Statue of Tjeteti in middle age

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The long kilt with a projecting front panel on this statue contrasts with the short kilt on the statue of the same man (26.2.8), cueing the viewer to the fact that the first is meant to represent Tjeteti as a young active man and the second as a mature official. These two statues have been pointed to as exemplars of a 'second style' that emerged in Egyptian elite art at the end of the 5th Dynasty and gradually became the prevailing style. Where serene self-contained countenances had been the order since the 4th Dynasty, the faces of statues in the second style may show overlarge eyes and countenances lined not by age but by animation. Bodies of statues may also be thinner and less muscled, and hands may be overlarge. The change probably reflects religious changes at the time.

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