Place of discovery: Middle Egypt, Tuna el-Gebel, Necropolis
Size: W. 13 cm, L. 55 cm
Material: Papyrus
Only three examples of satirical papyri have survived from ancient Egypt. These examples represent animals imitating human behaviour with humorous or satirical purposes. The Egyptian artists used these animal symbols to express the state of Egypt in the periods of weakness by representing the cats (as Egyptians) waiting on and serving mice (the foreigners), who have become in the centre of power. It also parodies the political climate through scenes of cats and wolves taking care of geese, and the lion who plays the Senet with gazelles and musical groups of animals. Some cartoons also satirise funerary and religious customs, while in religious life, animal symbols with human actions are expressed in mythical events and religious rituals.
This papyrus contains two satirical scenes; a female rat (foreigner) is depicted sitting on a high chair to the left, with her foot resting on a footstool, a cat (Egyptian) helps her put on a wig, while another cat stands in front of her offering her a beverage. Behind her, a third cat is holding her son, and the fourth is holding a fan. The other scene to the right depicts a cat holding two pitchers, before which another cat offers libation in front of a statue of a cow (ritual of purification).
Cosmetic spoons were extremely popular during the New Kingdom. Egyptian craftsmen were able to combine great imagination and technical ability to create such charming household items. These cosmetic spoons were not only part of daily body care and adornment, they can also be interpreted as ritual objects related to various goddesses such as Nut and Hathor.
The handle of this cosmetic spoon depicts a naked young woman swimming with her legs nicely outstretched. The girl is fashioned with a simple wig on her head and a beaded-painted broad collar around her neck. Her arms are also outstretched holding the spoon, formed in a shape of a duck with an opening mouth and wagging tongue. The head of the duck was added separately, while its back is hollowed out to contain the cosmetic powder. The wings of the duck are missing, but were carved separately as a cover to the container, the top of which was originally attached with a peg that allowed it to swing open. It is possible that this piece could have been able to float for amusement.
Place of discovery: Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut Deir el-Bahri Thebes, MMA (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) in 1928
Size: H 62.00 cm W 33.00 cm D/L 108.00 cm
Material: Painted Limestone
These fragments are part of a large relief wall commissioned by queen Hatshepsut to commemorate an important trade expedition sent by the queen to Punt, a country situated somewhere on the Red Sea coast south of Egypt, probably in the region of present-day Somalia/Eritrea. This expedition sent in order to obtain exotic goods for her treasury and her pleasure – exotic animals, gold, incense materials, ebony and even trees for the temple garden. One of the relief depicts king Parehu and queen Ati. The king is very slender and wears a kilt with a long sash, two under-tassels and a dagger tucked into the waistband. His long, slender beard distinguishes him as a foreigner. The queen is excessively overweight with extreme curvature of the spine, rolls of fat on arms, body and legs. She wears a sleeveless dress, belted at the waist, a necklace with large disk beads, bracelets and anklets. On the right edge is a partial depiction of two rows of gold rings in baskets and a third of undetermined identification.
Place of discovery: Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut Deir el-Bahri Thebes, MMA (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) in 1928
Size: Height: 62 cm, width: 33 cm, Depth: 108cm
Material: Painted Limestone
The body of this sphinx of Hatshepsut, as pharaoh, is rendered in typical style with the front legs extending forward and the tail curling around the right rear leg. The style of the head, however, pays homage to characteristics of those of the late 12th dynasty, effecting a more leonine quality by replacing the usual nemes crown with a thick, stylized mane. The neatly-arranged fur covers her head, meeting the forehead with a broad band. The mane also frames her face ending at the long false beard and extends down the from the legs to the “elbows”. Her face reflects the typical elements of her portraits: delicate and feminine, with large “half-moon” eyes and high, arched brows, both of which extend in a long cosmetic line. The nose (broken) is slim and the mouth small with a hint of a prim smile. The ingenuous character of the face stands in stark contrast with the power exuded by the leonine aspects of the sculpture. A line of inscription extending from just below the beard to the base between the paws reads: “Maatkare [her coronation name], beloved of Amun, endowed with life forever.” Traces of the blue and yellow paint can be seen. This sphinx, the embodiment of the power and might of the pharaoh, is thought to have been placed at the ramp between the lower and middle terraces at her temple at Deir el-Bahri.
