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The majority of the heads were made of a fine, white limestone, while a couple of examples have been found that were made of ground mud from the banks of the Nile. Although there are a few exceptions that are more crudely carved and heavily plastered, most are intricately carved and have been carefully smoothed. The smooth ones have not, however, been polished. They all depict people with shaved heads or close-cropped hair, and the largest examples are just over in height.
Another common feature has been called the "cranial groove", a careful and deliberate cut that typically starts from the top of the cranium and extends to the back of the neck.Millet. (1981) p. 130
Modern forgeries of reserve heads are known to exist. An example at the Oriental Institute in Chicago was bought from a Cairo art dealer in 1929, and is now thought to be a fake, based in part on the fact that it is made of brown quartzite, a material common to none of the other reserve heads found in situ.Teeter. (2008) p. 9
Egyptologist Roland Tefnin suggested that the heads were ritually mutilated to prevent them from harming the living. Tefnin proposed that the reserved heads were created by a master sculptor, and upon the subject's death the reserve head received a ritualized mutilation to ensure that it could not harm the deceased in the afterlife. He lists the damage at the back of the head, the removal of the ears, the depiction of the deceased with no hair or very short cropped hair and in some cases the carving of a line in the neck representing ritual decapitation as examples.Stephen E. Thompson's review of: Art et magie au temps des pyramides: L'énigme des têtes dites "de remplacement" by Roland Tefnin, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct. 1996), pp. 302–305. Retrieved from JSTOR There are problems with this theory however, in that while there was a well-known practice of cutting certain hieroglyphic figures (such as those representing various animals) in tombs to render them harmless to the deceased, this practice never extended to images of the tomb owner.Lacovara. (1997) p. 35 The function of images of the deceased throughout the history of funerary arts in Ancient Egypt was to act as an alternate receptacles for their soul, and "killing" them would be contrary to this purpose. This type of mutilation is not seen in statues placed in later tombs.
The most recent theory proposed by Peter Lacovara as to the purpose of the "mutilations" is that they are guidelines used by the sculptor in the creation of the reserve head. He proposes that a closer examination of the evidence points to all of the lines being carved onto the reserve heads as being done prior to their completion rather than afterwards. As proof he points out that in the most complete examples, the mutilations are minor or absent, and on others it is clear that what grooves were made were subsequently smoothed down, rather than being the fresh cut that would be expected if they were inflicted after their creation. There are other Ancient Egyptian unfinished sculptures where guidelines for the sculptor can be seen, usually painted onto the hard stone. Lacovara believes that paint would have easily rubbed off of the relatively soft limestone that was used, and so the sculptors carved the guidelines instead. These guidelines were then polished away, and in the cases where they were not removed completely were covered by plaster which has since fallen away.Lacovara. (1997) p. 36 Plaster would also have been used to cover up any mistakes that the sculptor had made, such as with the example of heavy plaster seen on one of the reserve heads in Cairo (60003) where the eye has been recarved. The damage seen to the ears of many of the reserve heads is thought to be due mainly to rough handling by tomb robbers. All of this would support the original theory that the reserve heads were designed as alternate places for the soul of the deceased to inhabit.
Unlike other sculptures from Ancient Egypt, these heads were never intended as part of a larger, composite sculpture; they were stand-alone pieces of just the head done in the round, with a flat surface at the base of the neck suggesting that they were intended to stand upright. Most were found in the burial pits outside of the burial chamber of the tomb, but in those cases it is considered likely that they were simply dumped in these places by tomb robbers. Both examples discovered by Hermann Junker in 1914 were found within the tomb chamber, and are thought to have belonged to the owner of the tomb. No evidence of these sculptures have come from the above-ground offering temples, separating them from other Old Kingdom statues directly associated with the funerary cult of the deceased.Roehrig. (1999) pp. 74
The single instance of a reserve head found in an undisturbed tomb was located beside the sarcophagus of the tomb's occupant.Roehrig. (1999) pp. 74-75 It is generally assumed that all reserve heads were originally in similar positions in their respective tombs, though the large number of heads found in burial pits has led to the suggestion that they were instead originally displayed by the entrance of the tomb chamber rather than within the tomb.Capel. (1996) pp. 212
The timespan in which reserve heads were created was short; they were likely created by only a couple of generations of sculptors during the reigns of the pharaohs Khufu, Djedefre and Khafre. The practice of using reserve heads appears to have ended sometime during the Sixth Dynasty, replaced by the practice of covering the head or the entire body of the deceased in plaster. These face and body coverings that were created may have the same purpose as the reserve head,Hawass. (1992) p. 334 working as a substitute location for the spirit if the original head decayed or was otherwise destroyed. It seems likely that both the practice of crafting reserve heads and that of covering the body or face of an individual with plaster overlapped considerably, with an early example of the latter dated to the end of the Fourth dynasty based on the pottery that was found with it. The practice of covering the body or face with plaster was also short-lived, as improved mummification techniques offered a better chance of preserving the body than covering it with plaster.Junker. (1914) p. 252 Plaster masks that were formed directly around the head of the deceased are now thought to represent an early stage in a process that would lead to the full mummification of non-royal bodies, eventually evolving into the practice of creating masks made of cartonnage, consisting of linen layers mixed with gesso.
| Head was found in burial shaft G 1203A. The head is thought to be female and may represent Kanefer's wife. |
| Head was found in burial shaft G 2110A, the burial shaft of Nefer. |
| Reserve head possibly from D 38. |
| Fragment, possibly originally from the serdab of G 2240 |
| The reserve heads were found in the debris of burial shaft G 4140A |
| Male reserve-head, damaged, from débris west of tomb. |
| Head of Sneferuseneb found in burial shaf G 4240A |
| A Male reserve-head was found in the débris at bottom of shaft A |
| Reserve-head found at entrance of burial chamber |
| A damaged reserve-head made of clay found in shaft A. |
| The man may be a brother of Snefrusonb (tomb G 4240). Both heads were found in Shaft A. More recent opinion suggests that the head previously identified as the wife is a male |
| A Female reserve-head was found in shaft A |
| A female reserve-head was found in the burial chamber. |
| Male reserve-head found in shaft A. |
| Iabtet was a King's daughter of his body. Reserve-head was found at the entrance of the burial chamber. |
| Reserve-head, badly weathered, found by Reisner east of tomb G 4560, possibly from G 4660. |
| Limestone reserved head from shaft G 4940B |
| Limestone head found in the annex of G 5020. May originally come from G 4240. |
| Limestone head found in shaft B. |
| Limestone head found in street east of G 7530-7540 |
| Clay reserve head. Wehemnefret may be a daughter of Wenshet (owner of G 4840). Wehemnefret has the title king's daughter (may refer to king's granddaughter here) |
| Limestone reserve head from unidentified mastaba |
| Its authenticity is disputed. |
| A limestone reserve head. |
| Purchased by Sir Henry Wellcome at a Sotheby's auction in 1928. According to the Egypt Centre's website the reserve head comes from Memphis and dates to the 4th Dynasty. |
| Thought to represent a woman and possibly from Abusir or Saqqara. |
| Reserve-head of Kahotep found at Abusir - Old Kingdom |
| An ear belonging to the reserve head was discovered in the burial chamber.Miroslav Barta, Abusir V: The Cemeteries of Abusir South, 2001, p 177 |
Examples of reserve heads can be found at the following museums:
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