Statue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee Garment

Statue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee Garment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Twenty-two statues of this type stood beside (but not in the shadow of) sycomore and tamarisk trees that lined the processional path through the forecourt of the mortuary temple of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri. The rough, rectangular base was inserted into the ground. The king wears the traditional short mantle of the pharaoh's thirty-year jubilee festival (Heb Sed). In his fists were the now missing scepter and flail of Egyptian kings and the god Osiris, probably made of metal. The head on this piece wears the "red" crown of Lower Egypt. Although no head with the "white" crown of Upper Egypt was found, it is conceivable that the statues along the south side of the path wore the "white" Upper Egyptian crown, while the ones along the north side wore the "red" Lower Egyptian one. At some later time all statues from the forecourt were decapitated and broken up. Some bodies were buried close to their original places, others were moved around. Most of the heads are missing. Both the body and head of the Museum's statue were found in the area of the temple of Hatshepsut, which is adjacent to the Mentuhotep temple. It is not certain that the head really belonged to this particular body. The style of the statue is intentionally archaic, presumably because Mentuhotep II was commemorated as the ruler who reunified the country after the First Intermediate Period, thus restoring Egypt to its original state as first created during the late Predynastic and early Dynastic Period.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Statue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee GarmentStatue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee GarmentStatue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee GarmentStatue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee GarmentStatue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II in the Jubilee Garment

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.