Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) · jewelry

Relief from an Offering Niche

Source of record: Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Limestone, paint

AI image analysis claude-haiku-4-5

Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

A limestone relief depicting a figure in a hierarchical composition with multiple human figures arranged in horizontal registers, accompanied by extensive hieroglyphic inscriptions.

This is a limestone relief carved in sunk relief technique, displaying a characteristic Egyptian compositional structure with hierarchical scaling. The upper portion contains dense hieroglyphic inscriptions arranged in horizontal lines. The lower portion shows a scene with human figures: a prominent larger figure (likely the tomb owner) is positioned centrally, with smaller figures arranged beside and below, typical of offering niche compositions from the Old Kingdom-First Intermediate Period. The figures appear to be engaged in or witnessing an offering or funerary scene. The relief demonstrates the refined carving technique of the period, with careful attention to detail in the hieroglyphs and figure proportions. The object is fragmentary at the edges, indicating this is a portion of a larger monument.

funerary First Intermediate Period (c. 2180-2055 BCE) fragmentary
Materials limestone
Signs cartouche frame seated figure hieroglyph ×3 standing figure hieroglyph ×4 offering table symbol
Visible text "Multiple horizontal lines of hieroglyphic text visible in upper register; specific readings unclear at this image resolution"

Connections

Found at Saqqara
Materials Limestone

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116252101 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 10.175.72 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 543996 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access).
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.