As a sphinx, Hatshepsut displays a lion’s mane and a king’s beard. Hatshepsut ruled as a man, not as a woman, and for this reason her royal protocols and titles are always written without the feminine qualification, which is the “T” letter in hieroglyphs. This is the case in the text inscribed on the base...
The mummy of Maatkare Mutemhat is plastered and painted with a mixture of yellow ochre and gum, and powdered resins were sprinkled over her face. Hers was the earliest mummy of her period to have been stuffed to present a life-like appearance. The body was internally packed and molded into the shape of the living...
Funeral shroud depicts Anubis and Osiris with the deceased, from 2nd Century CE Roman Egypt. Greco-Roman mummy cases and shrouds were often painted with images reflecting pharaonic religious beliefs about the hereafter but adapted to suit the prevailing Greco-Roman style. Egyptian divinities of the afterlife feature prominently, and include some or all of the following:...
This plaque, or thin plate, was placed on the mummy of king Psusennes I over the incision made in the lower abdomen to remove the internal organs. The plate was intended to heal and form a scar over the incision. In the center of the plate, there is a sacred wadjet eye flanked by the Four Sons...
The shrine of Hathor and the cow’s statue were retrieved from under heaps of debris south of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. The shrine is from the reign of Thutmose III. Its roof is painted blue with yellow stars to imitate the Vault of Heaven. The statue of Hathor as the divine...
In this Great Hymn to the Aten, a detail of a painted low relief depicts Akhenaten and his family adoring the sun god Aten. The stele showing Akhenaten and Nefertiti offering to the Aten, followed by their two eldest daughters shaking sistrum. The stele was completed but here is still a grid of red draft...
The Narmer macehead is an ancient Egyptian decorative stone mace head. It was found in the “main deposit” in the temple area of the ancient Egyptian city of Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) by British Egyptologist James Quibell in 1898. The mace is a club-like weapon with a heavy top stone that is pierced for the insertion of...
The stele of Merneptah was originally erected by King Amenhotep III in his mortuary temple on the west bank of Thebes. King Merneptah, the thirteenth son and successor of King Ramesses II, reused the back face of this gray granite stele. The round top of this face, topped by the winged sun disk and flanked...
Portrait head of a princess of one of the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti from a composite statue, it was discovered within the workshop of the royal sculptor Thutmose at Tell el-Amarna, or Akhetaten. In Amarna art the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti express the tenets of the new religion. Gathered playfully near their parents,...
The stele of sculptor Bek the chief royal artist is itself a very distinctive product, with two figures contained within a naos but carved almost three-dimensionally. If, as would seem very possible, Bek himself carved the stele, this would be the oldest self-portrait known. The inscription of this stele also mentions him being taught by...
