Third Dynasty Boat Found at Abu Sir

     A boat possibly dating to the reign of Huni, the last Pharaoh of Egypt's Third Dynasty has been found by a Czech team. The find is associated with a nobleman's burial, rather than a royal burial. I believe this is the first example known of a full sized boat being buried with a nobleman.

     The boat is also interesting in that the wood planks are in their original places and the ropes that held them together are preserved in places. An article on the discovery can be found here.

Meketre Servant Statue

     One of my favorite pieces of Egyptian art, a wooden statue of a servant girl, is from the tomb of Meketre. It was found at Dier el-Bahari near the temple of Queen Hatshepsut by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Meketre was a nobleman of the early Middle Kingdom and his tomb contained a large number of models of daily life that are now split between the Cairo Museum and the Met.

     The statue is carved from several pieces of wood. The head and body are one piece, while her two arms were carved separately and joined to the torso of the statue.   The feet of the statue are also carved separately and joined to the lady's body. Finally the statue is joined to a wooden base. After the various pieces were joined the wood was covered with gesso (plaster) and painted.

     The serving girl has a graceful set of curves carved into the wood. She wears a dress that has two (bead-work?) straps that go up over her shoulders while a beaded broad collar is shown around her neck. A nice touch that is not normally noticed by visitors to the Met is the duck she holds by its wings in her right hand. On my first trip to Egypt I took the bus from downtown Cairo to Giza, and there was a woman on the bus holding a live duck in the exact same way. The duck was less than pleased and there were feathers all over the bus. To me it was a memorable slice of real life.

   

Identification of Egyptian Royal Mummies

     The American Journal of Physical Anthropology has published an article on the identification of the Egyptian royal mummies. I have not yet read it so I cannot comment, but you can find a copy of it here.

Babylonian Use of Sophisticated Geometry

     A newly translated Babylonian tablet shows how the plant Jupiter was tracked through the heavens using a sophisticated type of geometry that scientists had previously thought was unknown until Medieval times. The tablet seems to date from sometime between 350 B. C. and 50 B.C. Here are two links to articles that will give more information on this text:

Short News Article
Journal of Science article

   
     In other news, Egyptologists have found some very early inscriptions in the area of Wadi Ameyra in Egypt. Supposedly the inscriptions show that Queen Neith-Hotep was not the wife of Narmer, but was actually the regent queen ruling for a very young King Djer of the First Dynasty.

Statuette of the Lady Senbi

     This small, cedar wood statuette of the lady Senbi dates to the late Eleventh or early Twelfth Dynasty. It shows Senbi wearing a tight sheath dress and has a painted outline of a broad collar around her neck. The dress and any other details would originally have been shown in paint and are not clearly delineated by the carving of the statuette itself.

     As is normal with Egyptian wooden statues, this piece was cared as several separate pieces of wood which were then pegged together. The statuette was likely covered wth a thin layer of gesso and then painted.

     The face of this work has a certain charm to it and the original black paint on the hair and the outline of her eyes have survived until modern times.

     This object is on loan from the Roemer und Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim.
   

A Middle Kingdom Harp

Fig. 1 - Stela of Iki

     Harps were a common musical instrument in ancient Egypt. There are numerous representations of harper, including the stela shown here. This object, made for a man called IKI and his wife Renesankh, shows a grossly overweight harpist (fig. 2) playing a tune for the couple.

Fig. 2 - harpist from the top register of the stela

Fig. 3 - Middle Kingdom harp

     The stela is of a common type, rectangular in shape, almost as if it is a shrine of some sort.  Iki sits in front of an offering table to the harpist's left. His wife stands behind him and rests one of her hands on his shoulders. The middle and lower rows of the stela show Iki and his family receiving funerary offerings. Hapists are often represented as being blind, but there is no indication of that being the case here. This object is from late Dynasty 12 and is from Abydos. It is now in the Rijksmuseum in Leiden.

     In fig. 3 we see an actual harp that dates to late Dynasty 12 or early Dynasty 13. The sound box at the bottom of the harp would have originally been covered by an animal skin or parchment. The harp had five strings that were played by being plucked.

An Early Dynasty 12 Stela

Fig. 1 - Stela of Kay

     Some of the stelae shown in the Met's Middle Kingdom special exhibit have some interesting details on them. This particular one is from Dynasty Twelve and shows a hunter, named Kay with either his wife or mother and his hunting dogs.

Fig. 2 - Detail of two of Kay's dogs

Fig. 3 - Kay and his Mother or Wife

     Kay has his bow in one hand and a few arrows in the other. His wife or mother carries a lotus flower (see fig. 2) in one hand while her other hand rests on her husband's / son's shoulder. Both figures are wearing broad collars which probably were originally painted several colors representing inlays of semi-precious stones.  The  detail work on the two human's hair is both interesting and unusual (see fig. 3) and seems to suggest very tightly braided or curled hair (wigs?).

     Two of Kay's dogs tag along at their owner's feet with several more dogs lying on the ground at Kay's feet (see fig. 4).The dogs seem to be of different breeds.

     This object may have been found near Thebes.

Fig. 4 - Three Dogs Lying Down at Kay's Feet