Place of discovery: Abydos, Excavated by W.M.F. Petrie for the EEF (Egypt Exploration Fund) in 1903
Size: Height: 226 cm, width: 106 cm
Material: Limestone
This commemorative stela, bears a vignette and inscription dedicated to queen Tetisheri, the maternal grandmother of king Ahmose who founded the mighty 18th dynasty. It is topped by a winged disk incorporating two cobras, a symbol of royal protection. The vignette consists of a mirror image of an almost identical scene in which the king makes offering to the queen. She is seated on a throne on a dais holding, in both instances in her left hand, a fly whisk, a common accoutrement for royal women, and she wears plain sheath dress and broad collar. Her head is adorned with the vulture crown, identifying her as mother to the heir to the throne, to which is added two plumes (probably ostrich). Her right hand is extended to receive the various offerings of food and cosmetics. King Ahmose stands, in both instances, behind the tables with his right hand in a gesture that indicates the giving of the offerings. In his left hand he holds his stick and a mace with a pear-shaped head. He wears a simple kilt with an fringed apron and the royal tail accoutrement. The artist has made some minor adjustments to the symmetrical arrangement (a common device in Egyptian art) in order to maintain the verisimilitude of the ritual – the whisk is always held in the left hand and the gestures here are properly made with the right.
The staff is carried, as usual, in the left hand; however, the mace was generally depicted in the right hand, ready to defend, but here, the king has retired it to his left in deference to his presentation to his esteemed grandmother. The inscriptions in the vignette give the names and titles of the king and queen, while the 17 preserved lines below refer to the creation of offerings for Tetisheri’s shrine in Abydos, where this stela was found, and the intention of the king to build her a pyramid and temple, the remains of which can be identified on a terrace near the cliffs.
Place of discovery: Deir el Bahari, Bab el-Gasus Cache, Thebes
Material: Painted wood
Padiamun was a priest of Amun buried in Bab el-Gusus cache in two yellow coffins with mummy board. The coffins, evoking the sun and the resurrection, are decorated with vignettes and texts from the Book of the Dead: cosmological deities as Geb the god of the earth, and Nut the goddess of the sky arched over Geb are also depicted.
Mummy of a hunting dog found in tomb KV 50 nearby tomb of king Amenhotep II (18th Dynasty) in the Valley of the King: dogs often were buried near their owners and probably this dog belonged to the king or a member of his family.
The wooden outer sarcophagus of Yuya, mummy-shape, is completely covered with a gold leaf and adorned with glass paste. Inside the sarcophagus, there were two Osiriform coffins with the mummy.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty – Reign of Amenhotep III (1387-1350 BC)
Place of discovery: Valley of the Kings – Thebes
Size: Length: 19,38 meters
This 19.37-meter long papyrus, complete and well-preserved, was found in the tomb of Yuya and Tuya: it contains the «Book of the Dead» written in cursive hieroglyphs. The Book of the Dead whose original name is Book of Coming Forth by Day is a series of around 190 chapters containing magical and ritual spells, illustrated with drawings, intended to help the deceased survive in the Underworld. The texts of this papyrus running from left to right are illustrated by scenes from funerary rituals and mortuary cult like the worship of Osiris and the funeral procession.
Size: Height: 275 cm , Length: 508 cm , Width: 328 cm
Material: Wood, gold leaf
The first shrine almost completely occupied the burial chamber. The outer walls of the first shrine, whose shape evoked that of the pavilion used by the pharaoh during the Jubilee celebration, were decorated with ged pillars, amulets associated with Osiris representing stability, alternating with tit or Isis knots, signs of protection, both of which stood out against a bright blue faïence background. Inside the shrine were passages from the Book of the Dead and the Book of the Celestial Cow.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reign of Tutankhamun (1327-1318 BC)
Size: Height: 85,5 cm, Lenght: 54 cm, Width: 54 cm
Place of discovery: Valley of the Kings – Thebes
Material: Alabaster, gold leaf
Inside the shrine, wrapped in a linen sheet, was the container for the canopic vases made of Egyptian alabaster (calcite) resting on a gilded wood sled. Its interior was divided into four compartments with lids with the pharaoh’s image in which were four small sarcophagi, miniature reproductions (39 cm tall) of the pharaoh’s intermediate anthropoid coffin that contained the viscera (lungs, stomach, intestine, and liver) extracted from the king’s body. The base of the container is covered with a gold leaf and decorated with djed and tit symbols.
