Women at a Banquet

Nina de Garis Davies

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This detail of a banquet scene shows two female guests and a girl serving a liquid from a small flask. She is shown in an unusual pose with her back turned toward the viewer. The consumption of alcoholic beverages was a key element in many celebrations. In addition to social drinking, the participants of some festivals, such as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, drank in excess to achieve an altered state of inebriation, disorientation, and sleepiness that was thought to enable communication with a deity or the dead. For this purpose, drugs might have also been served. Small flasks, such as the ones held by the servant on the left, might have held herbal concentrates that were added to wine to increase its effect. The accompanying inscription reads, "Make a happy day!"

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