Head of Sen-useret III

I have made my frontier by going further south than my fathers; I have increased what has been bequeathed to me…. To be aggressive is to be valiant; to retreat is to be wretched.

—King Sen-useret III's account of securing his domain in the south.

Sen-useret III is shown wearing the royal nemes, a striped headcloth. The uraeus, the rearing cobra over his forehead, protected him against evil forces.

This exceptional sculpture is in many respects—but not all—realistic. It is not completely how a mortal looks. The face is too smooth, lacking all the wrinkles of age; the head is over life-size. The sculpture is thus monumental, suggesting the pharaoh's omnipotence. The weariness apparent in his face might reflect the strain derived from ruling all Egypt, from being the sole shepherd of so large a flock.

The sculpture is among the first in a long line of great ruler portraits in Western art—Caesar, Louis XIV, Abraham Lincoln.