The “Starving of Sacará” Something grotesque or marvelous? Unnecessary or useless? An old piece or a fake? For more than a decade attempts have been made to establish the origins of this mysterious sculpture.
Archaeology is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. With just a small bone, a lost papyrus or a tool buried a few meters underground, researchers have to read the past of human civilization.
They combine all the found items like a puzzle and the story starts to make sense.
However, sometimes they discover pieces that don’t fit into any conventional description. At these times, their job becomes even more difficult, as they have to “unlock” the place and function of these items. Standing 26 inches tall, these limestone figures are very disturbing, with elongated skulls, slack mouths and rather thin limbs. Crouched, naked, facing each other, one rests his hand on the other’s arm.
Inscriptions, written in a language that has not yet been deciphered, were carved into the base.
But little is known about its origins, except that it was brought to Canada to be included in an exhibition of Egyptian objects at the Ars Classica Gallery in Montreal by the Diniacopoulos family, antiquities collectors at a time when the trade in ancient treasures was haphazard and poorly controlled.
However, because the artifacts in this shipment were legally allowed for export, experts at Concordia University, who acquired the sculpture in 1999, believe that the statue is a genuine antiquity and may have come from one of the tombs at Saqqara.
Saqqara was the main cemetery of Memphis, the ancient political capital of Egypt, in the fertile Nile Valley. It is a huge cemetery and many of the tombs have not yet been investigated by archaeologists although many have come under the attention of tomb robbers in both ancient and more recent times.
According to Clarence Epstein, Director of Special Projects and Cultural Affairs at Concordia University, the sculpture could have come from an ancient Egyptian tomb and would represent “images of the conquered,” people enslaved by an ancient ruler.
His theory is that it comes from a very ancient cemetery or tomb dating back to before the first pharaohs came to power in Egypt. Epstein says it must be 4,000 years old or more and that makes it a very, very rare find.
Another archaeologist has suggested that the statue was from a predynastic tomb and could be entirely fake. However, even Professor George Harrison of Concordia’s Classics Department does not doubt that this is the case. “You only fake things that are important. You fake a coin of Alexander the Great because he is famous and someone wants to buy it.
“You can’t fake something like that,” he said. Some say that the statues, which were actually from the tombs of Saqqara, could support claims that long-headed beings existed in ancient Egypt and that many held positions in the pharaonic court. But they wonder why they are depicted looking exhausted as they suffer. Meanwhile, the “Starving Man of Saqqara” statue remains an unsolved mystery.
