EOE-Statue of Metjetji

Wooden statue
of Metjetji

Date: about 2371-2350 B.C. (Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, reign of Unas)
Medium: painted wood, alabaster eyes, obsidian pupils, copper eyelids
Provenance: Sakkara, Egypt; probably west of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (area explored earlier by Firth [Ziegler 408]).
Dimensions: height 31 5/8”, width 6 3/8”,
depth 15 5/16”
Accession number: 51-1

Condition: excellent. Tenting of paint on true left side of his abdomen.

Description. In this under-life-size sculpture, Metjetji looks straight ahead and strides forward with his left foot first. His right hand holds the side of his long skirt, which is triangular in front. His hair is short-cropped, and he wears an elaborate necklace. His dark skin contrasts with his white skirt. The necklace is colored white, light green, and dark green.

Hieroglyphs. An approximate translation of the inscription on the base is: “Honored under the King, justified before Osiris, justified before Anubis on his hill, the Director of the Office of the Tenants of the Palace, Metjetji.”

Technique. X-rays reveal that while his torso and head were basically of one piece of wood, Metjetji’s arms, legs, the front two-thirds of his feet, and his base were carved separately. A system of dowels reinforced with a plaster or a plaster-like fill joins the legs and arms to the torso and skirt. The back third of the head was joined to the front by a horizontal dowel. The join left a triangular gap in the cranium filled with plaster or a plaster-like material. Fill also appears in a vertical crack between the head and back. A bed of plaster lies on his left shoulder; a smaller one is on his right.

Dating. Most scholars date the sculpture to the time of Unas (about 2371-2350 B.C.) or slightly afterwards since the pharaoh’s name appears in some of Metjetji’s titles. Munro (1994), however, found that the title “esteemed by Unas” appears well after the death of the pharaoh and hypothesized that Metjetji’s tomb may be from the end of the Old Kingdom or the early Middle Kingdom. Ziegler (408, 416-7) has refuted this, pointing out the great similarities between the paintings from Metjetji’s mastaba and the securely dated tomb of Nedjempet, mother of the vizier Mereruka.

Provenance. The tomb’s location and the circumstances of its discovery remain unknown. Dealers began selling material from the tomb as early as 1947. (The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was the first public institution to purchase an artifact from it; most other museums purchased material in the early 1950s). Metjetji’s close connection with Unas makes a burial near the pharaoh’s pyramid at Sakkara highly probable.

Other statues of Metjetji. The sculpture was found with four others: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 47.1455; Brooklyn Museum of Art, 50.77; 51.1; and 53.222 (Kaplony 55-70). The appearance of several ka-statues in one mastaba is typical in the late Old Kingdom.

Published: John Cooney, “The Wooden Statues Made for an Official of King Unas,” Brooklyn Museum Bulletin 15, 1 (Fall 1953), 1-25; Handbook 1959, 15, 18; Apollo 1972, 474 pl. 1, 475 fig. 1; Handbook 1973, 18-9, 25; Peter Kaplony, Studien zum Grab des Methethi (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung Bern, 1976), 68-70; Ellen Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 20; Handbook 1993, 110; Peter Munro, “Bemerkungen zur Datierung,” in Catherine Berger, Gisèle Clerc, and Nicolas Grimal (eds.), Hommages à Jean Leclant 1, Études Pharaoniques, Bibliothèque d’Étude 106/1 (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1994), 245-77.

Other cited sources: Christiane Ziegler, “The Tomb of Metjetji,” in Age of Pyramids 408-17. For more on the tomb of Metjetji, see Left relief from the tomb of Metjetji and Right relief from the tomb of Metjetji.

(RC)