Drawing of a Coptic Saint

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Like most sites in the Theban necropolis, the tomb of Nespekashuty underwent repeated reuse and repurposing through the centuries. Nespekashuty's seventh century BC tomb itself had reused the courtyard and causeway of an early 11th Dynasty (ca. 2030 BC) tomb. And this block belongs to a Late Antique phase of reuse in connection with the spread of Coptic Christian monks and ascetics in Western Thebes in the 6th-7th centuries AD. On the left side of the block is a drawing of the head of a Coptic saint in red paint, on the right a pillar and staircase. Scratched over the staircase is a fish.

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