Talatat with Nubians and Syrians in Adoration

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The subjugation and adoration of foreign lands was a common theme in text and image throughout Egyptian history. Here, nine foreign men appear in a row with their hands extended before them in a gesture of adoration. As it is often done in Egyptian art, bodily features, garments, and attributes mark their ethnicity. The three bearded men with the long-sleeved tunics on the right are Syrians. The three men in the middle who wear their hair shorter and at least one of them an earring are Nubians, but not enough is preserved from the final group of three men behind them to provide an identification.

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