Shabti of Merneptah

Shabti of Merneptah

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Merneptah was the fourteenth son of Ramesses II by his queen Istnofret. Already of advanced age, he built little except for a palace at Memphis, his mortuary temple at Thebes (for which he took much of the building material as well as many of the statues from the adjacent temple of Amenhotep IIII), and his exceptionally large tomb in the Valley of the Kings. After the long reign of Ramesses II and the period of peace begun with the Hittite treaties, the whole Mediterranean world was in upheaval. Egypt was attacked from the west by the Libyans in coalition with the Sea Peoples. Merneptah successfully repelled this invasion as well as campaigning in southern Palestine. This small mummiform or Osirid figure of the king was probably made for his tomb but was said to have been found elsewhere in Thebes. It is inscribed with the king's royal names and titulary and the carefully modeled face is similar to other statues of this king.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.