Relief with running troops

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two lines of running soldiers wear aprons or kilts and carry sticks, bundled staves, and bows. At the end of each row runs a kilted figure, the one in the lower register carrying what appear to be bundled papyri. Remains of vertical rows of zigzag lines at the upper edge of the block indicate that, as was often the case with troop scenes, a nautical scene was associated, perhaps a royal voyage out to the temple of a god or goddess. Within the overall organization, the arrangement of the soldiers is highly varied and intricate. Such complexity and layering of overlapping elements mark the relief style of the pharaoh Userkaf. The relief carving itself is fairly flat.

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