Place of discovery: Deir el Bahari, Bab el-Gasus Cache, Thebes
Material: Painted wood
During the 21st Dynasty, many priests and priestesses of Amun were buried around the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari. In 1891 the archeologist discovered a cache burial of 153 priests and priestesses of Amun named Bab el-Gasus (the gate of the priests) also known as the 2nd Cache of Deir el Bahari: inside there were 254 beautiful coffins, 110 boxes of ushabtis, about 100 papyri, amulets, and stelaes.
This sarcophagus belonged to Meritamun, a chantress in the temple of Amun, daughter of the High Priest of Amun: she was buried in only one coffin decorated with religious text and images showing deities and the judgment of the dead. The mummy board shows Meritamun wearing a long robe and a wig decorated with flowers.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty – Reign of Amenhotep I (1514-1494 BC)
Place of discovery: Deir el Bahari, tomb TT358 – Thebes
Material: Painted wood
Ahmose-Meritamun was the daughter of the king Ahmosis I and the Great Royal Wife of his brother Amenhotep I: her tomb (TT358) was discovered by the American archeologist Herbert Winlock in 1929 at Deir el Bahari. The Queen originally had three coffins: the outermost one was broken up by the robbers, the middle coffin is displayed here and the inner coffin is now in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty – Reign of Amenhotep III (1387-1350 BC)
Size: Height: 40 cm
Place of discovery: Valley of the Kings – Thebes
Material: Wood lined with stucco, gold leaf, plant fibers
Princess Satamun was the daughter of Amenhotep III and the grand-daughter of Yuya and Tuya, and she placed this chair in the tomb of her grandparents. The back is decorated with two mirror images representing a young girl who hands a large necklace to a seated woman whom the hieroglyphic inscription identifies as «the daughter of the king, the great, his beloved Satamun».
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty – Reign of Amenhotep III (1387-1350 BC)
Size: Height: 77 cm
Place of discovery: Valley of the Kings – Thebes
Material: Cartonnage: Linen and stucco, gold leaf, glass paste, alabaster.
This magnificent funerary mask, made of stucco with golden leaf, belong to Tuya, the wife of Yuya, mother of the Queen Tiy, and great grand-mother of Tutankhamun, and has been found in the intact tomb KV 46 in the Valley of the Kings by the Egyptian Antiquities and Theodore Davis in 1905 with a very rich funerary equipment.
This ceremonial throne was the most beautiful object among all those found in the Antechamber of the tomb, entirely overlaid with an embossed gold sheet 3 mm thick and inlaid with vitreous paste and semi-precious stones. The back of this masterpiece of ancient Egyptian art depicts, in pure Amarna style, Queen Ankhsenamun, royal wife of Tutankhamun, under a kiosk rubbing an ointment on King Tutankhamun’s shoulder while the sun god spreads his rays on the couple. Howard Carter stated that this was “the most beautiful thing found to date in Egypt.”
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reign of Tutankhamun (1327-1318 BC)
Size: Height: 192 cm, Length: 98 cm, Width: 53.3 cm
Place of discovery: Valley of the Kings – Thebes
Material: Wood painted with black resin and gilded, bronze
This is one of the two life-size guardian statues placed on either side of the door that gave access to the burial chamber. Originally the statues were wrapped in sheets of linen. This statue wears a wig called khat, has a gilded bronze cobra uraeus on the forehead, and clasp a stick in its left hand and a mace in the right hand. The black color assimilates the king to the god Osiris whose face often is black.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reign of Tutankhamun (1327-1318 BC)
Size: Height: 198 cm, Lenght: 153 cm, Width: 122 cm
Place of discovery: Valley of the Kings – Thebes
Material: Wood lined with stucco and gilded, glass paste
This shrine was found in the so-called Treasure Room, with an alabaster container inside within which there were four canopic vases with four miniature sarcophagi for the internal organs of the king. The shrine, placed on a sled, is surrounded by two friezes of cobras with the solar disk. On every side of the shrine, there is a goddess with open arms to protect the canonic vases: Isis, Nephthys, Neith and Selket
This golden mask is the most famous of all the artefacts of ancient Egypt, a true icon of the pharaonic civilization. It will be the last artefact to be transported to the new museum. The king is portrayed with the nemes, white and blue stripped line headdress: a uraeus (holy cobra) and a vulture adorn his forehead and a false beard made from gold and glass paste. The king’s eyes are reproduced with quartz and obsidian. On his back, magical inscriptions are engraved taken from Chapter 151b of the Book of the Dead.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reigns of Thutmosis III (1479-1425 BC) – Amenhotep II (1425-1400 BC)
Size: Height: 225 cm, Lenght: 227 cm
Place of discovery: Deir el Bahari – Temple of Thutmosis III (Thebes West)
Material: Painted sandstone
The goddess Hathor like cow protects king Amenhotep II, son and successor of Thutmosis III who stands below her neck: the cow is surrounded by papyrus stems and wears the Hathoric horns with the solar disk with two short plumes and the uraeus (cobra).
