False Door Relief from Tomb of Akhethotep

Place of OriginEgypt, Saqqara Necropolis, Tomb of Akhethotep

DateOld Kingdom, early Dynasty 4, about 2575-2551 BCE

Dimensions39 1/4 × 13 7/8 × 1 1/4 in. (99.7 × 35.2 × 3.2 cm)

MediumLimestone with paint and bitumen

ClassificationSculpture

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

Object number

1959.39

On View

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

DescriptionThis limestone relief shows the royal official Akhethotep carved in high relief, standing and facing right. He holds a staff in his right hand and a sekhem-scepter—an emblem of authority—in his left. Akhethotep wears a curled wig and a simple wrapped kilt, standard attire for elite men of the Old Kingdom. The two columns of hieroglyphs above him list his titles, which included “overseer of the harem” of Pharaoh Sneferu, as well as prophet of the deities Bubastis and Khnum.

Label TextThe Toledo Museum of Art reliefs 1959.39 and 1959.40 come from the tomb of Akhethotep, an official during Egypt's Fourth Dynasty. This tomb is a mastaba located in an Early Dynastic necropolis near Abusir, west of modern Saqqara, which was a primary burial site for Memphis, the capital of Egypt at the time. These two fragments come from the tomb's offering chapel. Other reliefs from the same tomb are in collections such as the Brooklyn Museum (57.178), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (58.44.2 and 58.123), Munich’s Staatliche Sammlung (ÄS 4854 and ÄS 4855), and two fragments that were once part of the Kofler-Truninger Collection.Published ReferencesMariette, Auguste, Les mastabas de l’ancien Empire, Paris, 1889, pp. 68‑70, no. A1.

Toledo Museum of Art, A Guide to the Collection, Toledo, 1966, repr.

Charbonneaux, Jean., Architecture et sculpture: des origines à nos jours, Paris, Fernand Nathan, 1970, p. 170, repr.

Luckner, Kurt T., "The Art of Egypt, Part I," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, new series, vol. 14, no. 1, Fall 1971, pp. 8, 9, repr. figs. 7, 8.

Porter, Bertha, and Rosalind L. B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. Volume III: Memphis. Part 2: Ṣaqqâra to Dahshûr, 2nd ed., revised and augmented by Jaromír Málek, Oxford, Griffith Institute, 1981, p. 453. 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. 34, repr. (col.) p. 35.

Leiden University. Leiden Mastaba Project (LMP) Database, Tomb A1 / S3076 (Akhethotep), LMP No. 005.

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, The Egypt Experience: Secrets of the Tomb, October 29, 2010-January 8, 2012.Comparative ReferencesCf. “Brooklyn Museum Bulletin (Annual Report 1957–58),” Brooklyn Museum Bulletin, vol. XX, no. 1, Winter 1959, fig. on p. 34.

Cf. Scott, Nora E., “Two Reliefs of the Early Old Kingdom,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 19, no. 7, Mar. 1961, pp. 194–197.

Cf. Jacquet‑Gordon, Hélène, Les noms des domaines funéraires sous l’ancien Empire égyptien, Cairo, 1962, pp. 324–327.

Cf. Müller, Hans Wolfgang, Die ägyptische Sammlung des Bayerischen Staates, München: Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptischer Kunst, 1966, no. 23, pl. 13, fig. 18.

Cf. Cherpion, Nadine E., “The Human Image in Old Kingdom Nonroyal Reliefs,” in Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids, ed. Françoise Cachin, Philippe de Montebello, and Lindsay Sharp, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art / H.N. Abrams, 1999, pp. 106–107, fig. 64.