Relief of an Acacia Tree Shading Water Jars with Drinking Cups

Relief of an Acacia Tree Shading Water Jars with Drinking Cups

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this picturesque image of water jars beneath an acacia tree, each jar for ready use topped by a drinking cup, there may be hidden allusions to beliefs about the afterlife. In the Old Kingdom, an institution called “the acacia house” was maintained at the solar cult site of Heliopolis (near present day Cairo). To this institution belonged a group of women who served as mourners and ritual dancers at each pharaoh’s funeral. Queen Neferu may have been a member of Mentuhotep II’s acacia house. For other reliefs of Neferu, see 26.3.353* and 31.3.1.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Relief of an Acacia Tree Shading Water Jars with Drinking CupsRelief of an Acacia Tree Shading Water Jars with Drinking CupsRelief of an Acacia Tree Shading Water Jars with Drinking CupsRelief of an Acacia Tree Shading Water Jars with Drinking CupsRelief of an Acacia Tree Shading Water Jars with Drinking Cups

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.