Toilet vase with two handles, inscribed for the Seal Bearer Kemes

Toilet vase with two handles, inscribed for the Seal Bearer Kemes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This small vessel — used most probably as a container for eye paint (kohl) — imitates the shape of a Canaanite jar, a large two- handled storage vessel of clay that was used in the trade of oils and resins from the Levant into Egypt at this time. This Egyptian miniature version is inscribed for the "Seal Bearer Kemes, "possessor of reverence." It was found — together with several other small vessels and a female figure — in a basket (called "toilet basket I" by the excavators) deposited west of the pyramid of Amenemhat I at Lisht North. A date for the group is suggested by the shape of a small ointment jar (44.4.3) also in the group.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Toilet vase with two handles, inscribed for the Seal Bearer KemesToilet vase with two handles, inscribed for the Seal Bearer KemesToilet vase with two handles, inscribed for the Seal Bearer KemesToilet vase with two handles, inscribed for the Seal Bearer KemesToilet vase with two handles, inscribed for the Seal Bearer Kemes

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.