Offering Figurine
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University

76-Offering Figurine

Title Offering Figurine
Era Egyptian, Late Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom, ca.2300–1819 BCE
Medium Wood, paint
Credit Gift of the Georges Ricard Foundation. 2018.10.124

From the late Old Kingdom to the end of the reign of Senwosret III (ca. 2300–1819 BCE), elite burials contained three-dimensional wooden models of daily life activities. Tomb models were frequently placed around or on the coffin in the burial chamber or shaft.1 Models represented methods of transportation, agriculture, food production, and food and craft offerings. Tomb models, in a similar way to Middle Kingdom tomb wall scenes, made manifest the relationship between the tomb owner and activities to be undertaken for the maintenance of the mortuary cult.2

In this model, the offering figure strides forward wearing a typical white sheath dress with a seam at the waist and two wide straps modeled in the wood. She holds a large woven basket on her head with her right hand. A collection of foodstuffs is painted on the top of the basket. Her left hand holds the lead for a small horned animal, likely a gazelle, walking at her heel.1:1

Contemporary Middle Kingdom tomb paintings depict similar figures identified by the names of funerary estates that produced offerings for the cult of the deceased. Uninscribed model offering figures can be understood to represent offerings brought from the deceased’s mortuary estates, whose land, people, and products maintained their ancestor cult.

Hidden chamber before clearance, March 18, 1920. Harry Burton (English, 1879-1940). The Egyptian Expedition of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gelatin silver print, (MC 35).

EW

  1. . ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. For an expanded discussion, see . ↩︎

Bibliography

Nyord forthcoming
“What can an image do? Rethinking wooden funerary models.” In Modelling Ancient Egypt, edited by Susanne Deicher. Berlin: Kadmos.
Tooley 1989
Tooley, Angela M.J. 1989. “Middle Kingdom Burial Customs. A Study of Wooden Models and Related Material.” Ph.D. diss., University of Liverpool.
Tooley 1995
Tooley, Angela M.J. 1995. Egyptian models and scenes. Shire Egyptology 22. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications.
Hidden chamber before clearance, March 18, 1920. Harry Burton (English, 1879-1940). The Egyptian Expedition of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gelatin silver print, (MC 35).
Offering Figurine
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University
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