Middle Kingdom

Cartonnage Mummy Mask of a Woman

This mummy mask of a woman dates from the 11th Dynasty, around 2000 B.C. The woman is adorned in a usekh collar, headband with exposed breasts. Her eyes and brows are lined with blue. She wears a heavy wig of black hair and her skin is painted yellow. Most notably about this mummy mask are...

Temple lintel of King Amenemhat III

Temple lintel of King Amenemhat III

Royal temple lintel of Amenemhat III: a rectangular limestone raised relief from a temple door lintel. The text is arranged symmetrically, with the central cartouche placed over the axis of the doorway. The text cannot be deciphered into a single sentence, since the elements are arranged according to heraldic rather than linguistic principles. In the...

Head of Senwosret III

This head, of the Middle Kingdom king Senwosret III, was discovered in front of the 4th Pylon of the Karnak Temple Complex in 1970. Made from rose granite, it depicts the king wearing the Double Crown (Pschent). Measuring at 80cm, the face is easily recognizable as Senwosret III from other portraits of the king, although...

Middle Kingdom Family Portrait

Family portrait featuring a male and two female figures. The man wears a plaited wig that is shoulder length. His ears are oversized, something that was seemingly ‘in fashion’ of the time in depictions of the human form. He wears a lengthy skirt or shenydt that wraps around him just above his hip, his hands...

Imti

This wooden figure depicts Imti as a youth. Dating from around 1900-1800 B.C., it dates from the Middle Kingdom. It is inscribed with a funerary prayer, “Revered before Osiris, Imti, the blessed.” Imti is depicted as a youth, striding forth, nude, wearing only a necklace and cuffs. Children were often (but not always) depicted with...

Middle Kingdom Man

This figure of a man is 15 7/8 inches tall with base (40.4 cm), and depicts a male in traditional Middle Kingdom. Carved out of wood, interestingly, the different parts of the body were created separately and then placed together via nails. After this, they were plastered over and painted. The man is currently unknown,...

The superintendent Tef-Ib

“The revered before Dwe-mutf, the Domain-Superintendent, Itf-ib, engendered by Itf-ib, the blessed, Lord of Reverence.” These wooden figures of a man named Tef-Ib were discovered within his tomb. Although all representing Tef-Ib, they also hold the inscriptions of the Four Sons of Horus, usually associated with the Canopic jars, as they were deemed protectors of...

Striding figure of a man

This wooden figure of a man dates from around 2347-1793 B.C., making it a Late Old Kingdom – Middle Kingdom production. It depicts a man with one leg forth, holding a now, missing staff, and another object in his hand. He wears a short cropped wig upon his head and a pleated linen kilt, known...

Middle Kingdom head of a man

This head of a man dates from the Middle Kingdom period and is very recognizable by the characteristics of the face. Here we see a style of portraiture that began with the reign of Senwosret III. The face is no longer a smooth serene idealistic depiction, but a detailed lined face with frown lines, sunken...

Plaster cast of a face

Within the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, there is a rather strange thing that doesn’t get much attention. It is what appears to be a true to life plaster cast death mask. This is not a mask made by an artist to represent a godlike image of the deceased, but an actual cast of the face....