A Sculpture Head of Ptolemy V from the A.S. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the Problem of “Egyptianization” of the Ptolemaic Kingship in the Late 3rd and the Early 2nd Centuries B.C.

Abstract

The article discusses an artifact from the Egyptian collection of the A.S. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (no. I, 1a 5429) attributed to Ptolemy V and a number of its analogies: they all seem to be fragments of royal statues worshipped privately by members of the Egyptian elite according to a provision of the Rosetta Decree of 196 B.C. This group of artifacts shows a degree of hellenization in iconography (rendering of hair, facial asymmetry) and obviously represents the portrait features of the king being thus distinct from the strictly Egyptian and conventional style of the earlier Ptolemaic royal sculpture. However, according to a number of scholars, the period, to which these sculptures belong, was marked with the “Egyptianization” of the Ptolemaic kingship. A consideration of the term and its discussion in historiography brings to conclude that it is improper: Ancient Egyptians evaluated not the native or alien entourage of their rulers but their ability to perform ritual and, respectively, their sacrality. What was taken for “Egyptianization” was in fact the propaganda of these qualities for Ptolemy IV and V, especially their embodying Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, that provided for their sacrality. This accent in propaganda was backed by the need to deal with the native opposition since the mid-3rd century B.C. The “lock of youth” on the statues of Ptolemy V indicated the presence of Horus in him, and their hellenization and individuality stressed that his alien origin was not an obstacle to that. Hence a definition of the trend discussed not as an “Egyptianization” but rather as a strong personalization of the fundamentals of royal cult for the Ptolemaic kings.