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, reign of Thutmosis III (1479-1425 BC)
Size: Height: 225 cm, Width: 157 cm, Length: 404 cm
Place of discovery: Deir el Bahari – Temple of Thutmosis III (Thebes West)
Material: Painted sandstone
This shrine with the statue of the Goddess Hathor like cow built by Thutmosis III was found in 1906 near the temple of Mentuhotep at Deir el-Bahari. The roof is painted blue with yellow stars to imitate the Vault of Heaven, and on the back wall, the king makes libations and burns incense before Amun-Ra. The original colors have been perfectly conserved.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reign of Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BC)
Size: Height: 49,3 cm, Width: 45 cm
Place of discovery: Deir el Bahari – Temple of Hatshepsut (Thebes West)
Material: Painted limestone
Two reliefs come from the Punt portico in the second terrace of the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari and are part of a group of scenes illustrating an expedition to the Land of Punt in the southern part of the Red Sea made during the ninth year of Hatshepsut reign. The main scene shows the king of Punt Parehu followed by his wife Ati, and several men carrying some of the products of Punt: incense, myrrh, gold, and ivory.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep IV- Akhenaten (1353-1336 BC)
Size: Height: 35,5 cm
Place of discovery: Tell el- Amarna
Material: Quartzite, pigment
This beautifully unfinished head of Queen Nefertiti, the royal wife of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) recalls the iconic beauty of the famous bust now in Neues Museum in Berlin and present her as an idealized royal figure but, despite the unfinished state of the sculpture the classic elements of Nefertiti’s facial features are still visible. The origins of Nefertiti (his name means «The beautiful one who has come») have not yet been fully clarified but we know that she got married at 13-year-old during the first three years of Akhenaten’s reign. This masterpiece of the Egyptian sculpture cade according to the canons of Amarna style of art, was discovered in 1933 during the excavations at Tell el-Amarna by the Egypt Exploration Society in a sculptor’s workshop that produced composite sculpture pieces and this head was intended to be mounted on a composite statue: the black guidelines on the queen’s face give us an idea how the sculptor worked.
Dynasty: 19th Dynasty, reign of Ramesses II (1479-1458 BC)
Size: Height: 231 cm
Place of discovery: Tanis, San el-Hagar
Material: Granodiorite
This statue represents Ramesses II as a child (mes), naked, with his finger on his lips, wearing a lock of hair (known as the side-lock of youth) to the right side of his head, surmounted by a sun disk (ra) and his left-hand grasps a rush (su). The King is under the protection of a falcon god called Horun, a deity from the mountains of Lebanon associated with the god Hamakhis «Horus of the Horizon». This statue is a monumental transposition on the stone of the name of king Ramesu.
Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reign of Amenhotep III (1390-1353 BC)
Size: Height: 700 cm, Width: 440 cm
Place of discovery: Thebes West – Temple of Amenhotep III
Material: Limestone
This statuary group (dyad) found in pieces by Auguste Mariette in 1839 dominates the Central Hall and is the largest artifact in the entire museum and represents the pharaoh Amenhotep III sitting on his throne with Queen Tiy at his side and their daughters Henuttaneb (in central position), Nebetah and another princess without name in smaller scale. The king is depicted with the classic nemes headdress and the queen with an imposing wig.
Dynasty: Dynasty 18, reign of Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BC)
Size: Height: 61 cm, Width: 55 cm
Place of discovery: Thebes, Deir el-Bahari, Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
Material: Painted Limestone
This head comes from one of the twenty-four colossal Osiris statues that decorate the portico of the third terrace of her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari. Hatshepsut was the sister-wife of Thutmosis II and become the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. The queen is portrayed as Osiris with male attributes like the ceremonial beard and depicted with reddish-brown skin, a colour usually restricted to men in ancient Egyptian art, in contrast to the pale yellowish colour reserved for women.
