Egypt Museum ancient Egypt art culture and history

Earrings of King Ramesses XI

Earrings of Ramesses XI

This pair of gold earrings, bearing the cartouche of King Ramesses XI, was found on a female mummy. They are formed of convex disks grooved along the edge and decorated with five uraei, or royal cobras, on the outer face. The three snakes in the middle bear a sun disk while the two outer ones...

Funerary Couch in the form of Mehit

Funerary Couch in the form of Mehit

This wooden bed is covered with gilded plaster designed to represent two elongated lionesses represent the goddess Mehit. According to the ancient Egyptian beliefs, Mehit was identified with Hathor, Sekhmet, and Isis and helped to cause the Nile flood when she was appeased. The eyes of these animals are inlaid with blue glass paste; the...

Plaque of Amenhotep III flanked by two uraei. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 30.8.334

Plaque of Amenhotep III flanked by two uraei

On this piece the uraeus cobra functions as the protector of the royal name, the name of king Amenhotep III “The Lord of Maat is Re” is in the center of the plaque. The top and center part of the inscription is written twice and the direction of the hieroglyphs was reversed. Only the very...

Statue of Kai

Statue of Kai

The statue shows Kai sitting on a high-backed chair. He wears a shoulder length wig, decorated with horizontal rows of curls. Each eye is framed in copper, while his eyebrows are in raised relief. The lips are thin and finely drawn. Below, he wears Usekh or Wesekh (broad) collar, composed of seven horizontal bands of...

Figurine of the god Khnum

Figurine of the god Khnum

Upper part of a steatite figurine depicting the god Khnum. The ram headed deity was the embodiment of the creative force and was thought to control the waters of the Nile from caves near the first cataract. Intimately connected to the river and the concept of fertility, the god was often depicted as a potter,...

Limestone fragmentary stele with Akhenaten

Fragmentary stele of Akhenaten

In this stele, Akhenaten is slouched on a low-backed, cushioned chair with side struts in the form of the ancient royal symbol for the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, which is partly obscured by the long sash of his pleated kilt. The Aten disk was above him, in the center of the stele. The...

Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World

Tutankhamun: the Tomb that Changed the World

“It is often thought that the story of Tutankhamun ended when the thousands of dazzling items discovered by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon were transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and put on display. But there is far more to the boy-king’s story. Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World explores the 100...

Discovery of the tomb of Kha and Merit at Deir el Medina

Discovery of the Tomb of Kha

After the discovery of the tomb of Kha by the Italian archaeologists, the Egyptian authorities insisted only on a small part of Kha’s finds so that a bronze lamp and its tall wooden support, breads, blocks of salt and 19 terracotta vases were retained by Egypt. All the rest of more than 500 items was...

Cartouches of the god Aten

Cartouches of Aten

This block of crystalline limestone once graced the railing of a stairway in a temple of the god Aten. It is in the form of a double cartouche, which usually enclosed the name of the king. In this relief instead, the cartouches contain the names of the sun disk Aten, the one god of king...

Model of Musical Entertainment

Model of Musical Entertainment

The wooden model of musical entertainment from the tomb of Ka-tenen depicts musicians and singers performing for the master. The master is seated on a carrying chair. A woman is seated on a stool by his feet. A man and a woman, who are positioned on either side of the carrying chair, are playing harps....