Statue of the Seated Scribe Kai in the Louvre, with eyes of rock crystal and quartz

In big museums I always head first for the Egyptian antiquities gallery. You never know what unique artefacts may turn up there.

Even collections as colossal as the Louvre count the legacy of Ancient Egypt among their chief treasures.
And if you hurried through the Louvre's Egyptian gallery in order to get to the tiny Mona Lisa as soon as possible, I advise you to correct the error and make the acquaintance of at least the figure of the Seated Scribe, Kai. He is undeservedly starved of attention, although many historians and art historians place this sculpture among the ten principal possessions of the Louvre. Yes, yes, some do not include the Mona Lisa in such lists at all, and they have their reasons.

Since the description of this exhibit is rather dull, I would probably have walked past it too, had I not known the story of the find in advance. Really, whom would an inscription like this interest: note the concentrated gaze of the scribe; the sculpture is thought to date from the period of the 4th to 6th dynasties.

I think a brief remark that the nipples of this limestone figure are made of wood would be enough to send crowds running to him.

Besides the nipples and the well-preserved ancient paints (which make clear that those drab Egyptian knick-knacks were in fact very bright and many-coloured, and only lost their layers of colour with time), the eyes are of interest: they are made of crystals in some most intricate manner, so that there is an eyelid, an eyeball, a pupil and a retina. Distinctive ones, of course, made of copper strips, rock crystal, quartz and special pigments. That is why all who describe him draw attention to the intelligent gaze. Probably, had his writing stylus not been lost, its size would have been belaboured as well.

Much about the monument's provenance is still unclear. The date, among other things: the figure given is 2800-2200 thousand years BC. They say that the man depicted may have belonged to the royal family, and they do not doubt that he was a dignitary named Kai. The explanatory blocks and the pedestal have not survived. At any rate, the indication of literacy in itself underlines high status, since not even all priests and courtiers knew how to write.

For me personally this scribe is all the more interesting and mysterious because he stands out sharply among the more than six thousand finds handed over with him to the Louvre in the 19th century by Mariette. He differs greatly from other figures of scribes, and despite his half-metre size he looks even cooler than the huge, likewise seated Ramesses in the same gallery. There is a similar statue in the Cairo Museum, but the scribe there is somehow unmanly and puny, perhaps because of the small neck, though with a snazzier hairstyle. But I do not like it.

If I find anything out about the material of the nipples, I shall write more. When you are in the Louvre, remember my words.