AUCKLAND MUSEUM GIFT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19851, 23 January 1928, Page 10

AUCKLAND MUSEUM GIFT.

A LINK WITH EGYPT. PORTRAIT HEAD OF PRINCESS. The Auckland Museum has received a cast of a portrait head in red quartzite of one of the seven daughters of .King Akhenaten, of the eighteenth dynasty, who ruled in Egypt in the fourteenth century, B.C. The cast has been prosented by the Egypt Exploration Society, in recognition of assistance given to its exploration work by tho Auckland Museum in the past. This head, which was discovered at Tel-el-Amarna, in the winter of 1926-27, formed part of a group in which King Akhenaten and Queen Nofertiti sit enthroned while princesses are grouped around. Similar heads are known, but this one ranks high on account of its delicate modelling and its perfect finish, notwithstanding the refractory nature of the material used. The museum already possesses a plaque of King Akhenaten himself, and similar characteristics may be traced in father and daughter. The skull ot tho princess is represented as sloping back at a vsry sharp angle to the horizontal and there is a long projection at the back of • the head,- which is considered by Professor Elliot Smith to indicate a diseased condition common to the family. One of King Akhenaten's daughters was the Queen of Tutankhamen, the discovery of whoso tomb recently created such a worldwide sensation.