Statue of the goddess Sekhmet
Sekhmet ("Powerful") was a lioness-headed goddess of war and maternity, a dangerous 'solar eye' destroying enemies
of the sun-god and causing illness, and at the same moment being the cosmic mother of the pharaoh.
The statue was found at Karnak , in the temple precinct of the goddess Mut (the god Amun's wife, with whom Sekhmet
might have been identified). Originally, however, like several hundred similar ones it stood in the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III
at Kom el-Heitan in Western Thebes . These statues formed a kind of a litany in stone, each of them representing one of the aspects
of the goddess, with a distinctive epithet.
The text beside the right leg: "Good/Perfect God, Lord of the Two Lands, Nebmaatra, beloved of Sekhmet,
who is beloved of her lord, given life, eternally".
The text beside the left leg: "Beloved Son of Ra, Amenhotep, Ruler of Thebes, beloved of Sekhmet, who (i.e. the goddess)
is beloved of her lord, given life, eternally".
The name of Amun in the king's cartouche had been erased during the Amarna period and subsequently roughly restored.
On the right side of the throne there is engraved inscription of J. J. Rifaud, who claimed to discover the statue:
'D[ecouve]rt par J[ac]q[ues] Rifaud sculpteur t.s.'.
Granodiorite
Eighteenth Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, ca. 1380-1360 B.C.
No. 7268.