This fascinating figure of a woman is beautifully carved from a piece limestone and showcases a woman in her feminine nature. She holds one bust, and if you look closely, you can see the remnants of a baby, who she is suckling. She appears nude and is flanked by her kohl tube and personal mirror...
Carved and delicately painted, this limestone figurine showcases a mother dog nursing her five pups. Upon a vibrant yellow backdrop, the mother dog is collared and her lead/leash cascades to the floor in a decorative spiral. Her teets are depicted 2-dimensional against the raised limestone 3-dimensional effect of the pups and mother herself. Her face...
Purchased in Cairo by Nicholas Tano in 1922, this Egyptian Alabaster goblet is formed and detailed in the shape of a lotus flower. Both the throne name, “Nefer-kheperu-Re, beloved of Re” and personal name of Amenhotep IV (later Akhenaten) are engraved on the side of the chalice, between two cartouches encircling the early titulary of...
This ostracon (British Museum. EA8505) was discovered in Deir el-Medina, the site of the famed Worker’s Village (Set Ma’at). The Worker’s Village housed the workmen and their families employed to construct nearby royal and aristocratic tombs. It is officially classified as a heritage site due to the large number of archaeological discoveries left by the...
In this relief Amenemhat I is shown celebrating his thirty-year jubilee (Sed Festival), ritually demonstrating that he was still vigorous and fit to rule. The king is flanked by the jackal-headed god Anubis and the falcon-headed Horus, deities closely associated with coronation rituals; each god offers him an ankh, the hieroglyph for life. To the...
With a board carved in the shape of an axe-blade, and resting upon legs shaped in the form of bull’s legs, this game of Hounds & Jackals also comes with a pull-out drawer to hold the pieces; 5 jackals and 5 hounds. This set of the game Hounds and Jackals was unearthed in 1910 by...
This face, carved from wood (unknown at the present which type of wood), measures at 22.8cm and was purchased by the British Museum from the collection of the Somerset Lowry-Corry, 2nd Earl Belmore (1774–1841) in 1843. Originally, this wooden face was made to be attached to a coffin, alas, whether it ever was attached to...
A pregnant Queen Ahmose, with her daughter (and future ruler of Egypt) Hatshepsut in utero. This scene is depicted within the walls of Hatshepsut’s funerary temple Djeser-Djeseru (“Holy of Holies”) and documents the mythos of Hatshepsut’s divine conception and birth, therefore giving her divine-right to the throne of Egypt. It is known as the Birth...
In its entirety the relief showed Ay kneeling in worship with his family and surrounded by a long prayer inscribed in hieroglyphs. The style of Ay’s portrait is typical of the Amarna period in its naturalistic depiction of the narrow and bony face, long nose, and small, squinty eyes- features common to other surviving representations...
Musicians perform as the seminary priest offers libation. A harpist, flute and lute player can be seen performing a Harper’s Song. Interestingly, the Harper’s Song accompanying this scene within the Chapel of Pa-Aten-Em-Heb, has a somewhat agnostic lyric, telling the listener through song, that lamenting and worrying about an Afterlife is seldom constructive, and one...
This stele was colored with a mixture of pigment and tempera. First, however, it was sculpted in raised and sunken relief; only later were some of its surfaces embellished with black, brown, green, yellow, and white paint. The stele commemorates for all eternity a man named Amenemhat and his wife, Hemet. Before them are two...
“Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia”, also known as “Progress”, was the proposal of erecting a neoclassical colossal statue at the Suez Canal entryway in Port Said, Egypt. Designed in the late 1860s by French artist Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was planned to be that of a robed female named “Saeid Misr” or “Upper...
This stele is known in Egyptian art as a cippus (pl. cippi) or magical stele. The instructions found on some cippi indicate that they were used to heal afflictions caused by snake or scorpion venom. Specifically, Egyptians believed that the water poured over these cippi would be transformed into a curative remedy that the afflicted...
