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

Lintel and Relief from the Tomb of the Overseer of Priests and Keeper of the sacred Cattle Mereri, Describing His Exemplary Life

Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), acc. 98.4.2f. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

Accession: 98.4.2f
Find spot: Dendera, Northern Upper Egypt, Egypt approx. site location
Period: First Intermediate Period
Dynasty: Dynasty 9
Date: ca. 2100–2030 B.C.
Date range: 2100 BCE – 2030 BCE
Materials: ['limestone']
Repository: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
At source: View original →

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Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), Lintel and Relief from the Tomb of the Overseer of Priests and Keeper of the sacred Cattle Mereri, Describing His Exemplary Life (98.4.2f). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/52070

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Description

Relief, tomb of Mereri. First Intermediate Period, Dynasty 9, ca. 2100–2030 B.C. Limestone. H. 50 × W. 44 cm (19 11/16 × 17 5/16 in.). From: Tomb of Mereri, Behind Temple of Hathor, Dendera, Northern Upper Egypt, Egypt. Excavation: Egypt Exploration Fund excavations, 1898. Subject: Men, Hieroglyphs. Credit: Gift of Egypt Exploration Fund, 1898.

AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano

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

Limestone relief panel showing a standing, bearded Egyptian official holding objects, with surrounding vertical offering or shrine-like elements and partial carved signs.

The image shows a rectangular limestone relief panel with a central standing man in profile facing left. He wears a short wig with a broad collar (beaded or pleated) and a kilt with a belt. His arms are held close: one hand appears to hold a long staff or implement angled along the body, while the other hand holds a smaller tool/object. Behind and to the right of the figure are vertical carved elements that resemble columns of hieroglyphic or decorative signs, and near the lower right area there are additional clusters of incised motifs that may be part of a short inscription or offering scene. Several areas are chipped, and many individual hieroglyphic details are not fully legible at this resolution. No clearly readable royal name cartouche is visible.

religious First Intermediate Period (catalogue ground truth; exact style details are not fully confirmable from this image alone) fragmentary

Materials limestone

Signs Unclear vertical hieroglyphic/directional sign cluster (not legible enough for confident identification)

Connections

Found at Dendera

Materials Limestone

Cross-references (4)

Wikidata-Q Q116247876 tier-1
Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
Inventory-Number 98.4.2f tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
MET-Object 552244 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.