Stand for an Offering Basin with the Name of King Khafre

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stands like this one bearing a king's name would have been associated with a god's temple or royal funerary complex, but the best evidence for use and placement of such stands comes from private tombs where they are documented as having stood on either side of an offering table or offering slab in front of the false door. Middle Kingdom evidence indicates this type of offering stand held mainly incense. The incense coals may have been placed in a pottery bowl or directly on the stone. Food placed on the adjacent offering slab was first passed over the incense to aid its transmission to the god or deceased person to whom it was offered.

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