Ritual Scene with Senwosret I

Ritual Scene with Senwosret I

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In a number of chambers within the pyramid temple, the king was depicted as the recipient of a variety of ritual actions designed to renew and strengthen his reign both in this world and in the afterlife. Here, the king is shown receiving a wish for a reign of millions of years, represented by the notched palm frond behind him. One or more deities, who have not been preserved, would have stood in front of and behind the king. The elongated head, which narrows at the top, the short thick lips, the small simplified eye, and the high placement of the compact ear are all stylistic characteristics found in relief decoration of the time of Senwosret I. They are combined here to create a strikingly personalized image of the king. The eye and the uraeus cobra were chiseled out by workmen who removed this block from its setting in antiquity, when the entire temple was demolished to obtain stone for later buildings. The demolition crew clearly feared the power of the image of the long dead Senwosret.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ritual Scene with Senwosret IRitual Scene with Senwosret IRitual Scene with Senwosret IRitual Scene with Senwosret IRitual Scene with Senwosret I

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.