Hermione Wrote:
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> I keep wondering how she managed to lose an eye
> ... I've seen full-face portraits in which she has
> both eyes ...

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The statue has always had no left eye, so I'm not sure what you have seen (perhaps a poorly executed copy?). Borchardt mentions when he found the bust that the left eye was missing and even offered his workmen top coin if they could find it, but to no avail.

Arnold mentioned in her 1996 work about the bust in The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt that Borchardt later wrote that"no trace of adhesive can be detected in the hollow of the eye; also the background is smooth and has not been carved in any way to receive an inlay," which led him to conclude that the left eye was never filled with an inlay (Arnold 1996: 67).

This has led Arnold to surmise that "[w]ithout an eye inlay, the piece could only have served as a sculptor's model...The empty eye socket makes sense only in a model since it demonstrates how a sculptor prepares hollows on a stone sculpture for the later insertion of eye inlays. It should, moreover, be noted that all busts so far excavated at Amarna were found in conjunction with sculptors' workshops; none were found in houses." (Arnold 1996: 67-68). The last comment was a rebuttal to some arguments that the bust was a votive object for worship in a private home.

Reference:

Arnold, D. 1996. The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom