The statue depicts Ranefer, standing and is wearing an overlapped kilt of medium length. His hair was cut short and the eyes are painted. This splendid statue was found together with another statue, almost identical, in two niches in the chapel at his tomb at Saqqara. This one shows him in an old age while...
The bears and the jar holding oil represented on this relief exemplify the exotic animals and precious goods among the Near Eastern booty. Territorial conquest was not the aim of these enterprises; rather it was the acquisition of raw materials, animals, and sometimes people.) Shown under the northern courtyard portico was booty from the Levant....
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...
This lively statuette of a woman is presented in the act of making beer, kneading dough in a strainer over a large jar. The woman is wearing only a close-fitting, medium-length white skirt and a necklace. The pale blue shape of which can be clearly seen around her neck. Her hair is covered by a...
The statue depicts Kaaper, the chief lector priest, in charge of reciting prayers for the deceased in temples and funerary chapels. Sheikh el-Balad, Arabic title for the chief of the village, was the name given to this remarkable wooden statue discovered by the workmen of Auguste Mariette, the French archaeologist, because it resembled their own...
Seneb was a dwarf who served as a high-ranking court official in the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, circa 2520 BC. Despite his diminutive size, Seneb was a person of considerable importance and wealth who owned thousands of cattle, held twenty palace and religious titles and was married to a high-ranking priestess of average size...
This family statue depicts Nykara, whose title is Scribe of the Granary, seated between the two standing figures of his wife and son. If Nykara were shown standing, his dimensions are such that he would tower over the other two figures. Also, although the boy’s nakedness, sidelock of youth, and finger-to-mouth gesture indicate that he...
Bas-relief depicts sculptors working on statues, detail of a wall carving from the joint Mastaba of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, royal servants. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Nyuserre Ini. In the Old Kingdom of Egypt, sculpting statues held great importance for several reasons. Firstly, statues were created to...
The sarcophagus chamber in the Pyramid of Unas; some of the Pyramid Texts can be seen written on the gable. The Pyramid Texts are the oldest religious writings known to exist. They were first recorded in the pyramid of Unas, last king of Egypt’s 5th Dynasty, and are called “Pyramid Texts” because they were carved...
The discovery of the tomb of Akhethotep, overlord of the 5th dynasty, in 1941 was and will forever remain one of the most spectacular discoveries in the history of Egyptology. Hassabollah Taieb recorded the moment for posterity modestly, as he considered the wooden figures to be his own ancestors. Akhethotep’s titles included that of a...
