Statue of Raramu with Reliefs of His Son and Daughter

Place of OriginEgypt (Giza Plateau, Western Cemetery, Tomb G 2099)

DateOld Kingdom, Dynasty 5, about 2400 BCE.

Dimensions19 5/8 × 6 1/4 × 13 in. (49.8 × 15.9 × 33 cm)

MediumLimestone with paint.

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1949.5

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 02, Classic

DescriptionThis white limestone statue depicts Raramu seated on a rectangular block. The seat slopes downward at the front, with a rounded base. His hands rest on his knees—his right hand closed, left open palm-down. He wears a short wig, kilt, and pleated apron with a belt. Colors are well-preserved: black (hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, belt buckle, spaces between arms, legs), red (body), white (kilt), yellow (apron), and gray (seat). His name and titles are inscribed vertically on the front and base of the seat. On the right side of the seat is a high-relief figure of Raramu’s son, Kahersetef, standing with his left foot advanced. He holds a bell censer in his left hand and its lid in his right. Kahersetef wears a white kilt and belt but no wig. His figure is painted yellow-brown (contrasting with his father’s red), with black hair and censer. An incised four-line inscription appears in front of him. On the left side of the seat is a sunk-relief figure of Raramu’s daughter, Tjes-tjaset, standing with her right foot slightly forward. Her arms hang down, palms facing her body. She is painted yellow, with a black lappet wig and a white tunic. An incised three-line inscription appears in front of her. The seated figure’s right forearm and hand are broken and repaired.

Label TextRaramu was an official whose duties included serving the funerary cults of Khufu, the pharaoh buried in the first and largest pyramid at Giza. Raramu’s family tomb, located close to the famous pyramid, included several images of Raramu and his family. This seated statue of him includes relief carvings of his son and daughter on the sides of the chair. It occupied the tomb’s serdab, a room containing statues that acted as back-ups for housing the deceased’s ka—the animating spirit—in case something happened to the mummified body. The Toledo statues 1949.4 and 1949.5 were excavated in 1939 by George Andrew Reisner in the serdab of Raramu's tomb (G 2099) at the Western Cemetery of Giza. A serdab is a sealed chamber within a tomb, designed to house statues of the deceased for their spiritual sustenance. Found alongside related works, including a limestone triad today in the Cairo Museum (JE 72138) and a standing statue of the couple's son Kahersetef, today in Richmond (VMFA 1949.21).Published References

"Fiftieth Anniversary," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 130, Nov.-Dec. 1951.

Guide: The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, 1959, p. 5, repr.

Luckner, Kurt T., "The Art of Egypt, Part 1," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, new series, vol. 14, no.1, Spring 1971, pp. 12, 13, repr. fig. 13.

Von Känel, Frédérique, Les prêtres-ouâb de Sekhmet et les conjurateurs de Serket, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1984, pp. 11–23, pls. I–V.

Roth, Ann Macy, Giza Mastabas Volume 6: A Cemetery of Palace Attendants (Including G 2084-2099, G 2230+2231, and G 2240), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, p. 151, repr. fig. 116a-c.

Capel, Anne K., and Glenn Markoe, eds., Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt, New York, Hudson Hills Press, 1996, pp. 49–50.

Peck, William H., Sandra E. Knudsen and Paula Reich, Egypt in Toledo: The Ancient Egyptian Collection at the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, 2011, p. 38, repr. (col.) p. 10, 39, (det.) p. 39. Manuelian, Peter Der, “Penmeru Revisited–Giza Mastaba G 2197 (Giza Archives Gleanings V),” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, vol. 45, 2009, p. 34.

Manuelian, Peter Der, “Excavating the Old Kingdom. The Giza Necropolis and Other Mastaba Fields,” in Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, p. 150, fig. 92.

Porter, Bertha, and Rosalind L.B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings 3: Memphis (Abû Rawâsh to Dahshûr), Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1931, 2nd edition. Revised and augmented by Jaromír Málek, 3: Memphis, Part 1 (Abû Rawâsh to Abûsîr), Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1974, p. 70.

Roth, Ann Macy, A Cemetery of Palace Attendants. Giza Mastabas 6, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1995, p. 151, fig. 80, pl. 116.

Exhibition History

Cincinnati Art Museum; Brooklyn Museum, Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt, 1996-1997, no. 1, pp. 49-50, 192, repr. p. 49 and 50 (det.).

Toledo Museum of Art, The Egypt Experience: Secrets of the Tomb, October 29, 2010-January 8, 2012.