Procession from the Temple of Amun

Procession from the Temple of Amun

Charles K. Wilkinson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This facsimile painting depicts a scene from the New Year festival, which originally coincided with the beginning of the annual Nile flood. As part of this celebration, priests staged processions like this one. Here, one group of priests carries the golden vase of the god Amun. Its lid takes the shape of a ram’s head with an elaborate crown. At the bottom left, two other priests sing and clap the rhythm while another group follows and holds smaller ceremonial vases. The building with eight flag posts can be identified as the second pylon (entrance gate) of Karnak temple. During this festival the temple was cleaned, and since the procession moves to the left, the priests are probably on their way to the Nile to gather water.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.