Statue of a naos-carrier

A man, kneeling and dressed in a long loincloth, holds a shrine or naos in his hands (naophore statue). The shrine contains the image of Osiris. Although the statue is unfinished, the god of the dead is immediately recognisable by his mummy-like figure – arms crossed, atef crown and his two barely-visible sceptres, the crook and the whip. For the ancient Egyptians, this type of compact statue represented a figure praying before the god in his shrine. As this statue was neither carved nor polished, we have no way of knowing the name or title of this high dignitary, or the nature of his prayer. If the statue had been completed, the hieroglyphs would have run symmetrically along the base, up the uprights and sides of the naos in several columns, and finally across the dorsal pillar.