December 11th, 2025: My second and final exam today, but I’m still not done with all my classes. I got up and had breakfast and went to the busy building for coffee. I walked back to where the final exam was an hour and a half early and spent most of my time rereading my paper, writing down extra stuff directly from the slides. I went on my computer and actually got my final assignment fixed through a quick workaround passing all the tests. I finally got started with the exam and it was actually way easier than I thought. I was tricked yet again. During the test, the professor came over (Same one as the one where I was partnered up with the South Korean, Chappell, and Nintendo girl) to the projector to look for something to turn it on or off, I tried helping but she told me it’s ok and I can just focus on writing. I got out a bit early with a significant amount of time left. The girl in our capstone seminar was there. I went to get more cheap coffee and went to the 3rd floor of the library to write for my final art history paper. I did that and got it up to 5 pages. I had lunch at a chain restaurant in the busy building. While I was eating a burger, I saw Zephyr walking over to refill the ice machine, I waved to her and she waved back. I eventually moved over to the engineering building in their study lounge to write more. I then went into my class planning session at 2:20pm, it was the same bald Black guy as last time and I got it done in 2 minutes, just deciding what 2 free electives I wanted to enroll in. And also how to apply for graduation. I walked back home and then got into my room to start writing more. At 5:36pm, I finally completed the paper and uploaded it. For the sake of boosting my word count of this entry, here’s the entire paper:
>Object Biography: Statue of Ramesses IV
>In this paper, I shall be discussing the statue of Ramesses IV. This object, a kneeling mudstone statue depicting the pharaoh offering Nu vases to Amun-Ra, serves as an important example of how royal identity, religious devotion, and artistic convention intersect in the later New Kingdom. In part I, I shall talk about information related to Ramesses the historical figure and details about the sculpture, part II shall be about what it represents in the ancient Egyptian art world, and part III shall discuss historical context for its existence.
>Part I: Information
>Usermaatre Heqamaatre Setepenamun Ramesses IV (1176 BC – 1149 BC), commonly known as Ramesses IV (Or Ramses IV) was a pharaoh of the XX Dynasty of Egypt born to Ramesses III (1217 BC - 1155 BC) and Tyti. He was most likely married to his paternal half-sister Duatentopet. Ramesses IV reigned from the murder of his father on April 15th, 1155 BC (Robins) by his mother-in-law Tiye and half-brother Pentaweret to his death in 1149 BC, being succeeded by his son Ramesses V (died 1145 BC), then his paternal half-brother by the Syrian woman Isis Ta-Hemdjert, Ramesses VI, (died circa 1136 BC). Most of Ramesses IV’s short reign as pharaoh of the unified Egypt was spent on building projects and honoring his father’s legacy, including commissioning Great Harris Papyrus, a long list of the accomplishments of him and his father, focusing more on his father than him, and his expansion of the Temple of Khonsu at Karnak, a building commissioned under his late father. Ramesses IV did some things of his own like ordering the construction of a large mortuary temple on the west bank of Thebes. (NMEC)
Most likely during his reign, Ramesses IV had a statue of himself commissioned of mudstone, he is depicted wearing a nemes, a striped headcloth of the pharaohs, no shirt, no shoes, and shendyt, which is an Egyptian kilt. Ramesses IV is on his knees holding two Nu vases. His body is on top of the mudstone base with his prenomen on his right shoulder and in the center of his shendyt. His nomen is inscribed on his left shoulder. (British) On the base of the statue is his name inscribed again and the name of the God Amun-Ra. (Amin, British) The statue is black in color with a slightly browner look in bright light. There are no signs of this statue ever being painted. Some chipping damage is visible on the top of the nemes and the nose (British) The statue is 128.5cm tall, 50cm wide, 32cm deep, and it weighs roughly 70kg. (Amin) The statue exhibits characteristics typical of Egyptian statues, including a roughly triangular shaped shoulders and exhibits adherence to the Egyptian canon of proportions. Although difficulty in determining if it is exactly 18 cells high exists due to the statue depicting Ramesses kneeling, not standing. ([professor])
>Part II: Representation
>Nu vases used for liquid offerings such as milk, wine, or water, were a standard element of ritual performance in the context of the ancient Egyptian religion. Nu vases are named after the God of the primordial waters Nun, the primordial waters from which creation emerged, making them symbolically appropriate for offerings intended to sustain divine power. When a pharaoh such as Ramesses IV is depicted holding Nu vases, the gesture is not simply an act of devotion, but an outward statement that the pharaoh is the one who maintains cosmic order, otherwise known as ma’at (Allen) As this statue of a pharaoh was in a kneeling position, which was only done towards one's superiors. (Brooklyn) In the case of Ramesses IV, his superior would be the gods, it is assumed that this statue would be positioned directly in front of a statue of the God of the temple for Ramesses IV to emphasize his own holiness towards the God. It is theorized that the statue would have been located at the Temple of Amun at Thebes. (Amin, Ancient Egypt Blog) Due to the Amun-Ra inscription at the base and his involvement with expansion of said temple.
>Part III: Context
>Holiness was everything in ancient Egypt, the God Amun-Ra, who was a fusion of the God Amun and the sun God Ra, was a member of the Ogdoad and eventually rose in prominence to become the most famous God in the Egyptian pantheon, being equivalent to Zeus in the Greek pantheon or Jupiter in the Roman pantheon. Amun functioned as the pareal woman God of Thebes after replacing Montu the falcon God of war in the 21st century BC. Amun also functioned as a father to the Pharaohs. During the Eighteenth dynasty (1550 BC - 1292 BC), the cult of Amun-Ra grew in power to the point that the priest rivaled the pharaohs in power. The pharaoh Akhenaten (reigned 1353 BC - 1335 BC) would try to destroy Amun’s cult and replace himself as the only God, Aten. This fell apart almost instantly after Ahkenaten’s death, with the power that the priests held being solidified. ([professor])
>The historical context through which the 20th dynasty went through should not be ignored in the slightest, as Ramesses IV, his father, and his paternal grandfather Setnakhte (before 1217 BC – 1186 BC) all would have been alive during the Bronze Age collapse. During the Bronze Age collapse, dated to be somewhere between c. 1250 BC - c. 1150 BC. Many empires including the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, and the Mycenaeans, were destroyed and had lots of writing lost and buildings abandoned due to a mysterious group of raiders known as the Sea People. (Mark) While Ramesses III had won some battles against the Sea People and Egypt was spared from most of the destruction brought on. Egypt had still suffered from decline during this period, with it losing a lot of its territories to Libyan invaders from the west and Syrian invaders from the East. There was also the threat of having one’s legacy erased if the next pharaoh carved out all the names if the next pharaoh was opposed to the current one. So the best solution would be to commission as many long lasting works as possible, usually artistic works made of harder stone like granite and mudstone.
>Conclusion
>The statue of Ramesses IV offers an invaluable insight into the artistic, religious, and political priorities of the New Kingdom Egypt. Through its iconography, inscriptions, and kneeling pose with Nu vases, the sculpture communicates the Ramesses IV double role as a pious intermediary between the gods and the people and a legitimate ruler favored by the God Amun-Ra during a period marked by instability and decline. When viewed alongside the broader historical pressures of the 20th Dynasty most famously the Bronze Age collapse, the statue becomes more than a work of royal representation and transforms into an artifact of an empire fighting to maintain continuity, divine favor, and traditional artistic forms despite challenges from the Sea Peoples. In this way, the statue of Ramesses IV stands as both a testament to enduring Egyptian religious ideology, balances of power, and a monument shaped by the complex realities of its time.
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