Detail View: The AMICA Library: Wall Fragment from the Tomb of Amenemhet and His Wife Hemet
|
AMICA ID:
|
AIC_.1920.262
|
|
AMICA Library Year:
|
1998
|
|
Object Type:
|
Sculpture
|
|
Creator Name:
|
Unknown
|
|
Creator Nationality:
|
African; North African; Egyptian
|
|
Creator Dates/Places:
|
Ancient Egypt Africa,North Africa,Egypt
|
|
Creator Name-CRT:
|
Egyptian
|
|
Title:
|
Wall Fragment from the Tomb of Amenemhet and His Wife Hemet
|
|
Title Type:
|
preferred
|
|
View:
|
full view
|
|
Creation Date:
|
Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, c. 1991-1784 B.C.
|
|
Creation Start Date:
|
-1991
|
|
Creation End Date:
|
-1784
|
|
Materials and Techniques:
|
Limestone, pigment
|
|
Subject Description:
|
This relief fragment from a tomb chapel portrays the official Amenemhet and his wife Hemet standing before funerary offerings. He wears a pleated white kilt with an inverted pleat that is depicted as a triangular projection.The low table before him is heaped with reed-shaped loaves of bread, a haunch of beef, and vegetables. To the right of the table stands a nested basin and ewer, and three tall vessels for liquid offerings. According to the conventions of Egyptian art, the vegetables and calf's head shown above the jars are considered to be behind them. The small figure to the upper right, also named Amenemhet, presents a haunch of beef to the deceased. Amenenmhet's wife Hemet stands behind her husband, her hand afftectionately on his shoulder. She holds a flower to her nose, an allusion to rebirth in the afterlife. In typical Old Kingdom style, the skin of Hemet is colored yellow, while the skin of her husband is a ruddy red. The well preserved pigment is a good reminder that most Egyptian monumentswere originally brightly colored. This relief from Amenemhet's tomb chapel served to immortalize him and his family for eternity through the preservation of their images, names, and food offerings. This scene originally was located above the tomb's 'false door,' a representation of a portal that allowed the spirit of the deceased access from the subterranean burial chamber into the decorated tomb chapel.
|
|
Creation Place:
|
Africa,North Africa,Egypt
|
|
Dimensions:
|
H.: 30.6 cm (12 in.); W.: 41.7 cm (16 3/8 in.); Depth: 6.3 cm (3 1/4 in.)
|
|
AMICA Contributor:
|
The Art Institute of Chicago
|
|
Owner Location:
|
Chicago, Illinois, USA
|
|
ID Number:
|
1920.262
|
|
Credit Line:
|
The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Purchase Fund
|
|
Inscriptions:
|
The hieroglyphic text names the deceased and family and calls upon the god Osiris to grant them sustenance in the afterlife.rectangular stela without cornice, gayly colored. Signs in offering prayer prayer along upper and down its right edge incised and filled with blue...Figure of 'the priest Amenemhet...and his wife, ...Himet..' standing before a 'table of offerings'
|
|
Rights:
|
|
|
Related Image Identifier Link:
|
AIC_.E25095.TIF
|