Statuette of a Late Middle Kingdom Queen

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This small but intriguing work depicts a royal woman wearing an archaic, globular wig with horizontal striations and a bald area above the forehead. The uraeus cobra at the brow marks the woman's royal status. Uniquely, a pair of vultures with outstretched wings forms a protective band on top of the head. Most striking, however, is the thick cloak with its stiff collar. It is pulled tight over the figure's crossed arms, leaving the top of the chest and the shoulders bare; only the left hand emerges from the garment. The combination of this garment and the unusual hairstyle is known from a few early Old Kingdom reliefs depicting royal women, two of them mothers. The preserved part of this woman's face, with its hooded eyes, places the work, however, securely in the late Middle Kingdom.

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