The Mystery Of This Ancient Egyptian Figurine Has Finally Been Solved

Ever since it was first excavated in 1863, this ancient Egyptian figurine has been considered "impossible". Dug from the dirt in Deir el-Medina, a workman's village near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, the 3,000-year-old statuette depicts a small child, indisputably presented as a pharaoh, in the arms of a non-royal man. The problem is that in ancient Egypt such a statue would have been high heresy – no commoner could ever be shown in physical contact with the king, let alone in such an intimate pose as this. "The instant I saw it," says Margaret Maitland, curator at National Museums Scotland, where the figurine now lives, "I thought, 'that statue shouldn't exist.'"

The Mystery Of This Ancient Egyptian Figurine Has Finally Been Solved