Relief Fragment with a Ship Under Sail

Relief Fragment with a Ship Under Sail

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

On this fragment, part of an immense sail bellies in the wind dwarfing the busy sailors. One man raises the sail, while the two at the bow are probably pilots testing the water with sticks and guiding the boat. Representations of the sacred wedjat eye on the bladelike objects in front of the pilots may magically both protect the boat and help it to "see" its way. A vertical line of inscription reads "Sail well like this, hurry!" This relief has been suggested to date to the reign of Userkaf, whose pyramid complex was at Saqqara. Although variability among the different royal pyramid complexes and problems of preservation prevent us from knowing exactly where a scene like the one depicted here would occur, it is interesting to note that Userkaf's successor Sahure depicted ships in the corridors outside the central court of his pyramid temple, conveying the notion that the court itself constituted a sort of island. This relief was actually discovered by the Museum's Egyptian Expedition in the core of the Middle Kingdom pyramid of Amenemhat I at Lisht where it had been reemployed by the ancient builders.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Relief Fragment with a Ship Under SailRelief Fragment with a Ship Under SailRelief Fragment with a Ship Under SailRelief Fragment with a Ship Under SailRelief Fragment with a Ship Under Sail

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.