Male Head with a Short Wig, Possibly Pehenptah

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The head originates from a seated or standing figure that was originally placed in the serdab of a mastaba, an inaccessible chamber in the above ground portion of Old Kingdom funerary monuments that held images of the deceased and his family members. This head was found in the serdab of Pehenptah, an official who was “custodian of the king’s property” and “scribe of royal documents,” probably during the Fifth Dynasty. Between three and five statues were found in Pehenptah’s serdab, but the chamber was also filled with material from other locations left there by ancient tomb robbers, raising the possibility that this head originates from a different tomb.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art