Donation Stela of Shebitqo

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

From the Third Intermediate Period through the Saite Period a large number of stelae are preserved that, like this one, record the donation of land to temples. These give an unusually rich view into temple and land organization. Most often non-royal persons actually made the gift, and the gift was probably destined for the support of the donor's funerary cult. The donation was generally made through an intermediary somehow attached to the temple and who must have derived some benefit for his agency. For reasons of decorum, usually the reigning king was depicted as the official donor in the scene at the top. Probably because of the nature of land development, almost all such stelae relate to areas in the north of the country. This donation stele shows the pharaoh Shebitqo offering two nw-jars to Horus and Hathor. The pharaoh Shebitqo acts on behalf of a local ruler of the eastern Delta, termed the prince, royal son, Chief of the Meshwesh and priest of Horus of Pharbaetos, Patjenef, who stands behind him. Although Shebitqo wears no distinctive Kushite regalia, Patjenef wears on his head the horizontal feather of the Meshwesh.

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