Neje and Mutnofret

This is a limestone double seated statue of Neje, the doorman of the Temple of Amun with his mother Mutnofret, who also worked at the temple as a priestess.

The mother and son pair are depicted in their finest linens and grandest wigs. Mutnofret, has a pleated wrapped floor length linen dress, adorned with a usekh collar. Her wig rests upon her bosom, with fine plaits in large quanitity. Her wig is adorned with a lotus blossom, and a headband. Her son, Neje, is wearing a shoulder-length wig, with numerous plaits that cascased over his glorious usekh collar. He was clearly a man of status. His linen kilt, known to the Egyptians as a “shendyt” is, like his mother’s dress, made from pleated linen. Both mother and son have offering hieroglyphs written down the front of their legs, so beautifull carved that they are almost appearing like a design of the costume.

Traces of pigment remain on the statue. Red pigments for the skin tone, black for the wig and yellow for the usekh collar and headband of Mutnofret. They sit upon a chair which is very similar to a chair discovered within the Tomb of Tutankhamun. The feet of the chair are animal paws, likely a lion. The lion was a symbol of the Egyptian pharaoh, or the power of Egypt itself as an empire.

The statue of Mutnofret and Neje dates from the Ramesside period, 19th Dynasty c. 1295 BCE–1188 B.C., and now resides in Germany at the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin.

Did you know?
Mut was a mother goddess whose name literally translates to “Mother”, thus the name Mutnofret literally means, “Mut is Beautiful” or “Mother is beautiful”.

Summary:

Limestone double seated statue of Neje, the doorman of the Temple of Amun with his mother Mutnofret, who also worked at the temple as a priestess
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, c. 1295–1188 B.C.
Ägyptisches Museum. Gl. WAF 25