A 5,000-year-old statue of the Egyptian god Min, featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition "Divine Egypt," has gone viral on X after a user posted a humorous comment about the god's erect phallus, which is now missing. The statue, known as the Colossal Statue of Min, originally depicted the god holding his erect phallus, a symbol of male fertility, but the phallus was carved from a separate piece of stone and has been lost. The exhibition includes nearly 250 artworks related to Egyptian deities, with loans from the Louvre, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The viral moment highlights how ancient art can unexpectedly capture public attention through social media, blending humor with historical education. The exhibition "Divine Egypt" offers a scholarly context for understanding Min's iconography, which remained consistent for 3,000 years, and the incident underscores the enduring power of ancient artifacts to spark contemporary discourse. The Met's show, praised by ARTnews critic Alex Greenberger for containing "quite a lot that defies easy explanation," demonstrates how museums can engage modern audiences through both serious scholarship and unexpected viral moments.