Priestly Headdress

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is a unique example of a priestly headdress otherwise known only from tomb reliefs and paintings. Consisting of a wig with short, tight curls and a distinctive gilded sidelock, it may have been found (and once worn) with a leopard-skin robe. In all likelihood, a man serving as a sem-priest donned the headdress and cloak before carrying out a ritual that revivified a mummified body so that the deceased could live eternally.

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