Diadem of Princess Khenmet, c. 1932–1898 B.C. Princess Khenmet is best known from her undisturbed tomb, which contained an exquisite collection of personal adornments. This masterpiece was discovered in the tomb she shared with her sister, Princess Ita, at Dahshur. While her parentage is uncertain, the proximity of her burial to the pyramid of Amenemhat...
Along with its sheath, this ceremonial dagger was a royal gift from king Ahmose to his mother Ahhotep, in whose burial it was discovered. The blade decorated with a typically Aegean technique but Egyptian iconography, bears the titulary of the king on one side and a hunting scene on the other side. Being a gift...
This perfume vase of King Tutankhamun is made of four pieces of alabaster cemented together. The idea conveyed by its symbolism is that the Nile will provide the king and queen, whose names are inscribed on the vase, with its contents. The vulture with the so-called Atef crown on its head represents either goddess Mut...
These three schist triads of Menkaure were found by the Egyptologist George Reisner in the valley temple of Menkaure near his pyramid in Giza. The triads was discovered in 1908 in the valley temple of Menkaure in its own hierarchical group, and 5 were found and it is believed that they were eight as there...
Painted limestone standing statue of Satmeret, Wife of Neferherenptah, called Fifi. He was a purification priest and prophet of the mortuary cults of the kings Khafre and Menkaure. Neferherenptah was thus of considerable influence in Giza, where he was buried in his own Mastaba. His tomb contained statues, rather simple in character of himself, of...
This large model shows a courtyard where the inspection of cattle took place. Meketre, his son, and four scribes sit under a columned canopy with scribes and guards standing nearby. Cattle are driven before them by several farmers and herdsmen in order to be counted for inspection purposes. All men are wearing short kilts and...
This bust of Ramesses II closely resembles a statue of Ramesses in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. However, the Cairo piece wears a long wig, rather than the Blue Khepresh Crown worn by the Turin statue (Cat. 1380). A uraeus can be seen at the king’s forehead, and he is shown with a young face,...
The diadem of princess Khenmet is formed of a series of horizontal and vertical decorations made of gold with inlays of semiprecious stones and glass paste. Each horizontal element is composed of a rosette flanked by two bell-shaped flowers heavily inlaid with carnelian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli. This decoration is repeated eight times. Two delicate...
These six board game pieces were associated with a game called ‘Mehen’ coil, because it was played on a circular limestone board that took the form of a coiled snake, its skin divided into squares. Three playing pieces represent recumbent lions, and three recumbent lionesses. The game of the snake, or Mehen, was a board...
This is one of the couches of King Tutankhamun. It is in the form of the goddess Mehet-weret, the cow goddess of the sky whose name means “great flood”. Three ritual funerary couches were found in the antechamber of Tutankhamun. They are made of stuccoed gilded wood in the form of sacred animals whose eyes...
