Priest with vase and censer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The dominant mode for metal statuary of nonroyal individuals during the first millennium B.C. was the ritual pose. Most statuettes in the genre display the shaved head, flowing garments, and other accoutrements that from the New Kingdom on were associated with priests. However, none of these priest-type figures can be definitively dated to the New Kingdom; this example has technical features that suggest a later date. It is thus possible that the placement of nonroyal ritual statuary in temples was an exception before the Third Intermediate Period.

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