Reconstruction of a Cartouche of Amenhotep III

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The blue faience tiles in this reconstruction were discovered during the Museum’s excavations at Malqata, the site of a festival city built by Amenhotep III for the celebration of his three rejuvination festivals, or heb seds. The original cartouche was made of faience tiles and gilded plaster set into wood that was badly decayed and could not be preserved (see the excavation photograph above). In this reconstruction, the tiles have been set into plaster that has been painted to imitate gold leaf. The cartouche containes the king’s throne name, Nebmaatre. The original cartouche decoration was found in the Temple of Amun, which was built for the king's second heb sed. The excavators also found a long section of cornice decoration, and a group of tiles that had been used to create a geometric pattern, probabaly on a piece of temple furniture made of wood. the cornice and cartouche were also probably decorative elements of temple furniture.

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