himself, in Hawass' view, would never have allowed such a comparatively crude item to be displayed in his palace or elsewhere. Further, Hawass alleges that the shape of the throne has no counterpart in Old Kingdom art: In the Old Kingdom, the back of the royal throne rose to the neck of the ruler. For Hawass, a conclusive proof that the statue must be a reproduction from a later time is the so-called Nehenekh flail in Khufu's left hand. Sculptural depictions of a king with such a flail as a ceremonial insignia do not appear chronologically before the Middle Kingdom. Zahi Hawass, therefore, comes to the conclusion that the figure was probably sold to a pious citizen or pilgrim as an amulet or talisman in the 26th dynasty (or later). The figurine's presence in its find location would then be a result of use as a votive offering. Zahi Hawass is, finally, convinced that the Khufu statuette is most likely a replica of a life-size or over life-size statue. In his view the original was probably located in Memphis in Lower Egypt, which would explain why Khufu wears the red crown. This assumption also underpinned his dating to the 26th dynasty: at that time, homages to the Old Kingdom were very popular; old, long-forgotten deities were portrayed in reliefs and statues and miniatures of royal statues made and sold as talismans or votive offerings and old, long-forgotten titles of the Old Kingdom were reprised and awarded to officials. For example, the temple of King Taharqa contains reliefs which are modelled after Old Kingdom murals from entirely different contexts. Finally, Hawass maintains that the face of the Khufu statuette most closely resembles the black granite heads of King Taharqa. Citing the work of William S. Smith, Hawass claims that statues of the Old Kingdom Kings were mass-produced in later time, that this probably also applies to the Khufu statuette and that the rather sloppy form of the statuette corroborates this. Bibliography Zahi Hawass. The Khufu Statuette: Is it an Old Kingdom Sculpture? in Paule Posener-Kriéger (ed.): Mélanges Gamal Eddin Mokhtar (= Bibliothèque d'étude, Vol. 97, 1). Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Cairo 1985, . W. M. Flinders Petrie. Abydos Part II. The Egypt Exploration Fund, London 1903, (Online Version). Abeer El-Shahawy, Farid S. Atiya. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo. A Walk Through the Alleys of Ancient Egypt. American University in