Relief fragment showing fishing scene

Relief fragment showing fishing scene

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fishing in the Nile river was a scene commonly depicted in ancient Egyptian tombs. In this relief, from the tomb of an Old Kingdom official, several men are shown pulling in a large fishing net that is mainly still in the water. The net itself is depicted below and features several trapezoidal floaters that kept the top close to the water’s surface. Caught in the net are many different types of fish. They are depicted in such detail that their species can be determined—see for example the so-called elephant-nose fish with their typical elongated and rounded snouts (at the bottom right and the fifth fish from the left).

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.