Queen Offering to the Aten

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This limestone block is from a monumental temple scene representing the king and queen makinig an offering to Aten. The face, usually identified as Akhenaten, actully depicts an Amarna queen, probably Nefertiti, following her husband. The king's shoulder is just visible at the left side of the block. Nefertiti wears the royal "afnet" headcloth with a uraeus cobra at the forehead. Two of Aten's hands hold an ankh to her nose and mouth. The hand at the end of a third ray is turned upward to touch the divine cobra on the queen's forehead. This reversal of the hand position is unusual but not unprecedented, and adds an element of artistic tension to the composition. The relief has been carved in the restrained style that came into use in about the eights year of Akhenaten's reign, shortly after the capital was moved to Tell el-Amarna (Akhetaten). The delicacy of the modeling, which subtly emphasizes the bones of the lower jaw, cheek, and brow, suggests that the face was carved by a master craftsman.

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