EOE-Mentuemhat relief

Relief of Mentuemhat
approaching Anubis

Date: 665-650 B.C. (Third Intermediate Period to Late Period, Dynasty 25 to
Dynasty 26)
Medium: painted limestone
Provenance: Thebes, Egypt
Dimensions: Anubis fragment: height 16 5/16”, width 11 3/8”;
Mentuemhat fragment:
height 20 5/16”, width 15 13/16”
Accession number: 48-28/1,2

Condition: very good. The relief is in two pieces. On one fragment, the lower third of Anubis’ legs is missing; on the other, Mentuemhat’s right arm, left hand, and right foot are missing. The servant behind him is fully extant; only the right hand of the next servant and the legs of the servant on the upper register are extant. The two fragments, which were joined at the Nelson-Atkins, should be slightly further apart. The tip of the lotus between Anubis and Mentuemhat indicates that an offering stand or table separated them. Anubis is currently higher than Mentuemhat, but the two should be at eye-level (Russmann 1994, 10 n. 54).

Description. On this very low relief, Mentuemhat, with his hands raised in prayer, faces the canine-headed (perhaps jackal-headed) deity Anubis. Anubis carries in his left hand the canine-headed was-scepter, which ensured the welfare of the deceased. He holds in his other hand an ankh, the hieroglyph for life. Mentuemhat is dressed as a priest in a panther skin covered with rosettes. Servants follow behind him with offerings for Anubis. The relief was left unfinished. Panels to be carved into hieroglyphs appear under the table of one servant and under the top register line on our right. The panther head and many of the rosettes on Mentuemhat’s garb are incomplete, and the back two-thirds of his skirt has been left without pleats (Russmann 1994, 10 n. 56). Graffiti in Greek letters (perhaps Coptic) are scratched on the relief.

Historical background. Mentuemhat, whose name means “Montu [the warrior god of Thebes] is in front,” was one of the most powerful rulers of 7th-century B.C. Egypt. He lived in dangerous times. The chief actors were the Assyrian kings seeking control over Egypt; King Taharqa, who was from Nubia (south of Egypt) and ruled Egypt (as had other Nubian kings for the last 70 years or so); and the chieftains of Lower Egypt, including Psamtik, founder of the 26th Dynasty (Sidney Smith 84-7, 114-5; Kitchen 390, 394-5, 397-80, 399-400, 404-5). In 675 and 674 B.C. King Esarhaddon of Assyria, angered over Egyptian interference with his vassal states in Palestine, attacked Egypt. In 671 he invaded the country, establishing native puppet-chieftains beholden to Assyria. The former ruler of Egypt, Taharqa, fled to his native Nubia, but with the death of Esarhaddon in 669 B.C., revolted and occupied the Delta. In 667 B.C. the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, sent his armies into Egypt; Taharqa fled to Thebes. The Assyrians again appointed native puppet-rulers over Egypt. With the death of Taharqa in 664 B.C., his nephew Tantamani seized Thebes and besieged Memphis. In 663 B.C. he fled in the face of Assyrian reinforcements, who subsequently plundered wealthy Thebes. In that same year, Psamtik became the Assyrian-appointed governor of Sais in Lower Egypt. Between 658 and 651 B.C. he used Lydian mercenaries to drive out the Assyrians; through diplomacy he took control of Tantamani’s stronghold in Upper Egypt. Psamtik became the native ruler of a unified Egypt and the first pharaoh of the new Dynasty 26.

Mentuemhat thrived in this period. An Assyrian tablet from the reign of Esarhaddon names him “King of Thebes,” and he even referred to himself as the Governor of Thebes. He was instrumental in transferring the power of Tantamani in Thebes to Psamtik in the north. He restored the Temple of Mut and constructed the sacred lake of Montu in Thebes. Mentuemhat could trace back his Theban lineage five generations; many of his ancestors bore the title “Prophet of Amun” or “Prophet of Montu.” He married three times and had several children (Bierbrier 104-8 and Kitchen 230-3 for his family.)

Mentuemhat’s tomb, to which this relief belongs, is a key monument in first-millennium B.C. Egypt (Porter, Moss I, 1, 56-9; I, 2, xix-xx). Over 125 meters long and with more than 50 subterranean rooms and two large sunken courts, the tomb complex occupies a prestigious place in Western Thebes, lying in the Asasif, directly off the causeway of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple. Its large pylon still stands.
According to Russmann (1994, 18-9), the western part of the tomb complex is typical of the 25th Dynasty and may date to its end; the innovative eastern part dates to the early 26th Dynasty and became the archetypal tomb complex of that dynasty’s time. Several reliefs from the complex’s eastern part also emphasize Mentuemhat’s connection with Psamtik. The archaizing tendency of the tomb’s reliefs, a reliance on forms from the Old and New Kingdoms for inspiration, typifies the mid-7th century B.C. (see Young woman).
William Stevenson Smith (1981, 409) remarks of Mentuemhat’s artistic program: “Since the time of Sety I at Abydos, no craftsman had attempted work of such quality in raised relief.” A comparison with reliefs from his tomb in other collections shows the Nelson-Atkins’s example to be superior in almost all respects. Pillaging of the tomb began in the 19th century and increased dramatically during World War I and II. Material from it appears in collections in Europe, Japan, and the following American museums: the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Cleveland Museum of Art, Oriental Institute (Chicago), Field Museum, Saint Louis Art Museum, De Young Museum, and Seattle Art Museum (Porter, Moss I, 1, 59-61; I, 2, xix-xx). In a preliminary attempt to reconstruct the position of the fragments in the tomb, Russmann (1994, 12) suggests that the Nelson-Atkins’s appeared in the west wall of the first court.

Published: Handbook 1949, 15; William Stevenson Smith, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1958), 248, 252 pl. 182A; Handbook 1959, 21; Bothmer, ESLP 16-7 (cat. no. 14); Porter, Moss I, 1 (1960), 60; Jean Leclant, Montouemhat: Quatrième Prophète d’Amon, Prince de la Ville, Bibliothèque d’Étude 35 (Cairo: L’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1961), 185; Porter, Moss I, 2 (1964), xx; Handbook 1973, 29; Smith 1981, 411-2, 420 fig. 406; Peter Der Manuelian, “An Essay in Reconstruction,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 39 (1983), 147 nos. 47, 48; Handbook 1993, 114; Edna Russmann, “Relief Decoration in the Tomb of Mentuemhat (TT 34),” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 31 (1994), 10-2, 14.

Other cited sources: M. L. Bierbrier, The Late New Kingdom in Egypt (Warminster: 1975); K. A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1973); Sidney Smith, “Sennacherib and Esarhaddon” and “The Age of Ashurbanipal,” in The Assyrian Empire, The Cambridge Ancient History III (London: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 61-112.

(RC)