Re: Monday Answer
Bill gets today�s gold star! Also extra credit for finding my error.
Two names: Sheikh el Balad or Ka-aper (Ka means �life force� or what we might term a person�s �spirit�. In this instance, a representational statue of a dead man.) aper was the chief priest at court.
Housed in the Cairo Museum, Egypt.
The carved statue is well proportioned and anatomically within "normal" body physique and is nicknamed �The Sheikh el Balad� because when it was unearthed it was a superbly uncanny resemblance to the then current local headman, Sheikh el Balad (also spelled in some details as Beled). The workmen, who knew the Sheikh were astonished and the Sheikh was summoned. It is said he all but fainted at the similarity and accuracy with his all too realistic wooden doppelganger. The body is in one piece. The arms separately added and the walking stick or cane is of two pieces.
Dated: approximately 2450-2350 B.C. 5th Dynasty, 107 (or 112) cm, depending on the source, over 43� in height. About 4000 years old total, not 4000 B.C. as I wrote in the question-- as Bill pointed out. Ka-aper was one of the earliest three dimensional figures and was found in the same general location as two other statues. The 3D image was apparently a departure from the two dimensional relief carvings as seen on many earlier and later Egyptian antiquities.
The statue was discovered by Auguste Mariette, French explorer, and foremost Egyptologist of his day at the Old Egypt necropolis at Saqqara south of Giza (17 kilometers) and Cairo (40 kilometers) in 1860.
Images can be found under Ka-Aper.
http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/detail.aspx?id=14910
or just type in �Ka-aper statue�, and follow the cues. The history of Auguste Mariette is also a good read.