Offering Chapel Relief from Tomb of Akhethotep

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Offering Chapel Relief from Tomb of Akhethotep

Place of OriginEgypt, Necropolis at Abusir (near Saqqara), Tomb of Akhethotep

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

Dimensions37 7/8 × 22 1/8 × 1 3/8 in. (96.2 × 56.2 × 3.5 cm)

MediumLimestone with paint and bitumen.

ClassificationSculpture

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

Object number

1959.40

On View

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

Collections

Sculpture

Published References

Mariette, A., Les Mastabas de l'ancien Empire, Paris, 1889, p. 68. Numbers in this tomb A1 in the northern cemetery at Sakkara.

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. of Nestor l'Hôte. Includes rough sketches of reliefs on tomb of Ahket-hotep.

Reisner, G.A., The Development of the Egyptian Sculpture and Painting in the Old Kingdom, Boston and Oxford, 1946, pp. 149, 151. Discusses relation of Ahket-hotep's tomb to others of this date at Sakkara. Smith's comments were not based on first-hand knowledge of the reliefs as they had been covered up after Firth's excavation of about 1920 when this tomb was recorded as FS 3076 (i.e. Firth Sakkara number.)

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.

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, pp. 18, 34, repr. (col.) pp. 18, 35, (det.) p. 33. 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.

Exhibition History

Toledo Museum of Art, Treasures for Toledo<, December 1964-January 1965.

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

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. Artists carved these limestone tomb reliefs in the enduring style of art created around 3000 BCE for members of the royal family and officials. The name and important office of the deceased are clearly stated in hieroglyphs. He is Akehthotep, “Inspector of the Harem of the Great House and Overseer of the Royal Stables.” He served Pharaoh Sneferu, who built three major pyramids and was the father of Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid at Giza. In both relief carvings Akhet-hotep is shown perpetually youthful, with profile head and frontal eye, profile torso and frontal shoulders, and feet seen from the instep. On the figure facing right it is clear that his staff is held in the left hand and his scepter in the right. For the figure facing left, however, it was important to show Akhet-hotep grasping his scepter in his right hand, and the staff with his left, so the hands have been reversed. The need to convey proper symbolic information overrode any confusion caused by the unnatural anatomy.