Priest Holding the Figure of Osiris
Description
<p>Statues such as this were placed in temples and show the owner presenting a divine image to his god. This statue represents Djed-khonsu-iuef-ankh, a priest of the god Montu of Thebes. He holds a statuette of Osiris, god of the underworld. Priests cared for cult images of the gods by cleaning and clothing them, as well as, offering them daily food and drink. The inscriptions on this statue indicate that it was placed in the Temple of Montu at Karnak and was dedicated on behalf of Djed-khonsu-iuef-ankh by his son, Khonsu-mes. The owner of such a statue benefited during his life, but also after his death, from the rituals for the god with whom he is represented.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/22.174' rel='external'>Priest Holding the Figure of Osiris</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.
A standing male figure (priest) holds a small mummiform figure identified by the catalogue as Osiris.
The artifact shows a sculpted, human male figure with a smooth shaven or short wig-like headdress, standing frontally. Both arms are held in front of the body; the hands grasp and support a smaller, upright, mummiform figure with a prominent head and headdress. The smaller figure is rendered in raised relief/sculpture rather than free-standing, suggesting the priest is presenting/holding the deity figure. The base includes an incised band of hieroglyphs; some individual signs are damaged or worn, but the presence of Egyptian script is clear. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible. The surface appears dark gray to black with a polished/stone-smooth finish, consistent with the catalogue’s granodiorite material attribution.
Cross-references (2)
- Walters-AccNum 22.174 tier-2
- Walters-id 14770 tier-2
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.