ABSTRACT
The Twelfth Dynasty, once so vital and assured, declined into oblivion with the short-reigned Queen Sobekneferu. The Thirteenth, a number of whose rulers also bore the name ‘Sobek’, a crocodile-god to whom they paid particular devotion, may have had a familial connection with its predecessor. This line of kings is relatively little known though there is evidence that some degree of prosperity still was maintained and the arts, always a barometer for the times, flourished with fine architecture and some stone-carving of the highest quality being produced. Some of the carving is executed in the hardest of stones, including a wonderful polished yellow quartzite. From this uncertain period derives a rather strange creation, the so-called ka-statue of King Awibre-Hor (c.1750 BC).1 He is represented as a naked boy, (though originally he may have worn a gilded kilt) almost lifesize, stepping forward from an enclosed wooden niche. On the king’s head the two raised arms represent the hieroglyph ka, the etheric double of the individual, fashioned at the moment of conception. Awibre-Hor was a very short-lived ruler; his expression of apprehension as he steps out of his shrine was probably well justified.
