Egypt Museum ancient Egypt art culture and history

Statue of Heqet

Statue of Heqet

This statue of the frog goddess Heqet stands at the beginning of a great tradition of animal sculpture in Egyptian art. During the Predynastic period statues of animals are much more common than those of humans. The sculptor has shown great sensitivity to the natural banding of the stone, using it to enhance the roundness...

Funerary Stele of Tembu

Funerary Stele of Tembu

This round topped funerary stele of Tembu is carved in very low relief and brightly painted in red, yellow, blue, and black. The decoration comprises of two registers of offering scenes and a register of inscription on the bottom. The top depicts two Wadjet eyes flanking a shen-ring and water ripples with a bowl. Below...

Faiyum Portrait Mummy of a Young Child

This mummy from Hawara, dates from the 1st-2nd Century A.D., and is of a young child aged 2-3 years of age. Barbara Borg FSA (Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Scuola Normale Superiore) and German Egyptologist and Curator Dr. Cäcilia Fluck proposed that the idea of the mummy being a male was incorrect, based upon...

Female figure in boudoir

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...

Figurine of a Female Dog nursing 5 Pups

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...

Alabaster goblet engraved with the names of Amenhotep IV & Nefertiti

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...

Six lines of hieratic text describes measurements of elements of a royal tomb

Ostracon with tomb measurement plans

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...

Relief of Amenemhat I

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...

Hounds & Jackals

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...

Wooden face from a coffin

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...