About the Statue:
This anonymous woman's likeness was carved sometime between 1550 B.C. and 1070 B.C. in what we call the "New Kingdom" period of ancient Egyptian history. Beginning with the first ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Ahmose I (r. 1550-1525 B.C.), the New Kingdom lasted through the Twentieth Dynasty and brought us many famous pharaohs including Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II ("Ramses the Great").A more precise date for this sculpture and the Dynasty from whence it came has not been established, but we do have a few pieces of evidence about the model. First, she is not wearing a royal form of headdress. Her elaborate wig is missing its bottom parts (here approximated by the mount). Indeed, the lower part of the bust seems to have been separated from the head.
An equally obvious fact is that the tip of her nose is gone, and substantial damage was done to the lower end of the bridge. Nose-lessness is extremely common in most ancient Egyptian sculpture that remained on view over the millennia. The noses didn't wear away from age, but were forcibly removed by Christian and Muslim occupiers combating, among other things, the practice of idolatry.
We also know, then, that this sculpture wasn't buried in a tomb. It had been in plain sight for many centuries--possibly even from its completion.
Three other truths remain. Chicago timber baron and philanthropist Edward E. Ayer (1841–1927) bought this statue in Cairo or Alexandria no earlier than 1894. Ayer, who spearheaded the founding of the Field Museum after the roaring success of 1893's World's Columbian Exposition, donated it (and the rest of his Egyptian archaeological collection) to the new museum in 1899. Finally, this sculpture has been on display since 1988 in the Field Museum's permanent exhibition Inside Ancient Egypt.
