Trial piece of Akhenaten, on the reverse a horse's head

Trial piece of Akhenaten, on the reverse a horse's head

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This unfinished study of the head of Akhenaten was one of a number excavated by Flinders Petrie and Howard Carter in 1891–92 from the sculptors' workshops at Tell el-Amarna, the new royal capital founded by Akhenaten. It came to the Museum from the collection of Lord Amherst, who sponsored the excavations. It shows the king in a more naturalistic style. The characteristic attributes of the portraits of the king—long almond-shaped eyes, full lips, elongated jaw and chin, and sloping brow—are present but without the exaggeration associated particularly with the early portraits. These studies may have served as models for or practice pieces by the sculptors carving the reliefs for the huge Aten temples that the king was building in order to worship according to his own unorthodox interpretation of the religion of ancient Egypt; it is also possible that some may have been employed as donation pieces.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Trial piece of Akhenaten, on the reverse a horse's headTrial piece of Akhenaten, on the reverse a horse's headTrial piece of Akhenaten, on the reverse a horse's headTrial piece of Akhenaten, on the reverse a horse's headTrial piece of Akhenaten, on the reverse a horse's head

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.