Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Figure

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This hollow mummiform figure represents the mortuary deity Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. Dedicated to a temple musician named Ihet, it is inscribed with offering prayers and texts glorifying the gods. The figure was constructed in two halves, with six tenons used to fasten the lid to the box, and then set into a rectangular base. Most figures of this type have some sort of cavity that contains a roll of papyrus, a piece of cloth, or some sort of mummified material. The space inside this figure is very shallow: Found inside were grains of wheat and sand, and several fragmentary linen bundles containing mud (see 21.9.1d). Found most often in tombs, close to the coffin, such figures are thought to help protect the body of the deceased and help to guarantee their rebirth. The grains of wheat, sand, and mud found inside this example may be meant to evoke the agricultural cycle with which the god Osiris was closely associated.

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