Oscar Vladislas de Milosz (1877–1939) and the ,,Queen’’ Karomama

In 1906 a French Symbolist poet published a poem Karomama in a volume of poems entitled Les sept solitudes. The poem was influenced by a fascinating impression experienced by its author in Louvre where he saw a bronze figurine of a young girl (Pl. I, II), brought from Egypt in 1829 by Jean François Champollion. This antique presents Karomama Meritmut, daughter of Osorkon II or granddaughter of Osorkon I, who during the rule of the 22nd Dynasty (870–825 BC) held a very important office of God’s Wife of Amun/Divine Adoratress of Amun. The figurine, an exquisite example of metal sculpture, was founded by Iahentefnakht, God’s Father of Amun, the overseer of Treasury of the House of Divine Adoratress of Amun. The figurine served cultic puropses in one of the chapels in Karnak; Divine Adoratress offered two sistrums to Amon in sacrifice, as shown on a relief sculpture from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin (Fig. 1). Other antiques connected with Karomama (including a few shabtis figurines with her name) were found in West Thebes, in the area of the Temple of a Million Years of Ramses II. However, Karomama’s disturbed tomb, from which these findings most certainly came from, had not been discovred until the archeological excavations in 2014 carried out in the area of a cemetry located there in the times of the 22nd Dynasty. Almost physical fascination with the image of the Egyptian “queen” from Louvre, apart from the above mentioned poem included in at least a few anthologies of Milosz’s poems, is confirmed by her presence in one of his mystery plays (Saul de Tarse, 1913; published 1970). The poem Karomama translated by Maria Leśniewska (1983) constitutes the annex to this text. [English translation of the poem by Edouard Roditi: [in:] C. Bomford (ed.), The Noble Traveller, 1985, p. 73/75].

In 1906 a French Symbolist poet published a poem Karomama in a volume of poems entitled Les sept solitudes. The poem was influenced by a fascinating impression experienced by its author in Louvre where he saw a bronze figurine of a young girl (Pl. I, II), brought from Egypt in 1829 by Jean François Champollion. This antique presents Karomama Meritmut, daughter of Osorkon II or granddaughter of Osorkon I, who during the rule of the 22nd Dynasty (870–825 BC) held a very important office of God’s Wife of Amun/Divine Adoratress of Amun. The figurine, an exquisite example of metal sculpture, was founded by Iahentefnakht, God’s Father of Amun, the overseer of Treasury of the House of Divine Adoratress of Amun. The figurine served cultic puropses in one of the chapels in Karnak; Divine Adoratress offered two sistrums to Amon in sacrifice, as shown on a relief sculpture from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin (Fig. 1). Other antiques connected with Karomama (including a few shabtis figurines with her name) were found in West Thebes, in the area of the Temple of a Million Years of Ramses II. However, Karomama’s disturbed tomb, from which these findings most certainly came from, had not been discovred until the archeological excavations in 2014 carried out in the area of a cemetry located there in the times of the 22nd Dynasty. Almost physical fascination with the image of the Egyptian “queen” from Louvre, apart from the above mentioned poem included in at least a few anthologies of Milosz’s poems, is confirmed by her presence in one of his mystery plays (Saul de Tarse, 1913; published 1970). The poem Karomama translated by Maria Leśniewska (1983) constitutes the annex to this text. [English translation of the poem by Edouard Roditi: [in:] C. Bomford (ed.), The Noble Traveller, 1985, p. 73/75].