I found other images of starving people in Egyptian art, but in all of them the figures were bas-relief carvings of people with drawn but noble faces, mouths firmly set, cheeks sunken, symmetrical bands of protruding ribs, full heads of hair—or some covering for the head, with the usual linen wrapper around the hips, and reaching out, making all manner of angular gestures with their lean arms. Nowhere did I see any crouched, cringing figures like “The Starving of Saqqara.” It was as if the sculpture had been formed to give the lie to those other, statelier, or at least more impersonal, images. But I couldn’t find any way to release myself from the horrifying idea that someone had ordered this statue made as it was, to revel in it. Was this some kind of trophy? The problem with that idea was that these figures were not characteristic enough to be particular people, some hated enemy who had finally been served their due comeuppance, a traitor, a tyrant, a blasphemer. These were nobodies. The whole point, unavoidably, was that these people were just people, any people.

When I returned the next day, they weren’t there. A terse note had been propped up in the display case. “This object is unavailable.” When I asked the guard standing in the doorway with a look of philosophical boredom on her face, all she could tell me was —

“They didn’t bring it out today.”

So, they took it “in” somewhere, after closing time?

Eventually I found a docent who told me that something had gone wrong with the lights that illuminated that particular display case, and the statue had been removed until the lights could be repaired. She had no idea how long that would take. I considered asking if I could see the statue wherever it now was, but the circumstances were so confusing, and I had so many other things on my mind, that I didn’t manage it. Were they boxed up somewhere, or just sitting out on a table, perhaps just on the other side of that wall? Perhaps I could see them through a window, if they were in the basement, beneath this floor. But would they be stored away as they were, uncovered? Wouldn’t they have to be covered, especially if they were in the basement, and the basement were as damp as basements usually are? Museum basements may have better climate control though. Could I claim to be some sort of student or academic, or arrange a private viewing? Perhaps I could pay to see it?