Head of Amenhotep II

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Amenhotep II, sixth king of Dynasty 18, was the son and coregent of Thutmose III. He was buried in Tomb 35 of the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, where his mummy was found still resting in its original sarcophagus. His principal activities as king were to preserve the hegemony over most of Nubia and the Levant that the military campaigns of Thutmose III had established. This finely sculpted head of the king shows him wearing a nemes headcloth with a prominent uraeus on the front. The body of the snake undulates up and over the top of the nemes. The fine features of the face show a youthful king. Amenhotep became king before he was twenty and he noted his accomplishments as a hunter, charioteer, and archer on several of his monuments.

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