Integrated vessel model with four jars

Integrated vessel model with four jars

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Integrated model vessels, that is, several small vessels on a slab created as a unit, were found in tombs of Dynasty 26 and perhaps early Dynasty 27 tombs. The vessels on a given slab were of one type, but different slabs or tables might hold different types of vessels, from beakers, to rounded nemset jars, to others. These heavy-bottomed jars of lead may represent deshret jars; these normally had rounded bottoms but may have been flattened here to fit on a slab. Faience is the most frequent material, but stone and a few other metal examples are known. Although long mysterious and variously classified and named, a recent study has collected these integrated model vessels and proposes that they are models invented in the Late Period to represent the sets of jars that are visible in representations of Opening of the Mouth ceremonies in New Kingdom tomb paintings (see Pairy's painting 35.101.3, far left of the lower register), in Book of the Dead vignettes, and on temple walls. These representations often show the sets of like jars along with other Opening of the Mouth implements alongside a wooden box. And, indeed, in a few known cases where archaeological information is available, these integrated vessel models of the Late Period were also associated with a long-legged wooden box whose contents had a definite ritual emphasis. Nespekashuty had a second integrated vessel model, also of lead, holding nine jars. That one is in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. His integrated vessel models seem to be the earliest examples known so far, plus among the very few sets known from Thebes as the type is better attested in the Memphite region. Both were found in the inner, niched, room of his tomb. Because the tomb was so frequently reused and disturbed, it is not possible to know whether a box was associated.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Integrated vessel model with four jarsIntegrated vessel model with four jarsIntegrated vessel model with four jarsIntegrated vessel model with four jarsIntegrated vessel model with four jars

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.