Half of an ear

The man’s ear is partially covered by the wig, showing only the bottom half. Here, the forger does something that the ancient Egyptians did do in three-dimensional sculptures, but never in reliefs.

Take, for example, the sculpture in Rijksmuseum van Oudheden that probably depicts army officer Horemheb and his wife (Fig. 1). The ancient Egyptians sculptors never completed this sculpture, so there are details missing. The unfinished sculpture does clearly show, however, that Horemheb wears a shebiu necklace and has a wig with two layers, just like the man on our relief. In the sculpture, the bottom halves of the ears peek out from under the wig. But, according to the rules of ancient Egyptian art, a technique like that could not occur in two-dimensional images. For those, the ear would have to be either completely covered by the wig (Fig. 2), or completely visible (Fig. 3).

And so, clues of this relief being a fake keep adding up. But how, then, did it end up in the Dutch national collection?