Statue of Horemheb and Mutnedjemet

Horemheb was not born into the royal family, and once he was king he needed an account of how the throne had come to him. That account is carved on the back of this statue, in the long inscription Egyptologists call his coronation text. It gives the credit to Horus of Hutnesut, the god of his home town, who it says watched over him through his years of service at court. Then Horus brought him to Thebes at the Opet festival, when the image of Amun was carried in procession from Karnak to Luxor, and there Amun welcomed him and set the crown on his head. The statue itself was found at Karnak, in the temple of Amun.

On the front the king sits beside his queen, Mutnedjemet, and she puts her arm around him in the role of the goddess Hathor protecting the sun god. For all its quality the statue was never finished. The stripes of his kilt and of his nemes headcloth were never carved, the vulture in the queen's headdress has no wings, and on one side of the throne the bound enemies have no lower half.