Relief with the head of a female personification of an estate

Relief with the head of a female personification of an estate

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This upper part of a female figure is the personification of one of Khufu's agricultural estates. The placement of the pharaoh's name on a crossbar with feathery protrusions in front and streamers at the back indicates that the figure has been assimilated to a standard, an emblem on a pole used to designate administrative entities. With the hieroglyphs behind the head, the name of the estate can be read "Perfect is Khufu." Estates were either extant or newly established settlements dedicated to providing for the funerary cult of the founder or for a temple. Rows of estate personifications lining the walls of Old Kingdom pyramid temples represented the provisioning of the king's eternity. The relief owes its dense, cohesive quality to the low rounded carving employed equally for the contour edges and for minute details.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Relief with the head of a female personification of an estateRelief with the head of a female personification of an estateRelief with the head of a female personification of an estateRelief with the head of a female personification of an estateRelief with the head of a female personification of an estate

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.