Incomplete Statue of Iteti

Iteti made his living serving a king who was already dead. The hieroglyphs on the left side of his seat list his titles, and among them he is inspector of the pure priests of the pyramid of Khafre, the second of the great pyramids at Giza. In the 4th Dynasty a royal pyramid was more than a tomb. It had its temple and its staff of priests, who went on bringing offerings to the dead king long after his burial, and men like Iteti were paid from the estates that kept that cult going. His own tomb, a mastaba in the cemetery east of the Great Pyramid, is where this limestone statue was found.

The face is badly damaged. The museum thinks it was attacked to get at the eyes, which were inlaid with metal and hard stones. Even so, the careful carving of the features and the wig still shows, and so does a moustache cut in very low relief above the lip, a fashion the museum says was very popular in the 4th Dynasty.