Bench Side-Panel Depicting a Calf in the Marshes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This painting of a calf running through a papyrus marsh comes from the King's Palace at Malqata, the palace city of Amenhotep III in western Thebes. It was part of the decoration on the supports of low benches that were used to store clothing and other personal items. The end of the bench was decorated with a basket of fruit. Similar stylistic and iconographic elements are used in the painted decoration of the pottery found at the palace. The palace city was created to celebrate the King's three heb seds, or rejuvination ceremonies performed near the end of his reign. The Museum's Egyptian Expedition excavated at Malqata from 1910–1920. Members of the Egyptian Department returned to Malqata in 2008 and conduct yearly excavations and restoration workat the site.

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