Scribal Palette

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The site of Birabi is located in the area of Hatshepsut's valley temple at the eastern end of the causeway leading to her temple at Deir el-Bahri. The valley temple and causeway had covered up earlier tombs that dated from the Middle Kingdom to the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III in the early New Kingdom. The northern side of a large courtyard CC 41, located in front of the Middle Kingdom portico tomb CC 62, was partially cleared by Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter (hence the designation CC). The southern half of the courtyard was in the concession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During the 1915-1916 field season, the museum excavated three pits and seven burials (C 1-7) in the courtyard and twelve rock-cut tombs along the courtyard's southern wall (R 1-12). This object was among the pieces given to the Museum by the Egyptian Antiquities Service when the finds were divided at the end of the season.

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