, Nicholas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.01.2015

One of the more curious pieces to be found among the extensive Egyptian holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a small and delicately carved statuette in wood representing a woman wearing nothing more than a heavy, shoulder-length wig. Though the figure is unclothed, propriety is maintained by the surviving right hand, which is strategically placed to cover the sex, while a missing left arm appears originally to have shielded the breasts. The modesty is nonetheless feigned, for at the pull of a string the arms are designed to rise and display the subject's feminine charms in full. This is no ordinary Egyptian statuette, but a "proto-automation," an object type encountered occasionally in the archaeological record of the Nile Valley, though seldom at this level of mechanical sophistication and never with such overtly erotic overtones. [Publication Abstract]