Relief Fragment Depicting a Kneeling Woman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fragment of relief was part of the decoration of a statue niche in the offering chapel of Senenmut (TT 71). The hieroglyphs above the kneeling woman probably identify her as "his (Senenmut's) beloved sister Ahmose." This reconstruction of the partly missing text is reinforced by the inscription o a wooden Osiris figure dedicated to a woman named Ahmose (36.3.231) that was discovered in the debris below the chapel. The statue niche in Senenmut's offering chapel is located high on the back wall of the axial hall. The stone in this part of the Sheikh Abd el-Qurna cemetery is not high quality, so the ancient workmen carved out a rough cavity in the wall that was then lined with fine limestone blocks (see expedition photograph 1). Numerous fragments of the niche decoration were uncovered by the Museum's Egyptian Expedition during excavations in and around the chapel. This fragment was probably part of the back wall of the niche about half way up the left side, two or more courses above the blocks that were found still in place (see expedition photograph 2). Other fragments of the niche decoration still retained substantial amounts of the original paint, but the color has almost completely vanished from this fragment which was awarded to the Museum in the division of finds.

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