This talatat depicts two princesses of king Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. Their youth is represented by the hairstyle Egyptologist’s have dubbed the ‘side lock of youth’, a plaited strand or strands of hair on an otherwise shaven head or short hairstyle. This piece was found among the foundations of the Pylon of Ramesses II...
On this block from a temple relief, Akhenaten, recognizable by his elongated features, holds a duck toward the Aten. With one hand he wrings the bird’s neck before offering it to the god. In this relief, the artist has cut the outlines of the figures into the surface in a technique called sunk relief. Sunk...
This relief portrait of Queen Nefertiti comes from a short end of a talatat, a limestone block of standardized size used during the Amarna Period in the building of the Aten temples at Karnak and Akhetaten. The standardized size and their small weight made construction more efficient. The term talatat is most likely derived from...
A fragment of a relief depicts court musicians from the Amarna Period and attendants of the royal family, six ladies in waiting and gentlemen sunshade-bearers. During the Amarna Period the need for speedy erection of new temples for Aten led to the use of smaller, now called Talatat, blocks of stone, which were easier to...
