Image Details

Eerily lifelike, the superbly preserved, painted limestone statues of Rahotep and Nofret (see photograph) illustrate a pitfall in the use of artworks to assess racial characteristics. Rahotep’s reddish brown skin and Nofret’s yellowish white color, rather than being realistic portrayals, reflect artistic conventions of the Old Kingdom period (c. 2755–2230 B.C.E.). At that time, these were the usual colors used respectively for representations of men and women. Despite their skin colors, Rahotep and Nofret’s features are typically Egyptian.

Found in a private tomb near the pyramid of Pharaoh Sneferu (c. 2680–2640 B.C.E.), the sculptures depict a couple of the king’s courtiers. Prince Rahotep, probably a son of Sneferu, wears a wig and sports a thin moustache; his name and titles—High Priest of Re at Heliopolis, Director of Expeditions and Chief of Construction—appear in the painted hieroglyphs. Rahotep’s wife, Nofret, also wears a wig, and the hieroglyphs on her statue call her “one known to the king.”