In this decoration showing the theme of the unification of the Two Lands ‘Sema Tawy’, Horus and Seth replaced Hapi, which was associated with the Nile god. Detail on the side of the throne of King Senusret I. Furthermore, we have here one of the rare cases in which the image of Seth, god of...
The Dendera zodiac is a widely known Egyptian bas-relief from the ceiling of the pronaos of a chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera. It contains images of Taurus and the Libra. The chapel was begun in the late Ptolemaic period; its pronaos was added by the emperor Tiberius. This led Jean-François...
This relief shows a beautiful, delicately carved depiction of an unknown Ancient Egyptian Nobleman, dating from the 19th or 20th Dynasty. It is believed that this fragment may have come from a tomb in Saqqara. With the lingering of the Amarna Period artistic revolution still in memory, the Egyptian need to forget the reign of...
The Shrine of Taharqa part of a temple built at Kawa, Nubia (modern Sudan) in about 680 BC. It was built on the orders of Taharqa who was King from 690 – 664 BC. The shrine was dedicated to the sun and fertility god Amun-Re. It was intended to give help to Taharqa in ruling...
This fragment of relief of a group of archers shows one of the most elaborately composed scenes preserved from the Old Kingdom. A careful examination reveals parts of at least four archers, three standing and one kneeling below them, his extended left arm and the upper part of his head just visible along the lower...
Relief of Queen Tiye, the Great Royal Wife of King Amenhotep III, wearing the vulture headdress and uraeus. The fragment was part of a stele. From the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III at Western Thebes. Tiye married Amenhotep III at the age of eleven or twelve in the second year of his reign, being approximately...
Decorations show scenes from the Amduat or “Book of What is in the Underworld”, detail of a wall carving in the second corridor of the Tomb of Ramesses IX (KV6). “Amduat (What is in the Netherworld) was used in Ancient Egypt as a generic name for descriptions of the netherworld, but in modern Egyptology is reserved...
Painted limestone relief depicting two men, Qar and Idu, hunting ducks with boomerangs. What ancient Egyptians like Qar and Idu were doing was taking one of the oldest hunting methods in human history (throwing a stick at something) and turning it into a pass time. In ancient Egypt, duck hunting held significance primarily as a...
Reliefs like this ram plaque depict a subject in a partial or unfinished way but are themselves complete objects that constitute a special class of object. Guidelines like those for artists are often prominently exhibited as part of the object, although, in fact, many instances can be noted where the object simply could not serve...
The battle of Kadesh is one of the world’s largest chariot battles, fought beside the Orontes River, King Ramesses II sought to wrest Syria from the Hittites and recapture the Hittite-held city of Kadesh. There was a day of carnage as some 5,000 chariots charged into the fray, but no outright victor. The Kadesh Treaty...
