Statue of the scribe Dersenedj

From the Age of the Pyramids around 2600 BC, scribe figures also started to appear occasionally alongside the standing-striding figures and the seated figures. Their function was to record the high social position of the person portrayed. This means that they fulfilled a biographical function, in contrast to the statue forms which were directed towards a future eternal life. The scribe was a high-ranking state official, a scholar, whose role in defining the cultural identity of Egypt is praised in numerous texts and who thus represented an ideal to be aimed at in life. The papyrus scroll which lies unrolled on his lap serves as a symbol of his intellectual skills. In contrast to other types of statue, the people represented here are often portrayed in old age, as can be seen by their corpulence and the horizontal folds of the stomach. Although the physical ideal took the form of a youthful body with which people hoped to continue to live in the afterlife, the wise man by contrast received recognition by virtue of his age and experience.