We are indebted to the late Mr. Cyril Aldred for providing compelling evidence that the Mansoor Amarna Collection, antedates some of the better known Amarna artifacts, including Berlin’s famous "Stroll in the Garden" and the Ashmolean’s " Two Seated Princesses "!

This statement is based on Aldred’s observation, that the distinction between the left foot from the right foot was lacking in earlier Egyptian art, but became a characteristic of the Amarna period and its aftermath (please see plate No.58, page 136 in Aldred’s book titled " Akhenaten and Nefertiti" (1973).

This feature is pertinent in several versions of the famous painting on plaster of two daughters of Akhenaten from the Royal Residence of Tell el Amarna, exhibited at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. One of the bas-reliefs of the two seated princesses in the Mansoor Collection, now in private hands, shows no distinction between the left foot and the right foot. By logical inference, this bas-relief must have served as a model for the painting of the Ashmolean Museum. After correcting the feet, bracelets were added to the painting, decorations added on the wall in order to conform with the rest of the mural painting. The other bas-relief which is still in the Mansoor collection, shows a distinction between the right foot and the left foot, indicating that the relief in the private collection, was the first relief made of this representation of the two seated Princesses from which the Ashmolean painting was copied from, as well as the other relief which is still in the Mansoor Collection.

Likewise, the " Stroll in the Garden " of the Berlin Museum would have been copied from one of the Mansoor’s reliefs, but with a distinction of the left foot from the right. http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/exhibit.shtml

Therefore, the bas-reliefs in the Mansoor Collection, must date back to the earliest part of the Amarna Period and therefore have to be a few years earlier than the painting of the Ashmolean Museum and the " Stroll in the Garden" of the Berlin Museum. Furthermore, a good number of the Mansoor sculptures may just have served as models for lesser craftsmen to copy from. In the Mansoor Amarna collection there was a total of 106 sculptures and reliefs, plus several small fragments. The only sculptor who could have produced that many pieces can only be B’k, or his successor, since he was serving Akhenaten and his father long before Tuthmose and Yuti. And his workshop has never been discovered by official excavators. Neither Thutmose nor Yuti have made portraits in the round of Akhenaten’s six daughters. In the Mansoor Collection at least five are represented. According to Prof. Dr. Reiner R. R. Protsch of the Department of Palaeoanthropolgy and Archaeometry of the J.W. Goethe-University (FB –16), Frankfurt/Main, Germany, in the Mansoor Collection at least five of the daughters are represented and the sixth could have very well been represented among one of those which had been sold by the late M.A. Mansoor before 1947. http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/docs/protsch5.html

One more thing for the benefit of the non-believers: in the two " Stroll in the Garden " of the Mansoor Amarna Collection, there is no distinction between the right foot and the left foot of the Princesses, but there is such a distinction in the feet of the King.

http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/exhibit.shtml

So, who copied what from whom? And why weren’t these facts reported to us 30 years ago, when Aldred’s book was published?

The serious scholar will compare the details of the Mansoor sculptures mentioned above (http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/exhibit.shtml) with their own sources for "The Stroll in the Garden" and the Ashmolean Princesses.

Is Berlin’s famous "Stroll in the Garden " a copy of one of the Mansoor sculptures? YES!

Is the Ashmolean’s painting a copy of one of the Mansoor sculptures ? YES!

However, their copiers made some unexpected serious mistakes, which would have been severely criticized had they been part of the Mansoor Collection !

It is sincerely hoped that the honest and serious Egyptologists will take another look at the Mansoor Amarna Collection, emulate the courageous person who shared that information with us and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, and recognize it for what it is.

Thank you for your interest in the Mansoor Amarna Collection.

"WHAT IF"…http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/correspondence/what_if.shtml

In Aldred’s book, we read:" this celebrated portrait is usually accepted as the studio model prepared by the master sculptor from which lesser craftsmen would fashion their likeness of the Queen;……the sculptor has apparently copied the painted master portrait of Nefertiti;……….the pupil was here copying work of an earlier period;………that the relief is a model by the master sculptor for the use of lesser craftsmen is evident;…..the statuette appears to be a replica on a miniature scale of one of the statues of near life size in the great temple of Aten;…..the relief was to serve as a model for craftsmen;……….cartoons and patterns produced early in the reign could still be copied much later;………..it was natural that they should prefer subjects that had been in stock from earlier years of the reign and that they had perfected by constant copying;….etc………..etc…………etc.