Date: about 2350-2338 B.C. (Old Kingdom, early Dynasty 6, reign of Teti)
Medium: limestone
Provenance: Sakkara
Dimensions: height 37”, width 104”
Accession number: 30-14

Condition: very good. Fill along top, bottom and true right edges. Pitting, cracks, and a small area of chipping in the fish section of the lower register. Significant traces of original paint and tool markings appear throughout the surface of the cream colored stone. The rich palette includes black paint on the figures’ hair, blue paint on the water, green paint over ocher underpainting on the boats, and reddish brown paint for skin tone.

Description. The relief is from part of a chapel wall in Ny-ankh-nesuwt’s mastaba and is divided into three horizontal registers, filled with scenes of human activity, animals, and hieroglyphs. Each figure is in low relief and is clearly defined by a simple and strong contour line with only minor modeling. Traces of paint remain throughout the relief. Hieroglyphs serving as captions appear in many of the scenes. The registers are read from left to right.
      On the top register, thirteen men gather papyrus plants, carry large baskets filled with papyrus, and make rope and build a boat from the plants. A symmetrical pair of men, facing each other as they tie a rope around a basket, creates a break in the scene’s formal arrangement (Smith 1946, 338).
      Boatmen battle on the middle register. Fourteen men on four papyrus skiffs travel on a band of water, likely representing the Nile. Each skiff holds a crew of three to five men wearing loincloths. They energetically battle the men on the surrounding boats with rods, oars, and rope. One man slyly attempts to sink another boat by attacking from under the water. On the far right side, a man strides onto land with two handfuls of lotus blooms. This complicated composition of space and figures (Smith 1946, 338) shows the Egyptian ability to portray movement and create variety.
      Only the upper half of the lower register remains. One man leads a bull, and three men carry lotus flowers and large fish. Whole and sliced open fish also appear. The modeling of each fish is so fine that its species can be identified.

Iconographical significance. The precise significance of the commonly found boating scene is uncertain. Some scholars believe the fighting represents a mock combat organized for the tomb owner’s amusement or a scene of harmless ritual fighting (scholarship summarized in Bolshakov 29-31). Bolshakov (38-9) proposes that such scenes represent servants racing and fighting to be the first to serve their master offerings in the afterlife. Note that each boat is loaded with typical offerings, including birds in a cage, baskets, and lotus flowers. Altenmüller (90-1) has recently hypothesized that scenes of the deceased in a papyrus thicket are meant to suggest a place of rebirth.

Ny-ankh-nesuwt’s name. His name means “The King Possesses Life.”

Chronology. The names of Ny-ankh-nesuwt’s children incorporated the names of the pharaohs Unas (end of Dynasty 5, about 2371-2350 B.C.) and Teti (beginning of Dynasty 6, about 2350-2338 B.C.), and therefore his tomb is usually dated to the reign of Teti or shortly afterwards (Arnold 468; Smith 1946, 208).

Other reliefs from Ny-ankh-nesuwt’s tomb can be found in:

Published: Warner Langdon, Art News 32 (December 9, 1933), 59; Handbook 1933, 114-5; James Breasted, Geschichte Aegyptens (Zurich: Phaidon, 1936), fig. 204; Handbook 1941, 12; William Stevenson Smith, A History of Egyptian Sculpture and Painting in the Old Kingdom (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), 208, 338; Handbook 1949, 12; Handbook 1959, 16; Handbook 1973, 22; Handbook 1993, 104, 111; Andrey Bolshakov, “The Scene of the Boatmen Jousting...” Bulletin de la Société d’égyptologie de Genève 17 (1993), 29-39 (cat. no. 26).

Other cited sources: Hartwig Altenmüller, “Daily Life in Eternity,” in Egypt 79-91; Dorothea Arnold, “Fishermen and Herdsmen...,” in Age of Pyramids 468-71; Ars Antiqua, Antike Kunstwerke, Nachlass Dr. Jacob Hirsch II. Teil und Anderer Besitz (Luzern: Ars Antiqua AG, May 2, 1959); Nadine Cherpion, “The Human Image in Old Kingdom Nonroyal Reliefs,” in Age of Pyramids 103-15; Frederick Grace, “Two Tomb Reliefs of the Old Kingdom,” Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum 5 (November 1935), 30-5; Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu Academy of Arts: Selected Works (Tokyo: 1989), 134-46; Rossiter Howard, “Old Kingdom Reliefs of Ancient Egypt,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17 (December 1930), 186-90; Francis Taylor, “Recent Additions,” Bulletin of the Worcester Art Museum 23 (April 1932), 2-27.    

(RT)

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